Minnesota Sports Forum

We got thrashed from 3P land tonight. Holy moly. Can't let that happen.

Don't know what to say tonight. Kings shot the ball too well, yet we certainly didn't play our best. Zach was great, yet he showed immaturity in crunch time by trying to do everything himself. Wig was ice cold and didn't have any hustle plays. KAT played extremely hard but also came up empty when it mattered the most. We couldn't guard Boogie, and for some reason AT always seems to kill us. We saw both the good and bad in having Ricky in the game late. Our bench was largely ineffective. I guess that about covers it. Oh, and don't kid yourselves - until we learn how to overwhelm a team playing with out Rudy Gay and protect our home floor, we aren't ever getting out of the lottery. One of the worst home teams I've ever seen.

Yeah sometimes you have to tip your hat to the opposing team, the Kings simply shot the ball lights out. Then we didn't make any plays in the last few minutes. And the hero ball showed up again.

Still, if you have to point the finger at one thing, it's this:

In 39 minutes, Wiggins had 0 rebounds, 1 assist, 0 steals, and 1 block. Oh, and he shot 6-19 and turned the ball over twice. This is alarming. How does a guy with uber-athletic ability do so little on a basketball court for 39 minutes?

There were plenty of things the Wolves didn't do as well tonight as they had in previous games. The defense wasn't as good that's for sure but they had some good moments. The bottom line was late they didn't hit some shots and make a couple plays they needed to make to win or give them self a chance. Towns had 2 wide open corner 3's you can't ask for more. To win you have to make one of those. The hustle plays overall for this team was generally off the charts. I don't question the collective effort of the team tonight and I appreciate that.

I saw a Thibs pat! It's clear tonight he is getting to soft these guys didn't play good enough defense bring back the tough love Thibs! :)

That whole game so many bizarre clock deals. That first possession where they stopped the game when Wiggins was going to score was pretty ridiculous.

During one of the reviews for the end of the quarter that never ended and then kinda did Jon Lucas was chatting up Cousins. He seems to have a pretty fun personality from what I have seen from him.

KiwiMatt wrote:

WildWolf2813 wrote:

KiwiMatt wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

KiwiMatt wrote:Kings bench scored 45. Wolves bench scored 11. That's the problem right there.

Too simplistic of a metric.....Our scorers are all front-loaded, meaning they are all in the starting lineup for the most part. Most teams don't have three 20+ PPG scorers. They tend to take one of their more offensively gifted players and have him come off the bench, like Kanter in OKC or Mills in San Antonio.

Our starters, not our bench, lost this game tonight. We were up 2 when all our starters got back in the game in the 4th and we lost by 4. They couldn't close the deal.

If our starters weren't playing 40 mpg they would have fresher legs late in the 4th and have a better chance at making these shots. At the end of the day if we even had ONE bench player who could contribute a solid 24 minutes a night it would allow us to sit our starters just that little bit longer, keeping them fresher to close games.

That is 100% on Thibs and Layden. That's the beauty of having dual roles. You get to control that aspect of it. They didn't wanna overpay guys like Deng, Fine. They proceeded to give bums like Rush and Hill $4 mil apiece to not be mentors or contributors. They get paid to do nothing. John Lucas III gets a roster spot to be a teacher's assistant. Pek's medically retired in a month.

There's 5 guys if you include Payne (sadly 6 if you wanna include Jones but he's not completely at fault) who are flat out useless on this team in every sense of the word. I think Thibs is too focused on wanting to run Rubio outta town to realize his bench is awful and it's his fault.

Brandon Rush played 72 games for GSW last season including 25 starts.

Jordan Hill played 73 games for IND last season including 11 starts.

They come to Minnesota and can't even crack the rotation? What's up with that.

I didn't see the game, but I've reviewed the box score. And Kiwi's last two posts seem to tell the whole story...you don't make threes in the 4th quarter when you have tired legs, and your starters are going to have tired legs if you're only playing your reserves 47 minutes total. 47 minutes! And don't tell me Thibs doesn't have a bench to turn to when they continue to outperform the starters in plus/minus...he just needs to learn to trust them.

longstrangetrip wrote:

KiwiMatt wrote:

WildWolf2813 wrote:

KiwiMatt wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

KiwiMatt wrote:Kings bench scored 45. Wolves bench scored 11. That's the problem right there.

Too simplistic of a metric.....Our scorers are all front-loaded, meaning they are all in the starting lineup for the most part. Most teams don't have three 20+ PPG scorers. They tend to take one of their more offensively gifted players and have him come off the bench, like Kanter in OKC or Mills in San Antonio.

Our starters, not our bench, lost this game tonight. We were up 2 when all our starters got back in the game in the 4th and we lost by 4. They couldn't close the deal.

If our starters weren't playing 40 mpg they would have fresher legs late in the 4th and have a better chance at making these shots. At the end of the day if we even had ONE bench player who could contribute a solid 24 minutes a night it would allow us to sit our starters just that little bit longer, keeping them fresher to close games.

That is 100% on Thibs and Layden. That's the beauty of having dual roles. You get to control that aspect of it. They didn't wanna overpay guys like Deng, Fine. They proceeded to give bums like Rush and Hill $4 mil apiece to not be mentors or contributors. They get paid to do nothing. John Lucas III gets a roster spot to be a teacher's assistant. Pek's medically retired in a month.

There's 5 guys if you include Payne (sadly 6 if you wanna include Jones but he's not completely at fault) who are flat out useless on this team in every sense of the word. I think Thibs is too focused on wanting to run Rubio outta town to realize his bench is awful and it's his fault.

Brandon Rush played 72 games for GSW last season including 25 starts.

Jordan Hill played 73 games for IND last season including 11 starts.

They come to Minnesota and can't even crack the rotation? What's up with that.

I didn't see the game, but I've reviewed the box score. And Kiwi's last two posts seem to tell the whole story...you don't make threes in the 4th quarter when you have tired legs, and your starters are going to have tired legs if you're only playing your reserves 47 minutes total. 47 minutes! And don't tell me Thibs doesn't have a bench to turn to when they continue to outperform the starters in plus/minus...he just needs to learn to trust them.

LST, you had to watch it the bench was real bad tonight, like real bad.

Another day, another 4th quarter disaster. The theory has been thrown out here that we just aren't good enough, and that teams that are better than us just wait until the 4th quarter to turn on the jets. but come on guys...this is the Sacramento Kings! It looks to me that Thibs cost us yet another game because he refused to play his bench while his opposing coach played his...and thus had starters with much fresher legs in the 4th. The Kings bench stinks, but they have a coach that understand that you're not going to win many games exhausting your starters....so he gave 57 minutes to future HOFers Anthony Tolliver and Garrett Temple! Does anyone really believe that if the reserves on the two teams were switched, that Thibs would have given 57 minutes to Tolliver and Temple? Of course not! The issue here is not about the talent of the reserves...it's about a coach who just refuses to play them. And as a result, we blow yet another game in the 4th quarter.

This one really hurts, and how many times have we already said that this season. You just can't consider yourself anything close to a playoff team if you let a marginal team like the Kings missing their second leading scorer and also their top reserve beat you on your home court...that's unacceptable! Stern words to Thibs last week seemingly has had an impact on how he interacts with his players (several of us have seem subtle changes), and noticeably better play has resulted. Maybe Glen needs to sit him down and tell him to not play his starters 43 minutes (yes, that's what Gorgui played tonight)! We really needed this game, and I couldn't have been more pissed when I looked at the box score...another double digit 4th quarter disaster combined with another night where our starters played far more minutes than the opponent.

How many more 4th quarter collapses are we going to have to endure before Thibs finally gets it?

kekgeek1 wrote:

longstrangetrip wrote:

KiwiMatt wrote:

WildWolf2813 wrote:

KiwiMatt wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

KiwiMatt wrote:Kings bench scored 45. Wolves bench scored 11. That's the problem right there.

Too simplistic of a metric.....Our scorers are all front-loaded, meaning they are all in the starting lineup for the most part. Most teams don't have three 20+ PPG scorers. They tend to take one of their more offensively gifted players and have him come off the bench, like Kanter in OKC or Mills in San Antonio.

Our starters, not our bench, lost this game tonight. We were up 2 when all our starters got back in the game in the 4th and we lost by 4. They couldn't close the deal.

If our starters weren't playing 40 mpg they would have fresher legs late in the 4th and have a better chance at making these shots. At the end of the day if we even had ONE bench player who could contribute a solid 24 minutes a night it would allow us to sit our starters just that little bit longer, keeping them fresher to close games.

That is 100% on Thibs and Layden. That's the beauty of having dual roles. You get to control that aspect of it. They didn't wanna overpay guys like Deng, Fine. They proceeded to give bums like Rush and Hill $4 mil apiece to not be mentors or contributors. They get paid to do nothing. John Lucas III gets a roster spot to be a teacher's assistant. Pek's medically retired in a month.

There's 5 guys if you include Payne (sadly 6 if you wanna include Jones but he's not completely at fault) who are flat out useless on this team in every sense of the word. I think Thibs is too focused on wanting to run Rubio outta town to realize his bench is awful and it's his fault.

Brandon Rush played 72 games for GSW last season including 25 starts.

Jordan Hill played 73 games for IND last season including 11 starts.

They come to Minnesota and can't even crack the rotation? What's up with that.

I didn't see the game, but I've reviewed the box score. And Kiwi's last two posts seem to tell the whole story...you don't make threes in the 4th quarter when you have tired legs, and your starters are going to have tired legs if you're only playing your reserves 47 minutes total. 47 minutes! And don't tell me Thibs doesn't have a bench to turn to when they continue to outperform the starters in plus/minus...he just needs to learn to trust them.

LST, you had to watch it the bench was real bad tonight, like real bad.

I'm sure they were, kek...but NBA players will tell you that it's difficult to develop any rhythm when you are given so few minutes. 5 mnutes for Aldrich, 11 for Belly? Come on Thibs! All year the reserves have been putting up better plus-minus numbers than the starters, but still Thibs refuses to trust them. And then the starters get sent out there in the 4th with their tired legs and can neither make their shots or guard the perimeter. Again, I didn't see the game tonight so maybe the perimeter defense was actually stellar tonight in the 4th. But the box score makes it look like the same old tired script, and I'm fed up with it.

When these guys hit 25, they'll have more wear and tear than most 35 year old players at the rate thibs is using them.

Gotta give the bench more minutes or go get someone else. What a bust rush has been.

LST your narrative about Thibs is getting tired espcially when you make these comments without even watching the games. They simply didn't make the shots. Lavine didn't shoot as well down the stretch because he was kinda throwing up some heat check shots. Towns hasn't been hitting 3's lately so him missing 2 in a row at the end of the game...is kinda predictable although They were pretty good looks and imo he should have taken them all things considered.

As for this minutes stuff... Tim Duncan's first 6 seasons he averaged over 39mpg and he seemed like he was ok to play another 13 years after that. Is he an excemption? Sure but the idea that a lot of minutes absolutely will lead to tired players and injury is also probably overblown. From what I hear about Thibs he has chilled out on practices done more film work etc so these guys aren't getting physically pounded aside from playing high minutes. Looking at the box score I'm surprised Lavine didn't play more. It had to be hard to take him out in the 2nd half. Dieng played the most minutes and he never seemed tired at all.