Minnesota Sports Forum

We need rubio healthy for the season. The gap between him and tyus/miller/brown is too wide that it certainly makes a difference. Unless miller is just coasting and will turn it up once the season starts then pg play will be a weakness.

The bigs (dieng,towns and bjelica) played well. Lavine looks more matured. Tyus doesn't look ready. Lo brown might be our best option now if miller is done. Brown can at lest play defense while tyus and miller can't.

Great games by Towns, Bjelica and Dieng. Our starting lineup struggled with the exception of Towns but thats probably mostly do to playing against Durant, Westbrook and Ibaka. Our second team played great against the OKC backups though Bazz shot poorly. LoBro and Rudez each did well, so I wish we could cut or trade somebody else.

Zach shot poorly but how much of it was due to the team he faced? We should see some easier matchups coming up and hopefully Zach can show he's starting material.

A few thoughts:

- The same two things that killed us last year got us tonight: Defense and 3-point shooting.

- Man, Wiggins and LaVine took a lot of tough-ass pull up J's. Just horrible shots, but often they were forced to pull the trigger because there was really nothing else going. Both were very underwhelming tonight.

- Two of our three rookies looked very impressive: Towns and Bjelica.

- Dieng was strong offensively, but I'm sorry, once again he was a sieve defensively, biting on fakes and having guys rip rebounds away from him for easy putbacks.

- Tyus Jones versus Russell Westbrook: Mismatch of the century.

- I hope Towns someday becomes a super rich man's version of Ibaka: A guy that can block your shot on one end and swish a 3-pointer on the other. Ibaka deserves a ton of credit for adding that 3-point shot to his game. What a rare combination of skills.

- LoBrow does a nice job hounding opposing PGs, but he isn't super quick laterally so if a guy gets a step on him, he has a tough time recovering. Still, he's a step up defensively from either Tyus or Miller.

Disappointing to see the same old problems, but not surprised either. The games don't count yet and our best player didn't even play.

The good thing about losing and giving up 122 points even if its to OKC is that the team knows it has a lot of work to do on the defensive end. Hopefully, it spurs the coaching staff and players to keep focusing on defense. Improvements on defense won't happen overnight, but long term its what the team needs.

TeamRicky wrote:Zach shot poorly but how much of it was due to the team he faced? We should see some easier matchups coming up and hopefully Zach can show he's starting material.

He's a starting 2-guard in the West. There won't be many easy nights.

TeamRicky wrote:Zach shot poorly but how much of it was due to the team he faced? We should see some easier matchups coming up and hopefully Zach can show he's starting material.

Nobody was there to set him up for some open 3s to get him going. Nobody was there set up Wiggins either.

worldK wrote:We need rubio healthy for the season. The gap between him and tyus/miller/brown is too wide that it certainly makes a difference. Unless miller is just coasting and will turn it up once the season starts then pg play will be a weakness.

The bigs (dieng,towns and bjelica) played well. Lavine looks more matured. Tyus doesn't look ready. Lo brown might be our best option now if miller is done. Brown can at lest play defense while tyus and miller can't.

Yeah, I am VERY nervous about our PG depth if they drop LoBrow.

I watched the few highlights they had on NBA.com and looked at the box score.

Bjelica had a nice tip of a missed FT by Brown keeping it alive and it went to Towns. Looks like he had a nice game there was a lot of buzz about it from everything I am reading. I am looking forward to seeing him in NBA action. He looks at least a legit listed height of 6'10" to me.

Towns looks to have played well and Dieng did his weird thing scoring.

Martin played a handful of minutes scored like 10 points jacked up 4 3's and had a nice entry pass for an easy look for a big. Meanwhile Lavine was wildly inefficient.

I am a bigger fan of Brown but I am conflicted about Rudez. He does something this team has needed for a decade. An elite volume 3 point shooter.

People say Miller looked really bad. I will be interested to get a look at him when I can watch the next wolves game whenever that may be.

Miller looked so bad I was almost happy to see him leave the floor with a banged up knee