Our transition defense, specifically, sucked. They did a great job getting their shots up quickly and getting out in transition.
That being said, if someone told you the Wolves shot 46% from 3 in a game, I think most of us would assume a win, but you have to tip your hat to N.O. for shooting 48% from 3.
JoVal was absolutely THE difference maker in this game. They substituted AGAINST Towns and no one other than Towns could even remotely move him. Not Vando or McDaniels and JoVal dominated Naz so much that KAT had to play with almost zero break.
I would have considered taking a T regarding JoVal's elbows and pushes if I was Finch last night. Or just asked Night to go out and see if he could bait him into some bad decisions.
That being said, that was a great game that we ended up on the wrong side of.
Also, that was a deep 3 for a game winner and a great shot. Hyperbole should be allowed on this board.
Even in those 5 minutes... it seemed pretty clear that Valunciansiaadus was employing a bunch of gimmick tactics to try to get into Towns' head. Was he doing that nonsense all game?
[Note: To be fair, with a guy like Beverley on the Wolves, we can't really complain too much about it if we're also championing when Beverley does it. Personally, I don't dig that nonsense regardless of the culprit.]
JoVal has always been a handful for us to deal with. Naz gets easily man-handled by him and KAT gets easily frustrated and emotional.
These are the matchups where having that big, bruiser off the bench makes sense. Naz....I've been on the fence with him for a while. Seems too small to thrive in these matchups, yet isn't quick enough laterally to play much at the 4. Just not sure he's the best fit for us.
Q-was-here wrote:JoVal has always been a handful for us to deal with. Naz gets easily man-handled by him and KAT gets easily frustrated and emotional.
These are the matchups where having that big, bruiser off the bench makes sense. Naz....I've been on the fence with him for a while. Seems too small to thrive in these matchups, yet isn't quick enough laterally to play much at the 4. Just not sure he's the best fit for us.
Reid is what he is.
He has his moments, but limitations, too. I don't see a significant improvement in his game yet... or in the future.
Certainly a decent player to plug in and make a difference from time to time. But that's at less than $2M. How much would you be willing to spend on his next contract?
1. I find it amusing the hoops (and hypocrisies) some posters will jump through to avoid a very simple "yeah, my bad" or even "I might have been slightly off there."
2. I don't care what metrics we're using... New Orleans is a pretty bad team. They're 25th in offensive rating. And 25th in defensive rating. Now that doesn't make it an embarrassing loss or anything. Hot shooting nights happen for every NBA team. These losses are inevitable from time to time.
Agreed. Your first quibble describes FNG, and yourself for vaguely defending his point, at this moment in time.
This never should have developed into the back-and-forth that it did. The NBA registers shot charts for every game. They annotated Brandon Ingram's game-winning shot last night was from 26-feet. We can disagree with their methods or findings, but the fact is that Ingram's shot wasn't nearly as deep as it was initially described here, which is what prompted my first response in breaking down how Josh Okogie misplayed that possession.
Furthermore, you are typically an objective poster here who doesn't react kindly to hyperbole and exaggeration. You've [rightfully] called out others in the past for using generalized statistics instead of using the precise value on hand. I find it entirely laughable that you would insinuate that I'm the one jumping through hoops here.
You ripped on FNG for exaggerating the distance (claiming nefarious reasons for him to do so)... while exaggerating the distance yourself. (We can all see that it's clearly not 26 feet from the video in this thread.)
Anyway, I found it all amusing.
Abe, I don't know how you're finding this difficult to comprehend. You're usually a lot sharper than this. My take was that the final possession itself was not only poorly defended, but not nearly as deep as FNG made it out to be -- ie. "10-feet behind the three-point line" nonsense.
When checking NBA.com, they listed the made shot at 26-feet. That's where that number comes from. We can quibble about whether it's 26, 27, or 28 feet out, etc. What it is NOT is 10-feet behind the line. And since you can clearly open the links in this thread, you should be well aware of that by now.
I'm glad you're amused by your own absurdity here. If nothing else, that certainly has value. Unbelievable.
Q-was-here wrote:JoVal has always been a handful for us to deal with. Naz gets easily man-handled by him and KAT gets easily frustrated and emotional.
These are the matchups where having that big, bruiser off the bench makes sense. Naz....I've been on the fence with him for a while. Seems too small to thrive in these matchups, yet isn't quick enough laterally to play much at the 4. Just not sure he's the best fit for us.
Reid is what he is.
He has his moments, but limitations, too. I don't see a significant improvement in his game yet... or in the future.
Certainly a decent player to plug in and make a difference from time to time. But that's at less than $2M. How much would you be willing to spend on his next contract?
Not sure I'd be willing to spend much more than that. He certainly has skills as a scorer. But it isn't enough to make up for his defensive limitations IMO. I'm not suggesting we just dump him for nothing, but it feels like that is a position we could potentially upgrade this next offseason.
1. I find it amusing the hoops (and hypocrisies) some posters will jump through to avoid a very simple "yeah, my bad" or even "I might have been slightly off there."
2. I don't care what metrics we're using... New Orleans is a pretty bad team. They're 25th in offensive rating. And 25th in defensive rating. Now that doesn't make it an embarrassing loss or anything. Hot shooting nights happen for every NBA team. These losses are inevitable from time to time.
Agreed. Your first quibble describes FNG, and yourself for vaguely defending his point, at this moment in time.
This never should have developed into the back-and-forth that it did. The NBA registers shot charts for every game. They annotated Brandon Ingram's game-winning shot last night was from 26-feet. We can disagree with their methods or findings, but the fact is that Ingram's shot wasn't nearly as deep as it was initially described here, which is what prompted my first response in breaking down how Josh Okogie misplayed that possession.
Furthermore, you are typically an objective poster here who doesn't react kindly to hyperbole and exaggeration. You've [rightfully] called out others in the past for using generalized statistics instead of using the precise value on hand. I find it entirely laughable that you would insinuate that I'm the one jumping through hoops here.
You ripped on FNG for exaggerating the distance (claiming nefarious reasons for him to do so)... while exaggerating the distance yourself. (We can all see that it's clearly not 26 feet from the video in this thread.)
Anyway, I found it all amusing.
Abe, I don't know how you're finding this difficult to comprehend. You're usually a lot sharper than this. My take was that the final possession itself was not only poorly defended, but not nearly as deep as FNG made it out to be -- ie. "10-feet behind the three-point line" nonsense.
When checking NBA.com, they listed the made shot at 26-feet. That's where that number comes from. We can quibble about whether it's 26, 27, or 28 feet out, etc. What it is NOT is 10-feet behind the line. And since you can clearly open the links in this thread, you should be well aware of that by now.
I'm glad you're amused by your own absurdity here. If nothing else, that certainly has value. Unbelievable.
Ha. Was it 10 feet beyond? Of course not. Was it a 26-foot shot? Of course not. Repeatedly pointing out the NBA's 26-foot claim is pretty disingenuous. Literally everybody in this thread has seen the shot.
Pssst. It's ok to admit it wasn't 26 feet. It's really not a big deal. We won't think any less of you. Honest.
Lost in the muck is the overall point regarding the final possession being poorly defended because Abe wants to have a pissing contest within the thread. Instead of conceding that the shot wasn't from the goddamn logo and moving on, we're bickering over whether or not 26-feet is an accurate measurement of shot distance and who's the real hypocrite here. Well done, Abe. This one is on you.
Anyways, Josh Okogie's only hope of hanging around in the NBA is his defense and I thought he didn't execute last night when it mattered most. The loss certainly doesn't fall on his shoulders, as I said earlier, but I was displeased with him on the final play for reasons that I've expressed pages ago. On to Memphis.
Not sure how everyone else feels, but this game should have been a blowout loss by the Wolves. Most Wolves games where they fall behind by big numbers in the 3rd, it ends up a blowout loss with no hint of fight. I never really got that feeling last nite, which might be a moral victory, but is Hella more fun as a fan.
D'Natagal wrote:Not sure how everyone else feels, but this game should have been a blowout loss by the Wolves. Most Wolves games where they fall behind by big numbers in the 3rd, it ends up a blowout loss with no hint of fight. I never really got that feeling last nite, which might be a moral victory, but is Hella more fun as a fan.
Yep, I agree. The Wolves needed a good effort going into the hellish stretch ahead of us, and going down to the wire in this game against a team shooting the lights out felt like a moral victory to me. Not to mention what you said- more fun as a fan. We all prefer wins to losses, but a true basketball fan got a lot more enjoyment out of this loss than the four wins (in "trick games"- copyright PatBev) that preceded it. It was nice to watch a real basketball game after watching the futility of Houston and OkC.
