Minnesota Sports Forum

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1. Over the final 22 minutes... Philadelphia had 25 points and 13 TOs. That is a bad basketball team. They were horrific in the 2nd half. Yuck.

2. TJ McConnell outplayed Ricky Rubio and Kris Dunn. Philadelphia doesn't have a backup PG right now. Sauce Castillo is the de facto backup PG. Yuck.

3. Check out this sequence in the worst stretch of NBA basketball I've seen in 30 years.
8:22 - Philly missed jump shot.
- MN TO
- Philly TO
- MN missed shot
- Philly TO
- MN TO
- Philly TO
- MN missed shot
- MN TO
- Philly TO
- MN TO
- Philly missed shot. Missed another shot.
6:26 - MN misses layup

I'm not joking. http://www.espn.com/nba/playbyplay?gameId=400899421

4. Last game, Towns was 3 - 15 fg. This game, Wiggins was 2 - 15 fg. The Wolves need all 3 of its Big 3 offensively to win a game... even against the worst teams.

5. You could tell it was a meaningless game between two terrible teams. The officials were just as terrible.

6. MN is now 11 - 24... only ahead of Philly (9 - 24) and Brooklyn (8 - 25).

7. There is nothing redeemable about that game. Don't let anybody tell you differently.

longstrangetrip wrote:

KiwiMatt wrote:Didn't see the game but caught highlights of last two plays. Rubio gets that look every time and I have faith in him making it. Should be used more often. Last play was a combination of our usual woeful defence as well as a great offensive play by Philly.

Exactly, Kiwi...that's why the constant discussion of the Wolves playing 4 on 5 is such a non-starter for me. Ricky doesn't look for his shot throughout the game (only took 3 tonight and made 2) because he is a gifted passer and 3 of the other 4 starters are already gifted scorers (and much better scorers than they were in college, thanks to Ricky)...and the resulting 104 PPG tells me that our offense is not the problem, and that this 4 on 5 discussion is overrated. But there will be times when teams will double one of our scorers and leave Ricky alone at the end of the game, and as Q pointed out in another thread, he appears to have considerably more ice water in his veins than our youngster. I'll let him take that wide open shot with the game on the line any day, and feel confident that he has as good a chance of scoring as anyone...it's interesting that he proved Q's assertion on the very day he made it!

In bold... there are no words. No words. I'm at a complete loss in even how to respond...

I have this fear. The fear is this, soon respected posters are going to start threads talking about ping pong balls, and I'm not going to be able to blame them one bit. Didn't think it was possible this year. This is our team, this is reality.

Another game where a member of the Big 3 doesn't show up and another loss. Just can't keep needing all 3 21 year olds to play well every game to win games. There's no reason Wiggins should be taking so many shots if he's that cold. Someone else needs to step up on this team and it has to be Dieng or Ricky because Thibs doesn't play the bench enough for the guy to come from there.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:I have this fear. The fear is this, soon respected posters are going to start threads talking about ping pong balls, and I'm not going to be able to blame them one bit. Didn't think it was possible this year. This is our team, this is reality.

A very ugly reality indeed, Cool!

lipoli390 wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:I have this fear. The fear is this, soon respected posters are going to start threads talking about ping pong balls, and I'm not going to be able to blame them one bit. Didn't think it was possible this year. This is our team, this is reality.

A very ugly reality indeed, Cool!

That's about all we have to look forward this season and maybe before year end, we can get some Fire Thibs threads going too.. I know I'm one of the early Thibs skeptics but I expect if we see the underperformance continue over the course of the year, others will slowly join in. I'd rather celebrate winning, but if we lose, I'm ready to celebrate that too :) That's life of a Minnesota sports fan.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

longstrangetrip wrote:

KiwiMatt wrote:Didn't see the game but caught highlights of last two plays. Rubio gets that look every time and I have faith in him making it. Should be used more often. Last play was a combination of our usual woeful defence as well as a great offensive play by Philly.

Exactly, Kiwi...that's why the constant discussion of the Wolves playing 4 on 5 is such a non-starter for me. Ricky doesn't look for his shot throughout the game (only took 3 tonight and made 2) because he is a gifted passer and 3 of the other 4 starters are already gifted scorers (and much better scorers than they were in college, thanks to Ricky)...and the resulting 104 PPG tells me that our offense is not the problem, and that this 4 on 5 discussion is overrated. But there will be times when teams will double one of our scorers and leave Ricky alone at the end of the game, and as Q pointed out in another thread, he appears to have considerably more ice water in his veins than our youngster. I'll let him take that wide open shot with the game on the line any day, and feel confident that he has as good a chance of scoring as anyone...it's interesting that he proved Q's assertion on the very day he made it!

In bold... there are no words. No words. I'm at a complete loss in even how to respond...

Has to be a tongue in cheek comment, just has too.

PorkChop wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

longstrangetrip wrote:

KiwiMatt wrote:Didn't see the game but caught highlights of last two plays. Rubio gets that look every time and I have faith in him making it. Should be used more often. Last play was a combination of our usual woeful defence as well as a great offensive play by Philly.

Exactly, Kiwi...that's why the constant discussion of the Wolves playing 4 on 5 is such a non-starter for me. Ricky doesn't look for his shot throughout the game (only took 3 tonight and made 2) because he is a gifted passer and 3 of the other 4 starters are already gifted scorers (and much better scorers than they were in college, thanks to Ricky)...and the resulting 104 PPG tells me that our offense is not the problem, and that this 4 on 5 discussion is overrated. But there will be times when teams will double one of our scorers and leave Ricky alone at the end of the game, and as Q pointed out in another thread, he appears to have considerably more ice water in his veins than our youngster. I'll let him take that wide open shot with the game on the line any day, and feel confident that he has as good a chance of scoring as anyone...it's interesting that he proved Q's assertion on the very day he made it!

In bold... there are no words. No words. I'm at a complete loss in even how to respond...

Has to be a tongue in cheek comment, just has too.

Actually not tongue-in-cheek at all...I'm sure you guys read Q's post about Ricky's ability to make a big shot at the end of the game, and I don't disagree at all. Ricky is a terrible shooter when the game isn't on the line...there's no other way to spin it. But over the course of his career, he has made as many big shots to either tie or win games in the final seconds as the ENTIRE rest of our starting lineup! Jim Peterson has talked about this...he says Ricky thinks too much during the course of the game and it affects his shooting and he either misses or passes up an open shot. But with time running down and unguarded, and having no other option than to shoot, he has been as reliable as any other Timberwolf. If you guys want to provide specific examples to prove me wrong, I would be happy to listen to them.

khans2k5 wrote:Another game where a member of the Big 3 doesn't show up and another loss. Just can't keep needing all 3 21 year olds to play well every game to win games. There's no reason Wiggins should be taking so many shots if he's that cold. Someone else needs to step up on this team and it has to be Dieng or Ricky because Thibs doesn't play the bench enough for the guy to come from there.

It's by design Khans - we live or die by our "big three".

I think the "thanks to Ricky" comment is absurd and disrespectful to three of our players, but at this point I just don't know what to say anymore.