Minnesota Sports Forum

This really was a winning effort from Minnesota even without considering the circumstances. It's a shame it won't be reflected as such in the standings. Come back Monday and split the series.

Chris Finch noticeably displeased with the officiating during his post-game presser.

TheFuture wrote:Fuck that timeout by Finch.

Had the momentum and a 5 on 4 with their guy laying on the floor under their basket.

I stole this for Jon K

"Edwards: 40:30
Russell: 39:10
Anderson: 39:29
Gobert: 36:07

All on the second night of a back-to-back.

Maybe you can quibble with a lineup he put out there here or there, but the big guys have to rest sometime."

I am with you that I didn't love the timeout but playing his guys this many minutes I can understand why finch didn't want to just lose a timeout. Probably costed the wolves 2 pts but he probably thought that was going to be made up in more rested guys. We won't know if the result would have been any different. I get where you were coming from though

kekgeek1 wrote:

TheFuture wrote:Fuck that timeout by Finch.

Had the momentum and a 5 on 4 with their guy laying on the floor under their basket.

I stole this for Jon K

"Edwards: 40:30
Russell: 39:10
Anderson: 39:29
Gobert: 36:07

All on the second night of a back-to-back.

Maybe you can quibble with a lineup he put out there here or there, but the big guys have to rest sometime."

I am with you that I didn't love the timeout but playing his guys this many minutes I can understand why finch didn't want to just lose a timeout. Probably costed the wolves 2 pts but he probably thought that was going to be made up in more rested guys. We won't know if the result would have been any different. I get where you were coming from though

So let that possession play out, hopefully you come out with 2 or 3, or you miss. Call a timeout next time down. Maybe you get another stop and then keep going. Those guys, and he should, care more about a win than an extra couple minutes of play. Especially in such a tight west. These games will matter at the end near the playoffs. You don't negate momentum and an advantage like that in a close and winnable game. Back to back wins and extending a win streak without one of our best players would be huge for morale.

TheFuture wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:

TheFuture wrote:Fuck that timeout by Finch.

Had the momentum and a 5 on 4 with their guy laying on the floor under their basket.

I stole this for Jon K

"Edwards: 40:30
Russell: 39:10
Anderson: 39:29
Gobert: 36:07

All on the second night of a back-to-back.

Maybe you can quibble with a lineup he put out there here or there, but the big guys have to rest sometime."

I am with you that I didn't love the timeout but playing his guys this many minutes I can understand why finch didn't want to just lose a timeout. Probably costed the wolves 2 pts but he probably thought that was going to be made up in more rested guys. We won't know if the result would have been any different. I get where you were coming from though

So let that possession play out, hopefully you come out with 2 or 3, or you miss. Call a timeout next time down. Maybe you get another stop and then keep going. Those guys, and he should, care more about a win than an extra couple minutes of play. Especially in such a tight west. These games will matter at the end near the playoffs. You don't negate momentum and an advantage like that in a close and winnable game. Back to back wins and extending a win streak without one of our best players would be huge for morale.

I don't think you understand what I'm trying to say. Wolves had 3 timeouts left. You are only allowed 2 timeouts under 3 minutes. Dlo stole the ball with 3:23 left in the 4th. Obviously it is going to take approximately at least 5 seconds to score based on where we were at. So let's say the wolves score. Blazers are going to use enough clock on their next possession to go under 3 minutes on the game clock meaning the wolves just lose one of their timeouts (3 to 2 timeouts). Finch played the starters heavy minutes tonight, was the 2 or 3 pts (that is not promised by the way) worth not getting the extra 75 seconds of no rest when the starters had played heavy minutes (wolves still could of scored out of the timeout).

It didn't work tonight, finch might of made the mistake but I understand the logic behind it.

I honestly have no issue with the timeout in question. To me, the five-on-four advantage doesn't outweigh the benefit of giving your guys a blow right there in that moment, especially knowing that this was the second night of a back-to-back and the starters (minus Jaden McDaniels) were already over the 35-minutes played threshold.

Wolves were down two, approaching the 3:00 mark, and about to lose that timeout anyways. Get a breather, talk it out, try to get a good look coming out of the timeout, and finish the game playing with high effort. I thought they accomplished that despite the outcome. Portland just wouldn't go away. Damian Lillard hit a 31-footer a couple possessions later followed by a 23-foot prayer from Jerami Grant -- both shots well-defended from my view. That was basically all she wrote right there, and then Lillard answered D'Angelo Russell's three with a step-back jumper for the dagger. Good defense, but better offense. I liked the way our guys battled tonight. All you can do is tip your cap and come back Monday ready to tie up the series.

Edit: Russell, Edwards, Anderson, and Gobert played the entire fourth quarter with McDaniels playing just under nine minutes. Get those guys a breather. I've been as hard as anyone on Finch this season, but getting those guys a break makes a lot of sense to me.

McDaniels is such a waste of height.

No team is going to win many games in the NBA getting out-rebounded by 17. That's a HUGE rebounding deficit. Portland's center, Nurkic, out-rebounded our center 15 to 9. But it was the rest of the rotation that contributed to the bulk of the rebounding deficit. We can't blame it on KAT's absence because were were getting routinely out-rebounded before he went down. It's definitely a big problem. I don't have an answer, but it's a problem that needs to be fixed.

Last year we won countless games against teams that were clearly better than us but missing key players. Tonight was the opposite. We're better than Portland, and we will beat them 4 times out of 5 if both teams are healthy. Sure they have a great starting lineup...but I would argue ours is better, and there's no question we are a much deeper team with a much deeper bench. But there were all sorts of reasons Portland was favored by 5 1/2 tonight and we were destined to lose:

1) Portland was 100% healthy, and we were missing our most prolific offensive starter and 2 of our most important reserves.

2) This was the second night of a BTB. Ant has said publicly he doesn't play well in back to backs (he proved himself wrong tonight).

3) Portland is a great 3-point shooting team, and we are notoriously bad at defending the perimeter.

4) There hasn't been a big drop off this season when our starters go out...in fact, our reserves have regularly outplayed the other team. But having to play guys like Wendell Moore and Austin Rivers instead of Prince and JMac is a big problem. To put some numbers next to it, Prince and JMac have a combined on/off of +24.9...Rivers and Moore Jr. are a combined -35.9. That's a 60.8 point swing per 100 possessions...nuf said.

I know most here aren't fans of moral victories...I am. Hanging with Portland tonight told me a lot about this team. This is the 5th entertaining game we have played without KAT, and we are 3-2. This team has been fun to watch recently every night.

I'm a fan of on/off numbers over a large sample size (and especially over an entire career)...it's a stat that seldom lets me down over a large sample size in evaluating a player's importance to a team. But there were two negative numbers tonight that don't match at all what I saw. I thought SloMo and Naz were both outstanding tonight, but they were -12 and -17, respectively (DLo was overheard thanking both of them in the locker room post game ;-) ) SloMo is rapidly becoming my favorite player on the team, and was an efficient 14-7-6 tonight with only 2 turnovers. As he gets more and more comfortable being the de facto PG, he allows DLo to thrive more in a shooting guard role (24 points on only 15 shots despite 5 turnovers and only 3 assists). I think replacing KAT in the starting lineup with SloMo brings out the best in Russell by allowing him to play more off ball. It will be interesting to see what happens when KAT comes back. Does he substitute SloMo for Jaden (who had the same number of rebounds as jester tonight despite jester going to bed before the game was over) in the starting lineup, allowing Dlo to continue to play more off ball. We'll have to see.

Anyway, I'm excited to see what happens Monday night. Calf injuries are killing us right now...they tend to linger and recur, so I don't expect JMac back by then. Healthy Portland is too good for us if we're missing three key players, so we will have to overachieve Monday to steal a game on the road.

I missed watching the Friday/Saturday games for a family event in Palm Beach.

I was able to semi-stream/gamecast/follow while talking to relatives I see every other year. What's interesting is that the perception of who and how good the Wolves are has changed amongst casual NBA fans in the past two years.

There's an expectation that the Wolves are a mid-tier playoff team that should at least win a first round series. That's a pretty dramatic change since I last visited with these relatives.

We will get there. We aren't necessarily improving at the pace we thought we would improve at, but we will get there.