Minnesota Sports Forum

Robbie Fucking Hummel!!

Ricky's first 20 point game of the year. Had seven assists too, but should have been more like 12.

What a collective effort. Our big three was fantastic. Robbie just proved why he's got some value and scored 10 big ones in the 4th. Rubio's playing like the guy we all want him to be tonight and last night. Pek's showing why I fucking love the guy. Love ended up with the stat line of the night. Good come from behind win.

The Wolves did what good teams do...took care of business at home against an inferior team. How many times have we been on the other side of that equation? In OKC last week, the Thunder toyed with us for three quarters before turning on the jets, and blew us out in the 4th quarter. We came out flat (another thing good teams do against an inferior team) but played well enough to win.

Familiar stat line in that we absolutely crushed our opponent in total shots and free throws but lost the eFG% battle, as usual. Luckily we were so dominant with all the extra possessions and free throws, it didn't matter.

If this team even gets just a little bit better at defending shooters and making a higher percentage of its own shots, we'll be tough to beat...by anyone. Until then, I expect us to struggle with teams that take care of the basketball and avoid putting us at the line.

Q12543 wrote:Familiar stat line in that we absolutely crushed our opponent in total shots and free throws but lost the eFG% battle, as usual. Luckily we were so dominant with all the extra possessions and free throws, it didn't matter.

If this team even gets just a little bit better at defending shooters and making a higher percentage of its own shots, we'll be tough to beat...by anyone. Until then, I expect us to struggle with teams that take care of the basketball and avoid putting us at the line.

Yep, something about this team on the back end of BTBs...just kills our shooting percentage. Last night and tonight will only enlarge the chasm between our eFG% with and without rest.

It's incredible the kind of free throw differential we are creating with our opponents. I've never seen a team so adept at drawing fouls. It's a huge advantage for us.

LST, the free throw differential isn't just about us drawing fouls at a high rate - we don't give them out either. We give out the second fewest PFs in the league. Sometimes I wonder if that is correlated with our poor defensive eFG%. Teams NEVER get flattened when they drive to the hoop against us. The lack of defensive intimidation by Love and Pek force people to beat us with FGAs instead of FTAs. But it seems like there needs to be a balance there. If we fouled a few guys harder occasionally, would that force more misses later down the line?

Q12543 wrote:LST, the free throw differential isn't just about us drawing fouls at a high rate - we don't give them out either. We give out the second fewest PFs in the league. Sometimes I wonder if that is correlated with our poor defensive eFG%. Teams NEVER get flattened when they drive to the hoop against us. The lack of defensive intimidation by Love and Pek force people to beat us with FGAs instead of FTAs. But it seems like there needs to be a balance there. If we fouled a few guys harder occasionally, would that force more misses later down the line?

If they'd just send the message a couple times with a hard foul on a guy in the paint it would do so much more for the team than just letting them score. Guys would think twice about coming into the paint and/or affect the way they shoot a layup. I've always thought "no layups allowed" was about playing both good defense and fouling hard if you get beat. We do neither sometimes.

Philadelphia is a bad basketball team. So many careless turnovers. Just throwing the ball in from under their own basket proved challenging multiple times.

But a win is a win. Nobody will remember how awful that 1st half was. Only that the team got a win. A couple of notes:

- Cunningham made his first free throw after 420+ minutes. That's pathetic and embarrassing. Even Trenton Hassell is laughing at Cunningham.

- Kevin Love can pass. I know the stats reveal the improvement. But, so does the eye test. I'm very impressed with the improvement. He's one of the game's best rebounders. He can score. And now he can beat teams with his passing.