Minnesota Sports Forum

Ball game.

FNG wrote:A lot of gorillas out here in the desert, drew.

I clearly need to watch more Planet Earth.

If Ant had hit that 3, this would have been interesting.

Terrible possession there from Ant followed by a flop from CP3 on the other end. They're not supposed to be rewarding offensive players for jumping in front of the trailing defender and stopping. Trash.

After that flurry of 3s they had, it's impressive we were even in the ballpark at the end.

*sigh*

Gute Nacht! Oder, fur mich, Guten Morgen!

In 58 combined minutes of play, Vando and McDaniels got a total of 6 shots. Roughly one shot every 10 minutes. The ball movement was non-existent for most of the game. For the most part the Suns defense only had to worry about 3 guys at a time. I don't make a living coaching, but I know it's best to function as a 5 man unit. It was hard to watch tonight.

Cool, the ball movement was nonexistent last night, but I'm going to cut them some slack with their top two PGs out. Nowell and JMac together had ONE assist in 32 combined minutes of play. Let's face it...Nowell is not a PG (or a decent defender for that matter). He has great potential as a high-volume scorer off the bench, but our offense ran much better when Ant was running the point...ball movement was still not great, but Ant did have 10 assists and only 1 turnover. Terrific offensive game for Ant, although he was one of the many culprits in allowing the wide open corner three. Our terrible defense was as difficult to watch as our lack of ball movement.

But to turn the conversation more positive for a while, scoring 124 points without a true PG shows how potent this offense is. As difficult as it was to watch, putting the ball in KAT's or Ant's hands and letting them operate one on one was remarkably effective. And their ability to find a hot Beasley when they were doubled led to their combined 15 assists.

As Cam said in this thread, this was a scheduled loss only made more challenging with DLo out. No shame in losing by 10 to the Suns.

A couple mostly irrelevant observations from Footprint Center:

Phoenix is a dull town, and it's reflected in their crowd. Despite a full house, smoking hot cheerleaders, and a very good team, there was less energy in the building than a typical Wolves game with a smaller crowd.

I love getting to a game early and watching the interaction of the players:

Jaden was the only player on the court an hour before game time, putting up what seemed like 100 mid-range jumpers (and making most of them).
Ant and JO are obviously best friends (I noticed the same thing at the Laker game I went to in December). They are always together during shootaround, providing a little mostly clowning-around defense to make the shot a little more game-like. And JO makes most of his shots, despite Ant having a hand in his face. Why not in games?
Beasley seems to have no relationships on the team except for with the trainers and assistant coaches...he is a true loner. I watched him miss 50% of his first 20 pre-game 3-pointers, but then he got totally locked in. I guess I wasn't surprised at his 26 points in 28 minutes. They need him, because he is still the best 3-point shooter we have outside of the Big Three.
Nathan Knight is a clown...doesn't work on his game pre-game and doesn't seem to take anything seriously. There's a reason Finchy doesn't give him any minutes. He'll be gone next season.
KAT was a no-show pre-game, and I wondered if he was not playing for some reason. He finally appeared a minute before team introductions, and his warmup consisted of 2 free throws. I also noted he wasn't moving well on the court (and neither was Vando), so I suspect both of them are nursing nagging injuries. Only 6 rebounds and no steals for Vando is evidence something isn't right.
On the other hand, neither DLo or PatBev looked very injured, so I suspect both could be back for the Utah game. Let's hope, because we should win that game if Mitchell and Gobert are still out. PatBev is straight gangster in his apparel, but DLo was rocking his 7th grade science teacher look...brown button-down sweater and a necktie.
Taurean Prince knows the lyrics to every single rap song they played pre-game...could be a budding Troy Hudson.

I warned you my observations would be mostly irrelevant. Odd game last night, but glad I went.

SameOldNudityDrew wrote:I totally forgot Bismack Biyombo was in the league.

He wasn't... until recently.

He signed a 10-day with Phoenix and they kept him. For those thinking the Wolves need a big burly defensive-minded big off the bench... he could have been had for next-to-nothing.

____

For the bettors out there... apparently, the game was -8.5.

Chris Paul nutmegged T. Prince late so he fouled him in retaliation. Two free throws later... Suns cover and win by 10.





[Note: The bettors who won should be praising Paul for that one. By the way, his "I was just trying to get by him" excuse postgame was pretty laughable. He most certainly tried to clown Prince and the Wolves. Own it.]

FNG wrote:A couple mostly irrelevant observations from Footprint Center:

Phoenix is a dull town, and it's reflected in their crowd. Despite a full house, smoking hot cheerleaders, and a very good team, there was less energy in the building than a typical Wolves game with a smaller crowd.

I love getting to a game early and watching the interaction of the players:

Jaden was the only player on the court an hour before game time, putting up what seemed like 100 mid-range jumpers (and making most of them).
Ant and JO are obviously best friends (I noticed the same thing at the Laker game I went to in December). They are always together during shootaround, providing a little mostly clowning-around defense to make the shot a little more game-like. And JO makes most of his shots, despite Ant having a hand in his face. Why not in games?
Beasley seems to have no relationships on the team except for with the trainers and assistant coaches...he is a true loner. I watched him miss 50% of his first 20 pre-game 3-pointers, but then he got totally locked in. I guess I wasn't surprised at his 26 points in 28 minutes. They need him, because he is still the best 3-point shooter we have outside of the Big Three.
Nathan Knight is a clown...doesn't work on his game pre-game and doesn't seem to take anything seriously. There's a reason Finchy doesn't give him any minutes. He'll be gone next season.
KAT was a no-show pre-game, and I wondered if he was not playing for some reason. He finally appeared a minute before team introductions, and his warmup consisted of 2 free throws. I also noted he wasn't moving well on the court (and neither was Vando), so I suspect both of them are nursing nagging injuries. Only 6 rebounds and no steals for Vando is evidence something isn't right.
On the other hand, neither DLo or PatBev looked very injured, so I suspect both could be back for the Utah game. Let's hope, because we should win that game if Mitchell and Gobert are still out. PatBev is straight gangster in his apparel, but DLo was rocking his 7th grade science teacher look...brown button-down sweater and a necktie.
Taurean Prince knows the lyrics to every single rap song they played pre-game...could be a budding Troy Hudson.

I warned you my observations would be mostly irrelevant. Odd game last night, but glad I went.

That's awesome, FNG. That's exactly the kind of stuff on the margins that is so interesting to read about, because you don't see it at home, and it's not the kind of stuff that sportswriters cover, but it helps give a sense of the character of the team.

Also, no offense to anybody here, but from what I can tell on TV, I've always thought the Wolves have had relatively tame crowds, although it has gotten better in the last couple years. But watch a Knicks game, Boston, Philly, Toronto, Chicago. The Warriors when they were in Oracle. Detroit fans have fallen off as the team has languished in recent years, but back in the early 2000s, those fans were nuts. I want those kind of fans.