Wolves v Clippers preseason GDT

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Fun game. Gonna watch end of Dodger game. Have good night Cam and Kek if your still up.

Right back at you! You pulling for the Dodgers or Giants?

[kekgeek]

I missed the 1st Q. But the wolves just destroyed the short handed Clippers as they should. I will say I am predicting the Clippers will not make the playoffs.

Liked what I saw from everyone tonight outside of Beasley and I am not worried about Beasley because he will play himself into shape and he is dedicated to his craft. Not worried.

Im getting excited for this team. Also the Wolves played defense tonight without Okogie or Beverly playing.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

I missed the 1st Q. But the wolves just destroyed the short handed Clippers as they should. I will say I am predicting the Clippers will not make the playoffs.

Liked what I saw from everyone tonight outside of Beasley and I am not worried about Beasley because he will play himself into shape and he is dedicated to his craft. Not worried.

Im getting excited for this team. Also the Wolves played defense tonight without Okogie or Beverly playing.

I'm a little worried about Beasley, but nothing too serious. He looks a step slower than last year on both ends of the court and his role on the team has changed. Minnesota needs his shot to fall because if he's not putting the ball in the hole when his number's called then he just isn't helping the team anywhere else. Not to mention, Jaylen Nowell is coming on strong. He looks hungry this preseason. It's Beasley's job to lose, obviously, but he better figure it out quick is all I'm saying.

Also, good on Jade McDaniels for showing up tonight. Another game like the first two would have made me very uneasy. He was much more dialed in this evening.

D'Angelo Russell and Karl-Anthony Towns overwhelmed an inferior opponent. That's what they're paid to do. Job well done. Not much else you can say there.

To anyone that missed this game, I'd say it's worth watching if you can. The starters were done midway through the third and the reserves showed some reasons to be optimistic about their future.

[Phenom]

I really like the aggressiveness of the offense as a whole. Basically every player is attacking and the off ball movement is great. It's been awhile since the Wolves had an offense that makes the other team work on defense. The defense continues to be aggressive and play smart overall. I'm very much looking forward to getting the regular season going and see this team stack up against the best lineups.

[Leado01]

All very good. All did there job.

Concerns to address:

Bolmaro burned x3 on back cuts. They must not do that in Europe. Otherwise loved his game.

Beasley needs to get up to speed. That's been covered.

KAT still not showing hard on several PnR...point of emphasis in training camp and Naz did show hard. Is it effort?

Dlo and his loose passes. He's so damn good and so damn capable. Clean up the little things Dlo.

Agreed that ANT seems to be massively improved on defense.

Vanderbilt is a force of nature as a pest

[Coolbreeze44]

Really liked the pace we played at. I don't remember seeing this much energy out of the entire team in a long time. Fun to watch but realize these games mean very little.

[SameOldNudityDrew]

All very good. All did there job.

Concerns to address:

Bolmaro burned x3 on back cuts. They must not do that in Europe. Otherwise loved his game.

Beasley needs to get up to speed. That's been covered.

KAT still not showing hard on several PnR...point of emphasis in training camp and Naz did show hard. Is it effort?

Dlo and his loose passes. He's so damn good and so damn capable. Clean up the little things Dlo.

Agreed that ANT seems to be massively improved on defense.

Vanderbilt is a force of nature as a pest

Just watched the full game and I was thinking some of these same things, leado.

Bolmaro-I was watching him closely. Wish they'd have gotten him in earlier in the game, but Finch is clearly trying out various lineups, which is smart overall. Twice he dribbled from the perimeter into a midrange jumper from the left corner of the box. It's probably a shot that could be there for him because defenses prioritize the perimeter and the rim, and because his handle is good enough to get to that spot, especially off a pick. He missed the first and hit the second. The shots themselves didn't exactly look smooth. The transition from dribble to shot was abrupt and mechanical, a bit like Westbrook. I noticed those 3 backdoor cuts he missed too. Overall defensively, he was paying too much attention to the rest of the floor and not enough to his man in the corner or on the baseline. Obviously, he needs to fix that, but the fact that he was pretty attentively paying attention to the rest of the floor is a good sign. It's a quality you see in good off-ball defenders. And obviously, he's clearly making a strong effort on D, which sadly, not all guys do. I also noticed that on one of those plays, I think it was the first cut by Coffey on the baseline, he did get make a quick, athletic move to get his hand in to pressure the shot a bit. Good defenders need quickness and athleticism. He displayed that with the nice, clean strip he made to stop a fast break. Scrapped for a rebound on the floor. Slid his feed defensively pretty well. Made a couple passes to potential assists off the dribble. Hit a corner 3. Good signs. If he can avoid getting burned on baseline cuts, I think his defense could be solid enough that Finch could put him out there and explore how he can be used most efficiently on offense.

Vanderbilt-Vando's playing defense with the energy of a guy fighting for his life. It's awesome. He was sliding his feet quickly, sticking to his man, and hounding ballhandlers. I really noticed it on the perimeter tonight. That's good. Like Bolmaro, he's not a fluid athlete, and obviously that's going to lead to fouls. In an end-of-game situation, you'd rather have McDaniels or Okogie guarding a scoring threat with the ball on the perimeter. But knowing that he can step out there and competently guard on the perimeter gives the team defensive flexibility on the floor, which also gives the coach lineup flexibility. He was also picking up guys at half court or earlier, and I feel like I've seen him now 2 or 3 times force the turnover right after the opponents had brought the ball up into the half court, then break away for the easy fast-break dunk. Plus, that defensive energy is contagious. Vando. Josh. Pat Bev. All those guys bring it. Bolmaro looks like he might too.

Ant-Ant has definitely been more engaged defensively in the preseason than he was last season. And that has shown us flashes of what he's capable of on that end of the court. He's used his size and strength to defend bigger guys. That's key because of defensive and lineup flexibility. He's been engaged, even aggressive, as an on-ball defender, without making too many mistakes. I mean, if he can do this regularly, it will improve the team way more than another offensive step forward. Including last night, I've seen him use his size and strength to force his way over the pick before it gets completely set, avoiding the foul while neutralizing the pick. Given how much teams use picks and how often Ant is guarding a perimeter player, that would be huge if he could start to break over those picks more regularly. We've known he's got the physical tools to do defensive stuff like that, but actually seeing him doing it is awesome. His defensive potential was almost always just that--potential. Based on his size and athleticism, you knew it was possible, but he's never really done it consistently. I still want to see more consistent attentiveness and good decision-making off the ball defensively, but if Ant can play defense like this throughout the year, that will really be huge for us. Imagine if he turns into a legit two-way player.

Overall
I'm not too worried about our offense. But our defense definitely has to be better. And as a lot of us here have been noticing, there are some good signs. Pat Bev is going to help. Okogie and McDaniels are stout, and McDaniels is getting better. Vando looks rejuvenated and was already good on that end. Ant looks to be buying in. You want to see KAT and DLO play better on that end, but it seems like they are trying a bit harder, anyway. KAT will obviously be the key there. Still, signs are looking good for a potential defensive turnaround.

[FNG]

My DVR didn't record the game, dammit- technical issues- so I'm relying on box score and twitter only.

Ok, I understand that the Clippers were playing their bench only- their top 6 scorers from last year didn't play. But still, other than Beasley, it looks like our Wolves played practically a perfect game after the first quarter (101-70 after the first quarter). The things I was looking for and didn't get in the Nuggets game (a bounceback game from Jaden, another stellar outing from DLo, and better rebounding) all happened in this game. Great to see!

I did see video of Naz from last night, and it's not too difficult to get excited about his progress. Nice to hear Finch say he has to find more minutes for KAT and Naz together, although we do have to be concerned about our lack of size when both are out of the game.

So I don't know how to evaluate this team right now. We're 3-0, but two of our games were against reserves and we got blown out by Denver's starters in the third game. Maybe Brooklyn plays Harden and Durant (and others) in our final preseason game, and we can learn more about this team. Until then, I'm just going to enjoy last night's blowout.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Missed this one, but glad to see everything was clicking.

In my mind, this franchise is in such a hole that there are no such things as meaningless games. They need to compete hard and win every chance they get to help rid themselves of an entrenched culture of shoddy defense and losing basketball. This dates back to the final third of last season where I fully supported their anti-tanking strategy and they ended the year on somewhat of a high note (at least compared to how things started), playing very competitive basketball. Then you have the summer league where they went 4-1, led largely by their team defense. Now you have pre-season where the team is 3-0 and again we're seeing great defensive effort.

Bottom line....I'm hoping the recent success these guys have breeds confidence and a mentality that thirsts for more of the same, thus becoming a self-perpetuating phenomena that carries over into the regular season.

[Lipoli390]

I went to bed after the first half and plan to watch the second half on DVR sometime soon.

Just one comment on McDaniels. He looked terrific in the first half and his box score looks really good as well. My comment is that this there seems to be an impression that he was bad in both of the Wolves first two preseason games. I re-watched the Denver game over the weekend and I thought McDaniels looked good in that game, especially on the defensive end. His first game was an aberration as he was biting on fakes and uncharacteristically committing fouls. In the Denver game he was back to his old self defensively, displaying great discipline and a high defensive IQ. His shot still wasn't falling that game the way we want it to. But last night, his shooting looked terrific. I liked the one play in the first half when he rebounded the ball, took it to the other end and scored with a floater in the paint. He showed great body control. Of course, his corner three remains the most important part of his offensive arsenal for the Wolves this season and that looked really good last night.