Minnesota Sports Forum

sjm34 wrote:Looking at the box score shooting percentages and rebs, I would have guessed we lost by 40!

Not going to get to worked up over the first game of the Pre Season. Going to take time to get comfortable with the new D. Sounds like Bjelica and Towns looked pretty good out there. :)

When Durant, Westbrook, and Ibaka were in the game, it wasn't even really competitive. However, our bench outplayed their bench for the most part.

Shooting runs hot and cold, so it's tough to get too up or down on any individual performance from the field. I think the gut punch for me was giving up 42 points in the 1st quarter on 80% shooting. That left a pretty bad first impression about our defense!

When you have Jones starting at PG and LaVine and Wiggins having off nights we are going to get crushed and did. It is preseason though I have not hit the panic button yet. (hand has been hovering over it though)

I really like that Towns and Bjelica had good games. I hope Bjelica starts being the sub in for KG shortly. It sounds like it is all about defense for him.

Lip Prince did have a dental procedure so that could be a reason why he wasn't up for much of anything including talking. Just sayin

He looks pretty good in these highlights from last night.

@alexraskovic: Nemanja @Bjelica88's NBA debut: 11 points, 5 rebounds and 2 assists vs OKC Thunder. @Wasserman #TeamWass
https://t.co/IqfssDtVsO

Camden wrote:Let's be honest here. Both KG and Andre Miller looked bad tonight. Why? They're 39-years old and it's a pre-season game. Richard Jefferson got interviewed tonight before the Cavs game. He mentioned how it's harder for the older guys to get hyped for an exhibition game; one that means nothing in the standings. I think that's one answer for KG and Miller's poor play. You could also argue that they're 39-years old and shouldn't be rotation players at this stage in their careers, but I'll give it a little time before really dropping down the hammer.

On another note, Towns and Bjelica looked great. Go figure.

Pretty much what I was thinking. Those guys haven't played for 20 or so years without knowing when to pace themselves.

Q12543 wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:The Minnesota Timberwolve Knee-Jerk reaction board. You guys are funny.

Interesting. If Zach had dropped 35 points last night I wonder how you would have reacted.

People always react right after games. That's what people do.

I would have been happy to see it, but I wouldn't have said the pencil has been changed to a pen. Or really made any judgments based off 1 preseason game. That's not what I do.

This will a good, young 3 and D team, maybe not this year, but we should see good progress. Towns can hit from outside and open up the paint, and with our good passers, we should get some easy dunks as well.

And we need some easy fast break dunks this year to stay in games, and wear down defenses. I hope that plays out this year under Sam and a healthy Ricky.

I wish I could have seen this game, but lots of things to talk about based on the box score.

1) Outrebounded 45-27...ouch! You aren't going to win many games getting outrebounded like that.

2) Great to see 36 points from our 2 centers on 14-24 shooting. Towns looked good in the scrimmage also, so that's two good games in a row. Gorgui also had 3 assists, and Karl had 2 blocks.

3) I like Brown's defense too, but I'm guessing he was matched up against Cameron Payne and DJ Augustin while Tyus was on Westbrook...big difference. Tyus didn't score, but he had 4 assists against 2 turnovers while Lorenzo had only 1 assist against 3 turnovers.

4) A lot of comments about how bad Andre Miller looked, but he made both of his shots and went 4-2-2 with only 1 TO in 9 minutes. Isn't that about what we want from our backup PG? Andre Miller has looked bad for 20 years, but somehow continues to put up efficient stats.

5) Wiggins, LaVine and Muhammad were only 6 for 28. Along with Towns, they represent our future, so it was disappointing to see them start out the pre-season like that. I want to see at least 2 of them have a big bounceback game Saturday against the Bulls.

6) KMart needs to make his threes, but 9 points in 11 minutes off the bench is exactly what we want from him.

7) The biggest lesson from this game is nothing new...this team needs Rubio on the court.

I was curious about the 3 TOs and I read on another forum that a couple of Brown's TO's were offensive fouls and the posters thought they were not good calls. I can live with Brown being aggressive and getting those calls against him sometimes.

The refs were god awful in that game too. Shabazz, Bjelica and Tyus all got hit with some bullshit calls/non-calls.