Around the League - '23-24 Season

[FNG]

Q, the inability for us to stop the dunk was my biggest frustration, but you are right about the 3-point shooting. Only Washington wasn't very good at 25%, but he also had his moments. Hardy, Green and Jones Jr. were a combined 16-32 for 50% against us, and they are not considered sharpshooters by any means! A couple misses by those guys in key moments could have been the difference in those close games.

[Lipoli390]

I get the Irving hate. He's been an odd guy and poor teammate most of his 20s, and I'm generally in the "once a dick, always a dick" camp. But I'm always pleased and surprised when an athlete I've written off changes later in life and becomes a better guy. Doesn't happen often, but I think it may be happening with Kyrie. Here are some notable (mostly local) examples:

Glen Perkins: He was hated by his Stillwater teammates and by his Gopher teammates, and also by his Twins teammates early in his career. But he went through a transformation around the age of 30, and it's difficult to find a more likable guy now.

Kevin Love: A good (unfortunately late) friend of mine was part of the Wolves' organization during the Love years. He would often tell me what a horrible person Love was. He told me the only guy who liked him was one of the locker room guys who he tipped well. But Love went public with his depression issues after going to the Cavs, and it seemed to change him. He seems to be very well liked on his new team(s), and seems like a really good guy now.

Rod Carew: Carew was surly and unlikable during most of his 20s. Now he seems like one of the sweetest guys in baseball.

George Foreman: His demeanor change was so dramatic, some people think his early years were a pro wrestling-like fake demeanor. I don't think so...I think he was just an angry a-hole. But man did he ever change!

So maybe you guys are right and Irving is just on a phony redemption tour. But it seems sincere to me...I think he just finally grew up.

Anyway, I love watching his brilliance on the court, and even though I dislike him, I love watching Luka's brilliance also. Still, my dislike for Luka makes my choice to cheer for the Celtics (who seem to have almost nothing but likable guys) quite easy. I can admire the amazing things they do on the court, while also cheering for them to get stomped by a better team!

I don’t know anything about Glen Perkins. I’m sure Kevin Love’s depression had a lot to do with him not being particularly well liked if that’s true. Yes, Rod Carew was surely. George Foreman’s demeanor was part of his adopted persona. Everything I’ve read about him indicates he was a good and well-liked guy in private.

But none of that has much if anything to do with Kyrie. It’s not just that Kyrie has been disliked because he hasn’t been nice to people or was simply surely or had an adopted tough-guy persona. Unlike Carew, Perkins and Love, Kyrie has a track record of abandoning his teammates and throwing them under the bus. Moreover, he has made ridiculous and vile comments beyond the realm of basketball. As a reminder of who Kyrie is, you should listen to Kyrie’s comments after game 3. He started by saying Luka needs a hug. Then he said, “I’m not going to point fingers”, after which he proceeded to spend 60 seconds pointing the finger at Luka. It was classic Kyrie - a dick without a shred of loyalty or team-focus in his character. It’s the same old Kyrie but one who’s more careful and cognizant of public perception and the impact on his brand. Yes, transformations happen in adulthood, but they are honestly very rare. When you have a track record like Kyrie’s, it should take a lot of evidence over time to convince us that he’s one of those rare individuals who’s undergone one of those transformations.

[Sundog]

100% with you on Kyrie, Lip

[FNG]

It's no surprise that the NBA chose The Extender's crew for tonight's game...gambler's should mortgage their homes and put it all on Dallas tonight, because he won't let them lose! Luka might even have a non-whining game tonight (although he was insufferable in Game 3).

[davemang]

Partly due to defensive style, but Dallas is cold (even from the FT line!). They actually fouled luka out - he was incredulous that they'd call 6 on him in a finals game in his post game. But really they could have called another 4-5 more, he was swiping arms and pushing off and just generally doing obvious fouls that weren't called. They had one of those plays where boston smacked a dallas players wrist, ball went out and they called it dallas ball. Joe mazulla challenges it and it gets overturned - felt like some poetic justice.

Speaking of Luka, Celtics are doing what the wolves should have done (and what would have won OKC/Clippers their series if they could have made shots) and matchup hunting Luka almost every time down the floor. Luka looks so gassed - when he gets blown by, he doesn't even go cover the open 3 pt shot that is getting left open because someone had to help on his guy. I think the only times Luka had to guard in our series was in the post, where his size helps him and his lack of athleticism/endurance isn't exposed. Needed to have Jaden screening and moving to get Luka working.

Jaylen brown is MVP of the series I think. KP and Jrue have had games, but JB has been consistently great on defense and gets them surehanded buckets when their offense stalls out and they get complacent. Tatum has maybe had more impact, but I think his overall offensive struggles will keep him from getting it (he's a bigs reason why dallas' bigs haven't been able to do anything this series imo).

I think it would have been interesting to have played the celtics, but ultimately i think they were the best team this season and are going to be the team to beat for the next couple years if KP can stay somewhat healthy and they get a good replacement for hordford.

[Q-is-here]

Partly due to defensive style, but Dallas is cold (even from the FT line!). They actually fouled luka out - he was incredulous that they'd call 6 on him in a finals game in his post game. But really they could have called another 4-5 more, he was swiping arms and pushing off and just generally doing obvious fouls that weren't called. They had one of those plays where boston smacked a dallas players wrist, ball went out and they called it dallas ball. Joe mazulla challenges it and it gets overturned - felt like some poetic justice.

Speaking of Luka, Celtics are doing what the wolves should have done (and what would have won OKC/Clippers their series if they could have made shots) and matchup hunting Luka almost every time down the floor. Luka looks so gassed - when he gets blown by, he doesn't even go cover the open 3 pt shot that is getting left open because someone had to help on his guy. I think the only times Luka had to guard in our series was in the post, where his size helps him and his lack of athleticism/endurance isn't exposed. Needed to have Jaden screening and moving to get Luka working.

Jaylen brown is MVP of the series I think. KP and Jrue have had games, but JB has been consistently great on defense and gets them surehanded buckets when their offense stalls out and they get complacent. Tatum has maybe had more impact, but I think his overall offensive struggles will keep him from getting it (he's a bigs reason why dallas' bigs haven't been able to do anything this series imo).

I think it would have been interesting to have played the celtics, but ultimately i think they were the best team this season and are going to be the team to beat for the next couple years if KP can stay somewhat healthy and they get a good replacement for hordford.

I think we tried at times to attack Luka, but because the Dallas bigs were so good in the paint, they'd usually cover for him. Boston has the advantage of starting a big that can shoot the 3. In fact, everyone on that team that actually plays can shoot the 3, so the Dallas bigs had to respect that and couldn't bail Luka out as much.

The Celtics indeed look like their regular season record reflects their true greatness. I thought they'd have more trouble than this. Heck, they don't even have KP playing and they are still up 3-0.

[Lipoli390]

Partly due to defensive style, but Dallas is cold (even from the FT line!). They actually fouled luka out - he was incredulous that they'd call 6 on him in a finals game in his post game. But really they could have called another 4-5 more, he was swiping arms and pushing off and just generally doing obvious fouls that weren't called. They had one of those plays where boston smacked a dallas players wrist, ball went out and they called it dallas ball. Joe mazulla challenges it and it gets overturned - felt like some poetic justice.

Speaking of Luka, Celtics are doing what the wolves should have done (and what would have won OKC/Clippers their series if they could have made shots) and matchup hunting Luka almost every time down the floor. Luka looks so gassed - when he gets blown by, he doesn't even go cover the open 3 pt shot that is getting left open because someone had to help on his guy. I think the only times Luka had to guard in our series was in the post, where his size helps him and his lack of athleticism/endurance isn't exposed. Needed to have Jaden screening and moving to get Luka working.

Jaylen brown is MVP of the series I think. KP and Jrue have had games, but JB has been consistently great on defense and gets them surehanded buckets when their offense stalls out and they get complacent. Tatum has maybe had more impact, but I think his overall offensive struggles will keep him from getting it (he's a bigs reason why dallas' bigs haven't been able to do anything this series imo).

I think it would have been interesting to have played the celtics, but ultimately i think they were the best team this season and are going to be the team to beat for the next couple years if KP can stay somewhat healthy and they get a good replacement for hordford.

I think we tried at times to attack Luka, but because the Dallas bigs were so good in the paint, they'd usually cover for him. Boston has the advantage of starting a big that can shoot the 3. In fact, everyone on that team that actually plays can shoot the 3, so the Dallas bigs had to respect that and couldn't bail Luka out as much.

The Celtics indeed look like their regular season record reflects their true greatness. I thought they'd have more trouble than this. Heck, they don't even have KP playing and they are still up 3-0.

The Wolves have a center who can shoot the three better than Horford. So why were we so ineffective against their bigs compared to Boston?

[Q-is-here]

Partly due to defensive style, but Dallas is cold (even from the FT line!). They actually fouled luka out - he was incredulous that they'd call 6 on him in a finals game in his post game. But really they could have called another 4-5 more, he was swiping arms and pushing off and just generally doing obvious fouls that weren't called. They had one of those plays where boston smacked a dallas players wrist, ball went out and they called it dallas ball. Joe mazulla challenges it and it gets overturned - felt like some poetic justice.

Speaking of Luka, Celtics are doing what the wolves should have done (and what would have won OKC/Clippers their series if they could have made shots) and matchup hunting Luka almost every time down the floor. Luka looks so gassed - when he gets blown by, he doesn't even go cover the open 3 pt shot that is getting left open because someone had to help on his guy. I think the only times Luka had to guard in our series was in the post, where his size helps him and his lack of athleticism/endurance isn't exposed. Needed to have Jaden screening and moving to get Luka working.

Jaylen brown is MVP of the series I think. KP and Jrue have had games, but JB has been consistently great on defense and gets them surehanded buckets when their offense stalls out and they get complacent. Tatum has maybe had more impact, but I think his overall offensive struggles will keep him from getting it (he's a bigs reason why dallas' bigs haven't been able to do anything this series imo).

I think it would have been interesting to have played the celtics, but ultimately i think they were the best team this season and are going to be the team to beat for the next couple years if KP can stay somewhat healthy and they get a good replacement for hordford.

I think we tried at times to attack Luka, but because the Dallas bigs were so good in the paint, they'd usually cover for him. Boston has the advantage of starting a big that can shoot the 3. In fact, everyone on that team that actually plays can shoot the 3, so the Dallas bigs had to respect that and couldn't bail Luka out as much.

The Celtics indeed look like their regular season record reflects their true greatness. I thought they'd have more trouble than this. Heck, they don't even have KP playing and they are still up 3-0.

The Wolves have a center who can shoot the three better than Horford. So why were we so ineffective against their bigs compared to Boston?

Well, I could go resuscitate the "Lip was right" thread and talk about how Rudy gums up our offense, but we are far worse when he's on the bench!

Assuming we run it back, Finch and his assistants have their work cut out for them between now and the end of training camp to figure out how to get more out of an offense where the whole is less than the sum of the individual parts.

[kekgeek]

I think we tried at times to attack Luka, but because the Dallas bigs were so good in the paint, they'd usually cover for him. Boston has the advantage of starting a big that can shoot the 3. In fact, everyone on that team that actually plays can shoot the 3, so the Dallas bigs had to respect that and couldn't bail Luka out as much.

The Celtics indeed look like their regular season record reflects their true greatness. I thought they'd have more trouble than this. Heck, they don't even have KP playing and they are still up 3-0.

The Wolves have a center who can shoot the three better than Horford. So why were we so ineffective against their bigs compared to Boston?

Well, I could go resuscitate the "Lip was right" thread and talk about how Rudy gums up our offense, but we are far worse when he's on the bench!

Assuming we run it back, Finch and his assistants have their work cut out for them between now and the end of training camp to figure out how to get more out of an offense where the whole is less than the sum of the individual parts.

Couple thoughts.

They were able to hide Luka on Rudy. Now when Rudy sat against the Mavs the defense was not good so I’m not sure what the correct trade off is.

Lip is right that Kat is a better 3 pt shooter than horford, however horford shoots more 3s than Kat does per game during the playoffs. Kat is shooting 2.5 less 3s per game than he was the year before Ant got here. For whatever reason Kat volume has went down while the NBA volume has went up for 3 pointers.

Ant and Kat are really special players but they don’t play off each other well. Do you know Rudy Gobert had 1 less assist this season to Mike Conley than Kat had to Ant this year. For whatever reason those 2 don’t have great on court chemistry. There is no reason they can’t destroy teams in PnR and PnP game sort of like how Lavine and Gorgui had great chemistry back when we were bad.

Another thing is Kat had a career low in roll frequency this year in the PnR. A not so fun fact that zero possession this playoffs ended with a Kat PnR shot attempt or foul. Kind of crazy.

Wolves don’t have the iso creators that the Celtics do. Celtics had 4.5 good iso scorers. Wolves have 1.5. Allows teams to load up more.

Ant can’t throw a lob, if he could to Rudy a lot of issues would be solved.

The bench fell off. Naw shot 3 of 21 his last 6 games from 3. Outside of 1 game a series from Naz, Naz was bad this postseason, slow mo spacing issues and got nothing from the backup PGs

I am in team run it back but they need to figure out how to create Kat and Ant on court chemistry. Them at the moment score in spurts because of their individual talents not because they make each other better. Also go back to what made you great Kat and let it fly from 3. No reason not to have 10 3PA a game. You are the best big to ever shoot a basketball, play to your strengths and let it fly like he for the DR this summer

[Q-is-here]

The Wolves have a center who can shoot the three better than Horford. So why were we so ineffective against their bigs compared to Boston?

Well, I could go resuscitate the "Lip was right" thread and talk about how Rudy gums up our offense, but we are far worse when he's on the bench!

Assuming we run it back, Finch and his assistants have their work cut out for them between now and the end of training camp to figure out how to get more out of an offense where the whole is less than the sum of the individual parts.

Couple thoughts.

They were able to hide Luka on Rudy. Now when Rudy sat against the Mavs the defense was not good so I’m not sure what the correct trade off is.

Lip is right that Kat is a better 3 pt shooter than horford, however horford shoots more 3s than Kat does per game during the playoffs. Kat is shooting 2.5 less 3s per game than he was the year before Ant got here. For whatever reason Kat volume has went down while the NBA volume has went up for 3 pointers.

Ant and Kat are really special players but they don’t play off each other well. Do you know Rudy Gobert had 1 less assist this season to Mike Conley than Kat had to Ant this year. For whatever reason those 2 don’t have great on court chemistry. There is no reason they can’t destroy teams in PnR and PnP game sort of like how Lavine and Gorgui had great chemistry back when we were bad.

Another thing is Kat had a career low in roll frequency this year in the PnR. A not so fun fact that zero possession this playoffs ended with a Kat PnR shot attempt or foul. Kind of crazy.

Wolves don’t have the iso creators that the Celtics do. Celtics had 4.5 good iso scorers. Wolves have 1.5. Allows teams to load up more.

Ant can’t throw a lob, if he could to Rudy a lot of issues would be solved.

The bench fell off. Naw shot 3 of 21 his last 6 games from 3. Outside of 1 game a series from Naz, Naz was bad this postseason, slow mo spacing issues and got nothing from the backup PGs

I am in team run it back but they need to figure out how to create Kat and Ant on court chemistry. Them at the moment score in spurts because of their individual talents not because they make each other better. Also go back to what made you great Kat and let it fly from 3. No reason not to have 10 3PA a game. You are the best big to ever shoot a basketball, play to your strengths and let it fly like he for the DR this summer

Good stuff Kek.

Here is what's maddening....The Wolves had the #8 offense just a few seasons ago with 3/5ths of their existing starting lineup in place: KAT, Ant, and Jaden. The other two starters? DLO and Vando (and sometimes PBev would start instead of Jaden).

Could DLO be the missing piece!? LOL...But seriously, it's pretty discouraging that Finch, his staff, and the vets on our team can't figure out a way to get more out of an offense with one of the best shooting bigs in history and a young player on the cusp of superstardom.