Minnesota Sports Forum

When you're down 5 with 30 seconds to go, I don't think Pek or Brewer should be on the court, and I question having Rubio out there as well. The clips had to guard two guys, and one couldn't hit the broad side of a barn tonight. Love looked completely wore out again tonight, similar to the Cleveland game.

I wasn't at the game tonight. I watched it at home like most of you. No mystery why we lost tonight. The Clippers out shot us 49.4% to 37.8%. When your opponent's shooting percentage is more than 10% higher than yours in the NBA guess what -- you lose! Beneath that obvious outer layer, you see that the Clippers' star, Chris Paul, had 20 points on 50% shooting and put his team on his back in the 4th quarter. Our star, Kevin Love, had 10 points on 2-14 shooting, hitting only 60% of his free throws. He did nothing down the stretch. He did have 12 boards and 8 assists, but he also had 5 turnovers. Oh and our bench was terrible again except for Cunningham.

Pop, not only would, but has.

sjm34 wrote:Pop, not only would, but has.

I don't remember any occasions being in a one-possession game with between 5 and 2 minutes left... but you seem to be pretty certain of it, so...

Another thing I've noticed from this team is that they (Love and Rubio) try an obscene amount of full court leak-out passes. Love has been talked about in a positive light over this "skill", but what I see is about 80% of these getting picked off. Success rate is LOW on this type of pass, and it seems to bite us 4-5 times per game. Really starting to irk me.

Hicks123 wrote:Another thing I've noticed from this team is that they (Love and Rubio) try an obscene amount of full court leak-out passes. Love has been talked about in a positive light over this "skill", but what I see is about 80% of these getting picked off. Success rate is LOW on this type of pass, and it seems to bite us 4-5 times per game. Really starting to irk me.

I've noticed the same think, hicks. The outlet pass was enormously successful earlier in the season, not to mention exciting, but many on this board warned that opponents were likely to adjust to take it away, and we've seen this the past 3-4 games. There is a positive to this though. The threat of Corey leaking out will force teams to drop back on defense, limiting their offensive rebounding.

Why do I get the feeling that our team can't put together win streaks? I don't mean two or three games. I mean substantial five games or more. Those are the ones that make a team's record great. We're trading Ws and Ls right now.

This team will struggle all year with athletic teams like GS and LAC. Pek and Love always have struggled against length and athletic guys, and teams like the Clippers have a lot of guys like that. While I think K-Love is certainly a more well rounded player than Griffen, I am very envious watching Blake attack the rim at the offensive end. When Kevin is not hitting his outside shot, he also then struggles on the interior because he simply can't elevate and has no semblance on an inside game (outside of offensive putbacks). Blake, on the other hand, simply uses quick post moves and finishes at the rim. He always has this to go to when he needs a high percentage basket, where Love needs to work much harder, with less efficient shots, to score. I love both guys, and would still keep Love over Griffen, but if Griffen keeps on improving his midrange game, he will be devestating.

Hicks123 wrote:This team will struggle all year with athletic teams like GS and LAC. Pek and Love always have struggled against length and athletic guys, and teams like the Clippers have a lot of guys like that. While I think K-Love is certainly a more well rounded player than Griffen, I am very envious watching Blake attack the rim at the offensive end. When Kevin is not hitting his outside shot, he also then struggles on the interior because he simply can't elevate and has no semblance on an inside game (outside of offensive putbacks). Blake, on the other hand, simply uses quick post moves and finishes at the rim. He always has this to go to when he needs a high percentage basket, where Love needs to work much harder, with less efficient shots, to score. I love both guys, and would still keep Love over Griffen, but if Griffen keeps on improving his midrange game, he will be devestating.

Pek and Love have destroyed Jordan and Griffin the last 6 or so games before last night. Pek still got his actually. Don't know why you think LAC's bigs are a problem for us because they're not.

Objectively, it was incredible to just watch CP3 take over the game. He imposed his will and scored 11 of 13 points over one stretch. He saw his team needed it, and he killed our momentum. That is what we don't have. (aside from CP3 himself).