Thibs Criticism

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

I tend to think our fourth quarter woes are primarily on defense, but also not feeding our most productive, most talented, most efficient offensive player nearly enough when it counts. Jimmy Butler has the closer gene, and I'm fine with him asserting himself, but the go-to guy should be Karl-Anthony. Point blank, period.

PS: I'm tired of watching Andrew Wiggins take rushed, contested pull-up jumpers early in the shot clock down the stretch in close games, essentially throwing away possessions when they matter most.

[Lipoli390]

I tend to think our fourth quarter woes are primarily on defense, but also not feeding our most productive, most talented, most efficient offensive player nearly enough when it counts. Jimmy Butler has the closer gene, and I'm fine with him asserting himself, but the go-to guy should be Karl-Anthony. Point blank, period.

PS: I'm tired of watching Andrew Wiggins take rushed, contested pull-up jumpers early in the shot clock down the stretch in close games, essentially throwing away possessions when they matter most.

I agree completely!!

[Lipoli390]

You know who made defenses work even without the basketball? Zach LaVine.

Man, I really believe we're missing the elements that he brought to the team. We just don't have a flamethrower from deep anymore, and that's not a jab at Nemanja Bjelica. I thought Minnesota had learned their lesson over the 20 seasons before Kevin Martin got here, but apparently we're still blind to the fact that you kind of have to have at least one volume 3P shooter, especially in today's NBA.

Imagine if Jimmy Butler and Jeff Teague were driving and kicking -- or Karl-Anthony Towns was passing out of double-teams -- to an open 38% 3P shooter instead of the 33% 3P shooter they have now, and yes I'm referring to Andrew Wiggins.

I don't mean to turn this comment into another Wiggins discussion, but play styles and fit are just as important as overall talent level. I'm struggling to see Wiggins being a successful, long-term piece for Minnesota unless he significantly improves his perimeter jumper, and I don't mean the 18-footer.

You're right about. LaVine making defenses work. Nobody on the team moved off the ball the way he did. He was in constant motion and he was really fast which made him hard to keep up with. He reminded me of Rip Hamilton the way he moved off the ball.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

I tend to think our fourth quarter woes are primarily on defense, but also not feeding our most productive, most talented, most efficient offensive player nearly enough when it counts. Jimmy Butler has the closer gene, and I'm fine with him asserting himself, but the go-to guy should be Karl-Anthony. Point blank, period.

PS: I'm tired of watching Andrew Wiggins take rushed, contested pull-up jumpers early in the shot clock down the stretch in close games, essentially throwing away possessions when they matter most.

I agree completely!!

I agree that our woes are primarily on defense. Defending a sophisticated NBA offense with more rested starters is difficult enough, but doing it with tired guys is even worse. I'm so sick of seeing exhausted defenders playing a grabbing defense rather than moving feet, not fighting through screens like they do in the first half, and being late on rotations leading to wide open threes. That's a problem. And I also agree KAT is not utilized as a go-to guy nearly enough at crunch time...he is a gifted efficient scorer, and also a talented passer out of double teams.

The other issue I see on offense from having tired players on the court is the lack of movement without the ball, which leads to iso play and lack of ball movement. When players are standing around not trying to get open, it leaves the ballhandler with just one option...dribble around and play 1 on 1 basketball. KAT is not without fault here also...one of the reasons he isn't utilized as much as he should be at end of games is he sometimes doesn't work hard enough to get open. I notice this, but I don't totally fault KAT either...when he's gassed lie he is, it's difficult to put in the effort to get open.

[thedoper]

I tend to think our fourth quarter woes are primarily on defense, but also not feeding our most productive, most talented, most efficient offensive player nearly enough when it counts. Jimmy Butler has the closer gene, and I'm fine with him asserting himself, but the go-to guy should be Karl-Anthony. Point blank, period.

PS: I'm tired of watching Andrew Wiggins take rushed, contested pull-up jumpers early in the shot clock down the stretch in close games, essentially throwing away possessions when they matter most.

Butler and Towns are both taking more 4th quarter shot attempts than Wiggins this year. Butler is really our biggest offensive problem in the 4th quarter so far. He is taking 4 shot attempts on 38% shooting and 25% from 3. Wiggins shooting has been a problem too, but I find this year he is playing much more within the system and getting tunnel vision to score at a lower rate than previous seasons. Towns continues to take rushed 3s in the 4th and is only hitting 27%. I agree generally that Towns needs to be more of a feature in the 4th. He should be taking the most shots, ideally starting action from the elbow as I see it. Towns has the most minutes in the 4th too as Thibs brings him in early. Hopefully Belly coming back can give Towns an extra minute of rest in the 4th.

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

KAT has not been a good clutch player this year. He's shooting 33/22 from the field and 3 in clutch time on 1.4 attempts. Wiggins is at 50/40 on 2 attempts and Butler 43 with no 3's made on 2.2 attempts. KAT also has 0 free throws attempted in the 13 games NBAdotcom has us playing that are considered having clutch time. If you want to get him involved with some kind of action sure, but just giving him the ball is not a good play right now. Wiggins historically hasn't been great so I wouldn't count on this trend to continue if he tries to play iso ball, but if he can do stuff like the LAC game where he got two easy baskets off cuts that is a good way for him to impact the game in the clutch.

Butler is here to be that guy. He was #3 to Russ and IT last year with 4.3 points on 45/36/95. Frankly KAT's offensive decision making isn't the greatest and his attitude that he needs to make the play leads to poor possessions when he's just given the ball and not put in any actual action. Also 26.7% is his highest 3pt percentage in his 3 years and that was his rookie year. He doesn't have the legs to hit those top of the key 3's at the end of games he loves to take. And he's not a good screen setter so we don't get much of an advantage throwing him in the PnR because he sets a shitty screen, fades to the top of the key and bricks the 3.

Given the propensity of refs to let the game play out there's a reason big men haven't traditionally been the closers in this league. They can get hammered and not get the call much easier than a wing or a guard and KAT already doesn't get a lot of calls to begin with. I would much rather we have Gibson set the screen to give the PnR a chance and the secondary option be setting a screen for KAT to get a cleaner look on the block.

[Wolvesfan21]

Thibs likes pouring coffee on himself.

[Monster]

Something to consider:

Dave Joeger a guy a lot of us really wanted to be the coach of this team going forward hasn't exactly been amazing with the Kings. Sure he is coaching the Kings but this season they take the fewest 3's AND are one of the bottom teams taking shots at the rim. They take a ton of jump shots that aren't 3's. He wanted some of his own guys too and they got them. How is that working out over there? One available coach that we could have hired that seems to be having some success now that he isn't saddled by ridiculousness of the triangle is Hornecek. Would he be the answer though? Fizdale is highly regarded and it seemed like he was really doing good things with Memphis last year but he butted heads with Gasol and the 2 guys supposedly were basically not talking for months and Fizdale got fired. That's at least concerning and I like Fizdale quite a bit.

The point here is that the saying "The grass is greener on the other side" often has some truth to it. There are absolutely legit reasons to be frustrated with Thibs particularly defensively but let's also remember dumping one guy and bringing in another guy isn't always going to yeild the results we want either. Let's legitimately give this thing with Thibs more time.

[Lipoli390]

Something to consider:

Dave Joeger a guy a lot of us really wanted to be the coach of this team going forward hasn't exactly been amazing with the Kings. Sure he is coaching the Kings but this season they take the fewest 3's AND are one of the bottom teams taking shots at the rim. They take a ton of jump shots that aren't 3's. He wanted some of his own guys too and they got them. How is that working out over there? One available coach that we could have hired that seems to be having some success now that he isn't saddled by ridiculousness of the triangle is Hornecek. Would he be the answer though? Fizdale is highly regarded and it seemed like he was really doing good things with Memphis last year but he butted heads with Gasol and the 2 guys supposedly were basically not talking for months and Fizdale got fired. That's at least concerning and I like Fizdale quite a bit.

The point here is that the saying "The grass is greener on the other side" often has some truth to it. There are absolutely legit reasons to be frustrated with Thibs particularly defensively but let's also remember dumping one guy and bringing in another guy isn't always going to yeild the results we want either. Let's legitimately give this thing with Thibs more time.

Good point about the grass not always being greener and the challenge in finding the right replacement. I was never a Joeger guy. And I've never been a Fizdale guy either. I've always liked Hornacek, who I see as someone in the mold of a Steve Kerr. I've always been a fan of Dever's Michael Malone.

In any event, it's not enough just to fire Thibs without hiring the right replacement. I haven't spent any time delving into that. At this point, I just want someone who runs a modern offense that includes something other than iso play after iso play. And I wasn't someone who instills confidence in the team and brings some positivity instead of the sour, dour attitude that Thibs exudes.

[thedoper]

Firing a winning coach with no controversy for aesthetics of play alone would be an unprecendented move, and completely illogical from any business perspective. There is absolutely zero reason to fire a coach who is delivering on their plan because some fans aren't entertained enough by the product. Winning is everything, we were one shot from winning another last night. Coach got them to the door, the players couldn't walk through.