Incredible Purple Rain (wolves vs Trail Blazers)

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Lip is late with his game report....again! May be he was out with Doper last night....

- I thought Teague played a great game on BOTH ends. He was locked in defensively from the beginning and he really helped stem the Portland run in the 3rd quarter with some nice PnR action with Gibson.

- Wiggins 3-ball....please, oh please, oh please let this be real. He's had 15 game stretches in the past where he has shot it at 40%+, only to revert to his normal ~ 33% or so.

- I thought KAT was mediocre last night. He kind of reverted to his over-dramatic floppiness and loose PnR coverages, but it's nice to know we can win without him having a monster game.

- Covington may be a transformative acquisition. While Butler is the better all around player, Covington just seems to fit better (I know, small sample size alert!).

- Rose continues to impress the hell out of me. I was dead set against signing him, but Thibs was onto something when he talks about the fact Rose hasn't been healthy for such a long stretch before, so he's finally got his sea legs under him again. His left-handed scoop shot that he snuck in under the defense was a thing of beauty, anyone remember that play? That is elite level skill.

- Saric knows how to play. The execution isn't always there, but he just knows how to play and that's half the battle sometimes.

- DE-FENSE! #22 now in opponent eFG%, THE most important metric for this team. While that's still not good, we've been bottom 5 in this area for multiple seasons. It's nice to see it trending in the right direction.

Excellent observations, Q...I forget sometimes that Teague had a pretty good defensive reputation before he cane here, and he really showed it last night against the marvelous Lillard. While I agree with you that KAT was mediocre in results, I was impressed with his tough effort against Nurkic. Nurkic is such a monstrous force out there (and kinda dirty as a player also), and KAT never backed down. He battled him the entire game, and his two 3's came at a very good time.

Portland has a very good team, which makes last night's blowout win even more impressive.

[Monster]

I just finished watching the game and here are my quick thoughts.
even in the lull in the 3rd quster the offense was doing mostly things you want to see. Wiggins post ups against smaller players they were getting good looks they weren't going down.

People wanted to see Okogie and that makes sense. Its worth remembering that Okogie after a terrific first half against Portland's guards got cooked a few times because CJ in particular used his craftiness to use Okogie's aggression against him. Overall defense wasn't the problem.

Thibs and D'Antoni are the weirdest guys when it comes to taking guys out at he end of the game. Its like for some reason that timeout is just too precious to use with a couple minutes left. i don't get it.

Overall just a terrific game on both ends. I don't even know if it makes sense to go too in depth. If you watched it you are just thrilled.

Saric looks liek he can play defense to me. He cut off Lilliard at least once. Covington...I can see why he was voted first team defense. The guy is a strip machine.

[crazy-canuck [enjin:18955461]]

Saric is slow, weak, and unathletic.

His defense kinda reminds me how jokic plays defense, just put your hands up and get in the way.




Which is awesome after years of watching our bigs constantly chasing blocks and getting pulled out of position. I think he just might fit long term with Kat.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Saric is slow, weak, and unathletic.

His defense kinda reminds me how jokic plays defense, just put your hands up and get in the way.




Which is awesome after years of watching our bigs constantly chasing blocks and getting pulled out of position. I think he just might fit long term with Kat.

Good observation. I've always felt that some of the best paint defenders were guys without great athleticism, so they had to rely on superior positioning instead. Hopefully Saric continues to get stronger, because I think he could eventually be a really good interior defender since he isn't relying on chasing blocks or flopping around looking to draw charges.