Wolves get their wings Clippered GDT

[thedoper]

Wow, what a terrible victory if there is any such thing. The fact we had to play our starters that many minutes in a home game against a downward spiraling team just coming off a game yesterday.....oof.

- This is the first game, may be second, where I felt Butler really played like a top 10 NBA player. THIS is the guy we traded for.

- Did you guys see how twisted up KAT got defensively at times? I mean there was one time where I think he did a 360 in PnR coverage and literally had his back turned to the play for a while. Just bizarre.

- While the Wolves don't help themselves much defensively, I still think we get our unfair share of guys that just go off on us with practically a blindfold on. I mean nearly every 3 made against us was pretty well contested. Teams just looooove to shoot against us.

- It's hard to believe Teague had 10 assists. He must have more dribbles per assist than any other PG. It just feels he ends up so damn often in no man's land dribbling the ball away. It doesn't help that KAT sets awful picks on his guy....

- Tyus with some nice work off the bench.

- Wiggins with a forgettable game. That's too bad, as it he had strung two good games together in a row. He was terrible tonight.

- Shabazz appears to be out of the regular rotation for good.

I guess a win is a win, but it's hard to feel real confident in this team.

Good stuff Q

I thought Teague and the Wolves were pretty good in the first half. Guys were getting up and down the court and they were moving the ball in their way. Things bogged down at times in the 2nd even before Butler time. The good news? 7 TOS and like 3 of those were Towns offensive fouls. The Wolves tooks more FTs and 13 more shots. Again what drives me crazy is when someone sets a screen when a perimeter player has a big on them. Why?!? Can someone please explain this? I noticed that guys weren't getting. Up and down like they were at one point in the 4th. It worked out fine as they did a good job of letting Butler operate and he got to his spots and often the spacing was pretty good. A couple times they did well setting screens to get Jordon switched onto Butler. They did it a littler earlier innthe clock to give him more time. The execution was much better but I am sure it being against guys from the Clippers G-league squad helps.

I'll be interested to see where he ranks in RPM after this but Butler has moved up to like 27th in the league before this game. He is really finding his game and it's so wonderful. He still seems to have some questionable defensive possessions.

Butler plays in control with command for the game. It's poise. I have to say I notice it with Gibson and Teague too. They are decisive players who read the floor rather than just trying to make something happen with skill. We lose this game and others like it last year, which is why I'll never complain about a loss.

Mmmm, I would not call Teague decisive, at least not this version of him with the Wolves. Overall I think he offers more good than bad, but he ends up over-dribbling on a lot of possessions. I think part of that is on his team mates and coach though (bad screens, Thib's obsession with finding mis-matches versus running motion sets, etc.).

5th ranked offense with an indecisive pg... hmmmm. Head scratcher for me. That over dribbling seems to be working marvellously.

5th ranked offense large because they rebound a high percentage of their own misses. We are middle of the pack when it comes to actually making baskets efficiently.

Like I said, I think Teague does more good than harm, but it's very rare I find myself marveling at our offensive execution.

Largely because we share and take care of the ball too. 4th in assist/to ratio. Can't do that without poise and decisiveness from your floor leader. I'll take effective and ugly over beautiful any day.

[AbeVigodaLive]

I could not believe how bad Smilin' Wes Johnson was tonight. He's an 8-year veteran for chrissakes. He's a fringe starter for bad teams statistically (usually).

He shot 1 - 10 fg ... but it was actually worse than that. Airballs. Shots that missed by 2 or 3 feet. He literally threw a bounce pass about 18 inches out of bounds on the baseline. I can't remember an NBA player looking that badly in a long time.


[Note: I'm not only writing this to gloat about me calling him a bust on draft night all those years ago... my reasoning was "Name another guy worthy of a #4 pick who never averaged 17 ppg in college... or high school."]

[Lipoli390]

Just want to point out its been 24 games. I need to be talked off the ledge apparently. Give me something that has been improved on this team. Tell me what kat has improved at since his rookie season. If they wanted to be making strides you would see it. Where is this so called improvement?

I understand your frustration. You'll see my level of frustration if you read my game report from tonight's game. But are some positives.

First, the team has definitely improved as evidenced by our 14-10 record. I think we won our 14th game sometime in January last season. Adding Butler and Gibson has definitely improved this team.

Second, Tyus Jones has proven himself to be a legitimate NBA PG -- at least a very good backup and possible a solid starter. He's a much better defender than most of us thought and he's actually quicker than he looked previously.

Third, KAT's boneheaded defensive lapses shouldn't blind us to the contributions he makes consistently or to his improvement from his rookie season. In fact, he took a huge leap in nearly every statistical category from his 1st to his second season -- from 18 points to 25, from 10.5 boards to 12.3, from 2 assists to 2.7 from 34% three-point shooting on 1.1 attempts to 36.7% on 3.4 attempts and from 81% on 3.4 attempts to 83% on 5.2 attempts from the free-throw line. So far through 24 games his scoring has dropped to 20.5 PPG and his rebounding has dropped slightly to 11.6. Meanwhile, his 3-point shooting is about where it was last season and his free throw percentage has actually improved to nearly 87%. I think his scoring average has dropped because we've added two major scorers in Butler and Teague, so that shouldn't be a concern. My problem is that his defense doesn't appear to have improved from last season and that's frustrating. But he otherwise contributes in multiple categories -- scoring and rebounding and his rebounding is always there game to game. He has shown marked improvement in many areas since his rookie season. His small statistical dips this season compared to last haven't taken him back to where he was his rookie season. And when you watch him game after game, especially live, the effort and passion are always there. The continuing one-dimensional nature of Wiggins's game and his lack of improvement from his rookie season is what we should be concerned about, but that's another discussion.

So overall, there are some things to be positive about. And while it's frustrating to see Towns make the same boneheaded mistakes defensively, I think some the hysteria surrounding Towns on this Board needs to be tempered with more perspective.