Minnesota Sports Forum

FNG wrote: ↑Sun Mar 15, 2026 8:13 am

Phenom wrote: ↑Sat Mar 14, 2026 9:26 pm

AussieWolf3 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 14, 2026 8:11 pm What's the optimal outcome for the wolves from Den vs LAL?

I think a Lakers win is higher upside for the Wolves. Lakers have a much tougher schedule than Denver does the rest of the way.

Lakers win in OT. I had them winning in my wins forecast, but I would have preferred a Denver win and a klunker for the Lakers. I have us finishing 3 wins behind the Nuggets and tied with the Lakers (but losing the tiebreaker leaving us in 6th), so a Lakers klunker would have moved us ahead of them to 5th. 2 of our final 15 games are against the Rockets, and I have us splitting those two games, leaving us 1 game behind them in the standings. But a sweep could move us up to 4th. Still a long ways to go, but with all the tanking teams, I'm finding very few klunkers compared to other years...making my forecast more accurate than last year.

Now, if the Wolves could upset the Thunder today...

I watched only the final 3 minutes (and most of OT) of that game. But Jamal Murray... YIKES.

1 - 14 fgs
fouled out

But it went beyond that. There were two plays in that final three minutes where Jamal Murray looked scared. He had a wide open 10-foot baseline jumper... only he didn't take the gimme. Instead he passed it to a teammate who missed a three.

Then, as the Lakers were looking to foul... the career 88% foul shooter gave the ball up to Aaron Gordon (career 70%) so he could take the free throws instead. He missed one of them.

I know he was HUGE in winning a title. But I still wouldn't completely trust this guy in big games and moments. He was abysmal in that game -- Kevin Ollie bad.

Seems like the Lakers are doing what we all hoped the Twolves would do- come together down the stretch and ball their best ball.

The Nets had 24 points at halftime last night...twenty four. Has the NBA product ever been worse than it is right now? And they're talking about adding 2 more teams to further weaken the product.

Cade Cunningham out indefinitely with a collapsed lung. 2 of our final 12 games are against the Pistons, and it doesn't hurt our chances to have 25 points and 10 assists on the bench.

Conventional wisdom says the West is much stronger than the East, and it certainly has been for a few seasons. But when I noticed that the bottom play in team in the East has a winning record while 3 West play in teams have losing records, I wondered if that conventional wisdom is still true. It turns out that the conferences are almost dead even this season...only a 10 win difference. That was surprising to me, but I guess it's a good thing that parity between the conferences has returned.

AussieWolf3 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 17, 2026 8:35 am Seems like the Lakers are doing what we all hoped the Twolves would do- come together down the stretch and ball their best ball.

They are also all healthy. Reaves is a really good #2 to Doncic and LeBron is a really good #3. Smart has helped shore up their otherwise leaky defense to an acceptable level while their offense is cookin'. It's annoying I know, but they are legit pretty good when everyone is healthy.

FNG wrote: ↑Thu Mar 19, 2026 9:30 am The Nets had 24 points at halftime last night...twenty four. Has the NBA product ever been worse than it is right now? And they're talking about adding 2 more teams to further weaken the product.

Cade Cunningham out indefinitely with a collapsed lung. 2 of our final 12 games are against the Pistons, and it doesn't hurt our chances to have 25 points and 10 assists on the bench.

The solution would be to reduce the games....by a lot. Every other major professional basketball league in the world plays far fewer games than the NBA. It would increase the stakes of each game and "schedule losses" would go away.

Of course this will never happen, so I suspect the NBA will keep experimenting with things, like the in-season tournament, to incentivize competitive play. But with the 3-point pace and space era, players are covering more ground than ever before in terms of miles ran, so teams will either rest guys or they will do it themselves in games where they simply don't try as hard.

Cade Cunningham is out with a collapsed lung, potentially for both matchups with the Wolves. That has double potential consequences for the Wolves.

Q-is-here wrote: ↑Thu Mar 19, 2026 10:09 am

FNG wrote: ↑Thu Mar 19, 2026 9:30 am The Nets had 24 points at halftime last night...twenty four. Has the NBA product ever been worse than it is right now? And they're talking about adding 2 more teams to further weaken the product.

Cade Cunningham out indefinitely with a collapsed lung. 2 of our final 12 games are against the Pistons, and it doesn't hurt our chances to have 25 points and 10 assists on the bench.

The solution would be to reduce the games....by a lot. Every other major professional basketball league in the world plays far fewer games than the NBA. It would increase the stakes of each game and "schedule losses" would go away.

Of course this will never happen, so I suspect the NBA will keep experimenting with things, like the in-season tournament, to incentivize competitive play. But with the 3-point pace and space era, players are covering more ground than ever before in terms of miles ran, so teams will either rest guys or they will do it themselves in games where they simply don't try as hard.

FNG...

What do you mean when you say "the NBA product has never been worse?"

AussieWolf3 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 17, 2026 8:35 am Seems like the Lakers are doing what we all hoped the Twolves would do- come together down the stretch and ball their best ball.

They did that last year as well, and we mopped the floor with them in the playoffs after all of the Lakers in 5 nonsense.

AbeVigodaLive wrote: ↑Thu Mar 19, 2026 3:12 pm

Q-is-here wrote: ↑Thu Mar 19, 2026 10:09 am

FNG wrote: ↑Thu Mar 19, 2026 9:30 am The Nets had 24 points at halftime last night...twenty four. Has the NBA product ever been worse than it is right now? And they're talking about adding 2 more teams to further weaken the product.

Cade Cunningham out indefinitely with a collapsed lung. 2 of our final 12 games are against the Pistons, and it doesn't hurt our chances to have 25 points and 10 assists on the bench.

The solution would be to reduce the games....by a lot. Every other major professional basketball league in the world plays far fewer games than the NBA. It would increase the stakes of each game and "schedule losses" would go away.

Of course this will never happen, so I suspect the NBA will keep experimenting with things, like the in-season tournament, to incentivize competitive play. But with the 3-point pace and space era, players are covering more ground than ever before in terms of miles ran, so teams will either rest guys or they will do it themselves in games where they simply don't try as hard.

FNG...

What do you mean when you say "the NBA product has never been worse?"

I know tanking has always been an issue, but I can't recall a season where so many teams have no interest in winning basketball games. I was thinking about going to the Utah game last night, but I decided it wasn't going to be a real NBA game. I sort of watched the first three quarters of the game, but I wasn't really watching very closely. So many of the "injuries" seem phony to me. And now we hear Giannis wants to play, but the Bucks aren't going to let him. I don't know...something needs to be done.