Minnesota Sports Forum

kekgeek1 wrote:

FNG wrote:

Q12543 wrote:That block Okogie made closing out on Bogdanovic and then saving it from going out of bounds was probably the highlight of the game to me. Oh why oh why can't Okogie develop a 3-pt shot!? He'd be 5X more valuable to us. Instead, we see Gobert out there basically playing zone and not even worrying about Okogie.

It's one of the great tragedies of this franchise - the inability to find and develop people that can both defend and make open 3s.

Yeah, Josh's 3-point struggles are on display when we're playing the Jazz because of how it frees up Gobert, and JO has missed his last 7 threes over the past three games. But I haven't given up on Josh's ability to hit the open three. A larger sample size than the past three games is the entire months of March and April prior to the past three games, and Josh made 42% of his 3-point shots. And he is shooting 52.4% overall for the month of April. When you combine his 82% free throw shooting, his 38.2% 3-point shooting in college, and his 3-point success the past 2 months, there's some reason for hope that Josh can actually be the 3 and D guy we have been looking for. I mean, if Finch continues to start Josh and give him 30+ minutes, why shouldn't a college 38% 3-point shooter be reasonably adept beyond the arc? Josh needs to keep playing his disruptive defense and play within himself on offense...that is, focus on only layups, put backs and open threes. If he does this, he will be a valuable partner to our more offensive-minded players. There's no doubt that Gobert is going to leave Josh alone Monday night...I want to see JO make them pay this time.

Are you Lip burner account??? Haha. Lip always brings up Okogie college 3pt shooting.

I don't think his college stats mean anything anymore. He has played 3 NBA seasons where he has been one of if not the worst "shooting" guard in the NBA. He kind of is what he is. Can he shoot low 30% probably but he will never be able to be relied on

Q12543 wrote:I just find it so absurd that this franchise (and Josh deserves some accountability too of course) can't take a two-season 38% college 3-pt shooter and good FT shooter and not only fail to turn him into a respectable 3-point shooter, but actually turn him into one of the worst-shooting wings in the entire NBA. I mean, how the hell does that happen!? How does a guy who can play and practice full time not build on a solid foundation in college!?

This only happens to the Wolves. And it was two picks in a row where this happened in Okogie and Culver. Edwards at least has shown some ability to adjust to the NBA 3-pt line, even though he is still far from accurate still.

McDaniels may be our 2nd player in a decade that can both defend well and hit the 3. Robert Covington is the other. Incredible. May be McDaniels breaks the curse of the Wolves having never drafted and developed a legit 3&D player in franchise history.

You don't get to be the most losing franchise in pro sports history without these kinds of things happening I guess.

lipoli390 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:I just find it so absurd that this franchise (and Josh deserves some accountability too of course) can't take a two-season 38% college 3-pt shooter and good FT shooter and not only fail to turn him into a respectable 3-point shooter, but actually turn him into one of the worst-shooting wings in the entire NBA. I mean, how the hell does that happen!? How does a guy who can play and practice full time not build on a solid foundation in college!?

This only happens to the Wolves. And it was two picks in a row where this happened in Okogie and Culver. Edwards at least has shown some ability to adjust to the NBA 3-pt line, even though he is still far from accurate still.

McDaniels may be our 2nd player in a decade that can both defend well and hit the 3. Robert Covington is the other. Incredible. May be McDaniels breaks the curse of the Wolves having never drafted and developed a legit 3&D player in franchise history.

You don't get to be the most losing franchise in pro sports history without these kinds of things happening I guess.

Lol. Yep, we've certainly earned our place as the most losing franchise in sports history. :)

I still think it's mainly a function of who you draft. Okogie's a bit of an anomaly as someone who was a consistently good 3-point shooter in college. Otherwise, Culver came out of college with as a pretty poor 3-point shooter with a mechanically broken shot as a sophomore and Edwards was a sub 30% 3-point shooter in college.

But I agree it's also a matter of development. I think the main issues with Edwards are (1) taking too many threes, and (2) shooting too many threes off the dribble. That's where coaching comes in. The head coach has to take steps to get Edwards to take fewer threes overall and take a higher percentage of his threes on catch-and-shoots. To do that, the head coach has to lean on Edwards and, if necessary, sit him down to convey the message. But the coach also has to design and drill the offense in practice to drive those outcomes. So far, I think Finch is doing those things. Meanwhile, we're also seeing Okogie's shooting efficiency improve under Finch. Coaching still matters at the professional level and I think we finally have a good one.

kekgeek1 wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:I just find it so absurd that this franchise (and Josh deserves some accountability too of course) can't take a two-season 38% college 3-pt shooter and good FT shooter and not only fail to turn him into a respectable 3-point shooter, but actually turn him into one of the worst-shooting wings in the entire NBA. I mean, how the hell does that happen!? How does a guy who can play and practice full time not build on a solid foundation in college!?

This only happens to the Wolves. And it was two picks in a row where this happened in Okogie and Culver. Edwards at least has shown some ability to adjust to the NBA 3-pt line, even though he is still far from accurate still.

McDaniels may be our 2nd player in a decade that can both defend well and hit the 3. Robert Covington is the other. Incredible. May be McDaniels breaks the curse of the Wolves having never drafted and developed a legit 3&D player in franchise history.

You don't get to be the most losing franchise in pro sports history without these kinds of things happening I guess.

Lol. Yep, we've certainly earned our place as the most losing franchise in sports history. :)

I still think it's mainly a function of who you draft. Okogie's a bit of an anomaly as someone who was a consistently good 3-point shooter in college. Otherwise, Culver came out of college with as a pretty poor 3-point shooter with a mechanically broken shot as a sophomore and Edwards was a sub 30% 3-point shooter in college.

But I agree it's also a matter of development. I think the main issues with Edwards are (1) taking too many threes, and (2) shooting too many threes off the dribble. That's where coaching comes in. The head coach has to take steps to get Edwards to take fewer threes overall and take a higher percentage of his threes on catch-and-shoots. To do that, the head coach has to lean on Edwards and, if necessary, sit him down to convey the message. But the coach also has to design and drill the offense in practice to drive those outcomes. So far, I think Finch is doing those things. Meanwhile, we're also seeing Okogie's shooting efficiency improve under Finch. Coaching still matters at the professional level and I think we finally have a good one.

Agree with this. Here are Edwards and Okogie 3pt % with Saunders and Post All Star Finch.

Edwards with Saunders, 1.8 3PM 5.8 3PA 31.3%

Edwards with Finch post all star, 2.9 3PM 8.3 3PA 34.8%. So his volume has went up but so did the %.

Okogie under Saunders, 0.4 3PM 2.0 3PA 20.1%

Okogie under Finch post all star, 0.7 3PM 2.1 3PA 33.3%

FNG wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:I just find it so absurd that this franchise (and Josh deserves some accountability too of course) can't take a two-season 38% college 3-pt shooter and good FT shooter and not only fail to turn him into a respectable 3-point shooter, but actually turn him into one of the worst-shooting wings in the entire NBA. I mean, how the hell does that happen!? How does a guy who can play and practice full time not build on a solid foundation in college!?

This only happens to the Wolves. And it was two picks in a row where this happened in Okogie and Culver. Edwards at least has shown some ability to adjust to the NBA 3-pt line, even though he is still far from accurate still.

McDaniels may be our 2nd player in a decade that can both defend well and hit the 3. Robert Covington is the other. Incredible. May be McDaniels breaks the curse of the Wolves having never drafted and developed a legit 3&D player in franchise history.

You don't get to be the most losing franchise in pro sports history without these kinds of things happening I guess.

Lol. Yep, we've certainly earned our place as the most losing franchise in sports history. :)

I still think it's mainly a function of who you draft. Okogie's a bit of an anomaly as someone who was a consistently good 3-point shooter in college. Otherwise, Culver came out of college with as a pretty poor 3-point shooter with a mechanically broken shot as a sophomore and Edwards was a sub 30% 3-point shooter in college.

But I agree it's also a matter of development. I think the main issues with Edwards are (1) taking too many threes, and (2) shooting too many threes off the dribble. That's where coaching comes in. The head coach has to take steps to get Edwards to take fewer threes overall and take a higher percentage of his threes on catch-and-shoots. To do that, the head coach has to lean on Edwards and, if necessary, sit him down to convey the message. But the coach also has to design and drill the offense in practice to drive those outcomes. So far, I think Finch is doing those things. Meanwhile, we're also seeing Okogie's shooting efficiency improve under Finch. Coaching still matters at the professional level and I think we finally have a good one.

Agree with this. Here are Edwards and Okogie 3pt % with Saunders and Post All Star Finch.

Edwards with Saunders, 1.8 3PM 5.8 3PA 31.3%

Edwards with Finch post all star, 2.9 3PM 8.3 3PA 34.8%. So his volume has went up but so did the %.

Okogie under Saunders, 0.4 3PM 2.0 3PA 20.1%

Okogie under Finch post all star, 0.7 3PM 2.1 3PA 33.3%

Yeah, I think we all agree with Q that this franchise has done a terrible job of developing 3-point shooters. But building on Kek's numbers above, should Chris Finch be painted with the same brush offensively as previous coaches? ESPN actually has Okogie at 36.1% on his threes since the All-star break...either way, it's a huge improvement over his previous performance with a not insignificant sample size.

Just chance, or a real change? Well, that's always the $64,000 question. But I can at least give a reason why Ant and JO have improved their shooting under Finch. Unlike Thibs and Saunders, Finch said right from the start that the offense was going to go through KAT. And when it does and KAT is double teamed, somebody is going to be open, and KAT has proven himself to be adept at finding that open man. And Josh and Ant have taken advantage of those open looks, and greatly improved their percentages. And I see no reason that the trend can't continue as long as KAT is healthy.

FNG wrote:I'm watching the replay (watched the 4th quarter on DVR late last night) and I honestly can't figure out how we won this game. We shot 24% on threes and allowed 19 three's on 40.4%...that's not a prescription for a victory. Here are a few things I noticed.

Chris Finch. Has he ever been more animated and angrier than he was in that 1st quarter? I want our coach to be as pissed off as we fans are when we give up open looks beyond the arc! I don't know what Finch said (yelled?) at this team during that 1st quarter time out, but it worked. Our defense was unbelievable after that. Utah only scored 14 more points in the last 3 quarters than they did in the 1st! And the main reason for that was:

Josh Okogie and Jaden McDaniels. These two guys continue to get better and better. I continue to marvel at Jaden's footwork...I don't think Joe Ingles is looking forward to facing him again Monday night. And how much fun is it to watch Josh these days. The reason I gravitate toward +/- stats is that is is literally the only box score number that reflects Josh's value tonight...a team-best +12. The box score only has him with 8 points, 2 boards, 2 assists, 2 steals and 1 block, but watching the game, I would have thought each of those numbers (except points) were twice as much. The guy is just so fricking disruptive out there!

But all that said, there were some surprising other contributors on defense tonight. Jim Pete said it, and I agree...Towns has become an excellent perimeter defender. It's one of the main reasons Finch is comfortable now playing him with Reid. I rip Dlo's defense more than almost anyone here, but he might have been the player most effected by Finch's first quarter rant. He seemed much more engaged on defense, and it showed up in the box score. I've been waiting for the moment I could say this, because it's so critical to this team's success. Other than Josh Okogie, DLO LED THE TEAM IN PLUS/MINUS WITH A +9!!!! Dlo only shot 30% on threes, but still was a positive player on the court tonight, and Finch rewarded him with 31 minutes and court time down the stretch. Will Dlo get the message? I'll be at Target Center Monday night and will have my eyes glued on Russell, and I'll provide my report post-game.

Ant was our best offensive player tonight. He was our only efficient 3-point shooter tonight at 40%, but more importantly, he finished at the rim better than we have seen in a long time...just an excellent offensive night for him. He's becoming a thief on defense and had 5 steals tonight, but don't get too excited about that...he was the recipient of some of the worst cross-court passes I've ever seen from the Jazz, Still, 5 steals of 5 steals, and his on-ball defense continues to improve.

So we beat the Jazz on a night where KAT and Dlo were only 5 for 18 on threes, and we got almost nothing from Rubio, Juancho and Reid. It's all about defense with this team, and for three quarters tonight, we were surprisingly good. This team is now 5-6 with Dlo coming off the bench...I think his best role. Will Finch continue to have him as 6th man?