Minnesota Sports Forum

longstrangetrip wrote:

Tactical unit wrote:Why wait until 10.7 seconds left in the game to bring him back?

Because the five guys he had out there brought us back into the game...you gotta ride whoever is hot, and those 5 were hot. I love KAT, but I don't know if he would have helped us comeback any better than those guys did.

I will agree you don't mess with what is working and that unit brought us back but KAT in for Rudez before the 10.7 seconds mark was a no brainier IMO. Gotta love the comeback though the heart they displayed was pretty awesome! Hopefully tonight opens the door to more LaVine at SG cause he is a true scorer and at PG it limits his best qualities and accentuates his worst (TO machine at PG).

TeamRicky wrote:KG and KMart didn't show up tonight. Other than those two, everybody shot at least 50% which is encouraging. We lost the turnover battle and they made more 3s.

Yep, bad night for those two guys. I liked Sam's adjustment though. He saw how small Indy was, and adjusted with his own small lineup...Belly at C, Bazz at PF, Wig, Zach and the old man! I hate losing, but that was a fun 4th quarter. This team can go big or go small, depending on the situation.

longstrangetrip wrote:

Tactical unit wrote:

monsterpile wrote:I would say Miller still has some game.

He should be our starting PG when Rubio doesn't play! Zach is a SG why can't we play him at his true position?

I don't know if you're listening to the Wolves' feed, but Jim Pete (who I really respect as a b-ball analyst) just spent 5 minutes very eloquently explaining why Zach has to be a PG in this league. Indy's small backcourt allows him to play some SG tonight because he only has to guard George Hill, but he won't get small SG's to guard like that most nights.

Zach is 20. He's not going to be rail thin his whole career. I don't buy the narrative that Zach isn't going to be strong enough to guard two's BS. Martin is 2" taller and 10 lbs heavier and somehow it's fine for him to guard 2's even though he plays no defense. Put 10 lbs of muscle on Zach this off season and he'd be fine. Wiggins is 200 lbs and he's not getting pushed all over the court and he's even lankier than Zach.

That was a fun comeback. I thought Sam did a lot of good things there to facilitate it.

LST did you see that Rudez rebound?!?!

Heck of a game for Lavine. That's what 3-4 games in a row for him of pretty good play? If he keeps this up Martin will see less minutes when Rubio gets back. Thank goodness Sam put Martin on the bench when he did because the refs weren't calling anything and that's Martin's thing.

GR3 with a nice game.

This team just feels like it's got something we haven't seen for a couple years some real resolve and chemistry of sticking together. I hope it keeps up.

khans2k5 wrote:

longstrangetrip wrote:

Tactical unit wrote:

monsterpile wrote:I would say Miller still has some game.

He should be our starting PG when Rubio doesn't play! Zach is a SG why can't we play him at his true position?

I don't know if you're listening to the Wolves' feed, but Jim Pete (who I really respect as a b-ball analyst) just spent 5 minutes very eloquently explaining why Zach has to be a PG in this league. Indy's small backcourt allows him to play some SG tonight because he only has to guard George Hill, but he won't get small SG's to guard like that most nights.

Zach is 20. He's not going to be rail thin his whole career. I don't buy the narrative that Zach isn't going to be strong enough to guard two's BS. Martin is 2" taller and 10 lbs heavier and somehow it's fine for him to guard 2's even though he plays no defense. Put 10 lbs of muscle on Zach this off season and he'd be fine. Wiggins is 200 lbs and he's not getting pushed all over the court and he's even lankier than Zach.

I've seen him play PG and its not pretty and then he plays SG and he's a monster alley-oop threat on the break and runs the wing like a dart. L. Barbosa and so many other players can play SG, so how can Zach not? Just watch the games........he sucks at PG and scores like a boss at SG.

I'd argue he can guard SG's better than PG's as SG's don't wind up in as much pick and roll as PG's and Zach is weak at pick and roll defense. Also his speed on defense is negated by smaller faster PG's if he's getting out muscled by a SG then sub him out that particular night and play Wiggins at the SG.

Hey guess what Sam played Lavine at SG tonight because he had a good matchup and was playing well overall so it was basically a no-brainer to play him. If Lavine plays well Sam will play him somewhere despite whatever declarations he has made. Tonight is a perfect example of that.

Just put out 5 guys who can make 3's. That's all that matters in today's NBA.

monsterpile wrote:Hey guess what Sam played Lavine at SG tonight because he had a good matchup and was playing well overall so it was basically a no-brainer to play him. If Lavine plays well Sam will play him somewhere despite whatever declarations he has made. Tonight is a perfect example of that.

Yeah, good to see some flexibility from Sam.

It's pretty amazing to see the contrast in how the offense flows with Andre or Rubio versus Zach at the helm. I mean, the whole comeback started when Miller checked into the game in the 3rd quarter. We were down 23 points at the time. And sure enough, we chipped and chipped away until we were right back in it again. This is the same guy who the night before helped bring us back against Golden State.

To Zach's credit, he made the most of his stint at SG and was a big part of the comeback.

Q12543 wrote:

monsterpile wrote:Hey guess what Sam played Lavine at SG tonight because he had a good matchup and was playing well overall so it was basically a no-brainer to play him. If Lavine plays well Sam will play him somewhere despite whatever declarations he has made. Tonight is a perfect example of that.

Yeah, good to see some flexibility from Sam.

It's pretty amazing to see the contrast in how the offense flows with Andre or Rubio versus Zach at the helm. I mean, the whole comeback started when Miller checked into the game in the 3rd quarter. We were down 23 points at the time. And sure enough, we chipped and chipped away until we were right back in it again. This is the same guy who the night before helped bring us back against Golden State.

To Zach's credit, he made the most of his stint at SG and was a big part of the comeback.

Miller has been pretty good these last 2 games. Zach the last few games has been playing well overall. He seems to be breaking through and looking more like the guy we saw near the end of last season. That guy looked like a legit NBA player no matter the position. Let's hope the trend continues.

monsterpile wrote:That was a fun comeback. I thought Sam did a lot of good things there to facilitate it.

LST did you see that Rudez rebound?!?!

Heck of a game for Lavine. That's what 3-4 games in a row for him of pretty good play? If he keeps this up Martin will see less minutes when Rubio gets back. Thank goodness Sam put Martin on the bench when he did because the refs weren't calling anything and that's Martin's thing.

GR3 with a nice game.

This team just feels like it's got something we haven't seen for a couple years some real resolve and chemistry of sticking together. I hope it keeps up.

I can't decide if he reminds me more of Rodman or Chamberlain...I guess sort of a combo of both. He's a rebounding machine!