Minnesota Sports Forum

lipoli390 wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:Taj Gibson with some pretty strong comments on the bench: "They need more time to get a rhythm. Sometimes, they don't really get the minutes that they deserve. Sometimes, when they mess up, they may just get snatched right out." Via jon K


It is the great debate.

Very interesting, Geek. Thanks for posting this.

Ya it is interesting.

Taj is probably tired. This will be by far the most minutes of his career. Here is the thing though is the bench playing well because they are not getting minutes or are they not getting minutes because they are not playing.

The 1st half tonight the bench was terrible. The 2nd half Crawford played a lot better and got massive run. Tyus for extended 4th quarter run and Gorgui for more 4th quarter run.

It is a coaching philosophy question

Late-night DVR summary:

- I feel like I say this a lot... "well, a win is a win. Ugliness doesn't matter." And maybe that's just how it is on winning teams. This one was ugly for 3 quarters, even embarrassing at times. But they pulled away when necessary. Good.

- REPEAT ALERT: Towns took 9 shots. Tied for 5th most on the team. That's the 7th time in the last 14 games. KAT had taken fewer than 10 shots in only 5 out of the previous 159 games.

That's not sustainable in many ways, including maintaining a happy, content Superstar or the current dynamic with Jimmy Butler.

KAT touched the ball ONCE in the final 5:59 of the game. He shot. And scored. That was his ONLY TOUCH!

- Crawford has made a career out of winning games via energy/scoring off the bench. Last night was one of them.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Late-night DVR summary:

- I feel like I say this a lot... "well, a win is a win. Ugliness doesn't matter." And maybe that's just how it is on winning teams. This one was ugly for 3 quarters, even embarrassing at times. But they pulled away when necessary. Good.

- REPEAT ALERT: Towns took 9 shots. Tied for 5th most on the team. That's the 7th time in the last 14 games. KAT had taken fewer than 10 shots in only 5 out of the previous 159 games.

That's not sustainable in many ways, including maintaining a happy, content Superstar or the current dynamic with Jimmy Butler.

KAT touched the ball ONCE in the final 5:59 of the game. He shot. And scored. That was his ONLY TOUCH!

- Crawford has made a career out of winning games via energy/scoring off the bench. Last night was one of them.

With no Wolves action during the allstar break, I'm looking back at some of the more recent threads. I agree with you, Abe, that KAT's absurdly small number of shots by KAT isn't sustainable. Teague and Butler repeatedly fail to pass the ball to KAT when he has a great look behind the arc, instead dribbling into traffic and putting up contested twos. KAT is by far our best 3-point shooter as well as our best low post scorer. He's also a tremendous free-throw shooter. He should touch the ball on just about every possession and his teammates should look to him as a main scoring option, especially down the stretch because he's an accurate shooter, can score in different ways and is reliable at the free throw line.

When tyus plays, does he feed Kat more than Teague?

BizarroJerry wrote:When tyus plays, does he feed Kat more than Teague?

Yes. Teague has tunnel vision. He's simply not a good PG in the sense of someone who runs the offense, sees the floor and excels at setting up his teammates. Interestingly, you often see Tyus talking to his teammates and waving them around when he has the ball in his hands in the half court. You never see Teague doing that. I'm not saying that Tyus is a better player than Teague overall. Teague is clearly the better shooter and scorer. And it's not as if Teague is entirely devoid of passing skills. But from what I've seen, Tyus is much better at running the offense. Tyus is also a better defender.

lipoli390 wrote:

BizarroJerry wrote:When tyus plays, does he feed Kat more than Teague?

Yes. Teague has tunnel vision. He's simply not a good PG in the sense of someone who runs the offense, sees the floor and excels at setting up his teammates. Interestingly, you often see Tyus talking to his teammates and waving them around when he has the ball in his hands in the half court. You never see Teague doing that. I'm not saying that Tyus is a better player than Teague overall. Teague is clearly the better shooter and scorer. And it's not as if Teague is entirely devoid of passing skills. But from what I've seen, Tyus is much better at running the offense. Tyus is also a better defender.

I wouldn't be so sure that Tyus feeds Towns more when he plays with him. Tyus has a 12% usage (about the same as a bench player) and averaged 5 assists a game as a starter. There is probably some stats out there that say who passes the ball to who that could settle this but until then I'll be a bit skeptical Towns gets fed more by Tyus specifically.