Minnesota Sports Forum

lipoli390 wrote:I started out too negative in my first post. I'm still not sure about the a DLO/Beasley backcourt yet. But it's by far the best backcourt we've had since Cassell and Sprewell. I really like the way Okogie has been playing. And I love Naz. There are some nice pieces here.

DLO was not good tonight. Yes, he made a couple of big plays (and also an awful play with that missed open layup) near the end of the game, but he was turning it over, missing shots, and playing his usual lazy defense for most of the game.

Naz, Beasley, Okogie, JMac, Johnson, Culver, Jauncho. Those guys collectively won this game. Layman, DLO, and Martin were not good.

Reid in the plus column again tonight. That's 8 out of 11 games starting he's been a plus. One other time he was a zero and the other two games barely negative. He's got some pretty quick hands too, as he gets a fair amount of blocks and steals for a guy who is generally pretty much nailed to the ground.

Q12543 wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:I started out too negative in my first post. I'm still not sure about the a DLO/Beasley backcourt yet. But it's by far the best backcourt we've had since Cassell and Sprewell. I really like the way Okogie has been playing. And I love Naz. There are some nice pieces here.

DLO was not good tonight. Yes, he made a couple of big plays (and also an awful play with that missed open layup) near the end of the game, but he was turning it over, missing shots, and playing his usual lazy defense for most of the game.

Naz, Beasley, Okogie, JMac, Johnson, Culver, Jauncho. Those guys collectively won this game. Layman, DLO, and Martin were not good.

I want to say though, a lot of the reason why those slips to Reid, Johnson and Hernangomez were there was because of the attentions teams have to pay to DLO.

Even though I thought Dlo was sloppy tonight made big shots when it mattered

Sounds like a hek of a game I missed. I will watch it on delay. My question is who was the Matador matched up with on defense? I see both Ball and Holiday went off.

lipoli390 wrote:I started out too negative in my first post. I'm still not sure about the a DLO/Beasley backcourt yet. But it's by far the best backcourt we've had since Cassell and Sprewell. I really like the way Okogie has been playing. And I love Naz. There are some nice pieces here.

I don't think you were being to negative on Dlo based on his 1st half. As a fan base I think we have to get adjusted to him. When his shot isn't falling it can be frustrating because he dosen't make it up for it on the defensive end.

I will say though it is so nice to have a run buster and a guy who can just put the game away. Something the wolves haven't had much in their history

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Sounds like a hek of a game I missed. I will watch it on delay. My question is who was the Matador matched up with on defense? I see both Ball and Holiday went off.

Wolves ran a matchup zone majority of the game. Also switched every screen what lead to a lot of miss communications. Dlo and hernangomez yelled at each other a couple of times.

In the 1st half half you'll see everything you hate about Dlo in the 2nd half (mostly just 4th quarter) you'll see the positives of him

kekgeek1 wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Sounds like a hek of a game I missed. I will watch it on delay. My question is who was the Matador matched up with on defense? I see both Ball and Holiday went off.

Wolves ran a matchup zone majority of the game. Also switched every screen what lead to a lot of miss communications. Dlo and hernangomez yelled at each other a couple of times.

In the 1st half half you'll see everything you hate about Dlo in the 2nd half (mostly just 4th quarter) you'll see the positives of him

Yeah, they switch and zone up so much now, no one is really guarding just one person. It's part of their system. I did think their zone was reasonably effective in this game (by Wolves standards). The one thing about DLO is he does have the size to switch and not get totally overwhelmed by a bigger player.

If I'm coaching against DLO, I'm getting him in isolation as much as possible. It would serve at least two purposes. The more you make him work on D, the less effective he's going to be on the other end. And because he can't stay in front of anybody, you should get a lot of easy baskets taking him to the tin, or drawing the extra defender and then dishing. I love exploiting one-dimensional players.

kekgeek1 wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Sounds like a hek of a game I missed. I will watch it on delay. My question is who was the Matador matched up with on defense? I see both Ball and Holiday went off.

Wolves ran a matchup zone majority of the game. Also switched every screen what lead to a lot of miss communications. Dlo and hernangomez yelled at each other a couple of times.

In the 1st half half you'll see everything you hate about Dlo in the 2nd half (mostly just 4th quarter) you'll see the positives of him

Kek, I predict that by this time next year 95% of us will be frustrated with DLO and lamenting his remaining contract years. I hope I'm way off base on this, but I can't see it.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:If I'm coaching against DLO, I'm getting him in isolation as much as possible. It would serve at least two purposes. The more you make him work on D, the less effective he's going to be on the other end. And because he can't stay in front of anybody, you should get a lot of easy baskets taking him to the tin, or drawing the extra defender and then dishing. I love exploiting one-dimensional players.

Well, what would your expert game-plan be as a coach against Andrew Wiggins? Just roll out a basketball and say play ball? Because that is basically what opponents have been doing to the Wolves for six years and it very clearly wasn't working.

We're not even 10 games into the D'Angelo Russell era. Perhaps instead of making "matador" comments or fake game-planning against the starting point guard we might discuss the game that the Wolves actually won tonight or how Minnesota can upgrade this roster even more.

A step further, I'd wager everything in my possession that the majority of Wolves fans feel a lot better about this current nucleus than perhaps anything they've had in the last decade. That's a solid start. Gersson Rosas is responsible for surrounding them with the compatible pieces to make it a winner. And as far as I can see, he's made some pretty solid strides in terms of roster construction, but there's obviously much left to do.