Minnesota Sports Forum

thedoper wrote:

monsterpile wrote:Teague contributed tonight besides scoring. In 26 minutes he had 7 assists and 2 steals. He broke up a few plays nearly by himself defensively. And for anyone asking for him to rebound more notice who is back on nearly every translation play on defense...it's Teague.

Towns had 7 rebounds. 7 and he is the biggest most athletic big on the floor he is supposed to be the best player but I honestly think he is part of the problem of this team's "culture". He doesn't hustle all the time is clueless defensively and so think he gets caught up in the hype. The good news? He is a 3rd year guy that's super talented putting up some serious numbers and he hasn't figured it out yet. It's incredibly frustrating though we want to see...and expect more. Deep breaths...

Towns offense was insane in the 3rd though. Then they went away from him and it unraveled. There was not point in letting anyone else in on the offense at that point. I thought Towns was going to get 50. His D was shit, but I dont see much merit in singling anyone out tonight. Let down games are part of the process. We're still sporting our best win percentage in ages. Hahah. Most of us have said to give it 10-15 games to settle in. I'm still on board to do that.

Towns would have had to score 50 to win that game. There was a lot of unraveling part of it was various guys didn't hit shots and FTs. The Pacers shot some insane numbers even if the defense wasn't good. Trust me I am not jumping off a ledge or anything i'm just pointing out that Towns for all his talent doesn't do enough of those winning plays that you need to win game in game out. It's his 3rd season though. No doubt there was plenty of blame to go around I just find it a bit bizarre that Towns with all his talent hasn't figured it out more.

To your point of not freaking out too much the Cavs (who are missing some guys but still) won tonight by 7 over the Bulls who I'm not sure has more than one average starter playing for their team right now. Maybe this game will be part of a wake up call to get some guys on the Wolves to buy in more.

My biggest concern so far this season is lack of ball movement and poor pick and roll/pop plays on offense, especially with our starting lineup. Teague has been far from good so far this season but I think it's unfair to completely blame him for this. So many times tonight did I watch Town set an ineffective screen and then fail to roll or pop fast enough while Wiggins and Bazz sat in he corner not moving. Thus forcing Teague to throw up a contested shot or layup. Taj and Deing were also guilty of setting ineffective picks. If Butlers it out again tomorrow I would like to see either Bjelcia or Crawford start to help with ball movement and floor spacing.

Another real concern as mentioned is KATs poor rebounding. This comes down to three things: positional play, awareness and hustle. If I was Thibs I would be telling KAT to solely focus on boxing out and rebounding on defense. The rest will come.

KiwiMatt wrote:My biggest concern so far this season is lack of ball movement and poor pick and roll/pop plays on offense, especially with our starting lineup. Teague has been far from good so far this season but I think it's unfair to completely blame him for this. So many times tonight did I watch Town set an ineffective screen and then fail to roll or pop fast enough while Wiggins and Bazz sat in he corner not moving. Thus forcing Teague to throw up a contested shot or layup. Taj and Deing were also guilty of setting ineffective picks. If Butlers it out again tomorrow I would like to see either Bjelcia or Crawford start to help with ball movement and floor spacing.

Another real concern as mentioned is KATs poor rebounding. This comes down to three things: positional play, awareness and hustle. If I was Thibs I would be telling KAT to solely focus on boxing out and rebounding on defense. The rest will come.

IMO the Wolves have been moving the ball more as time has gone on. Tonight they had 27 assists and only GS averages more than that so far this year.

I get where people are coming from when they bring up concerns about offense but....the defense is a real issue and it's why I wasn't more optimistic with my win prediction. I haven't seen anything that is particularly encouraging except Wiggins has actually looked plenty worthwhile on that end so far overall. This team is gonna score and I will not live with them being the Cavs type of team from last year who can't stop anyone when it matters but can score. I expect more from this team than just bring a scoring juggernaut. There is zero reason to let this group off the hook. It's not particularly undersized (pretty big other than PGs) and has generally plenty of length and athletic ability at every position aside from averaging sized PGs. This isn't Love and Jefferson playing together or something like that. They don't have to make a jump to top 10 this year but they need to at least be in the teens.

KAT caught fire in the 3rd quarter, but then reverted to hero ball. He blocked out his teammates and tried to win the game by himself. Predictably it resulted in some empty trips and then the Pacers took over and we couldn't recover. I'm not blaming KAT for the loss. But we need him to be the best version of himself if we're going to change this crappy culture. I have to wonder what Glen Taylor was thinking watching that performance last night.