Minnesota Sports Forum

Reason the Wolves lost? Offense and the biggest was those terrible shot clock violations. Shoot the damn ball. If they hit one or get the offensive rebound and score they win the game. Terrible. Otherwise you have to give the Spurs credit defensively.

Rubio was pretty damn good. Yeah he had some turnovers but Leonard is a beast.

Hell of a game defensively for the Wolves overall. Like a few others have said "who are these guys?" It's great to see.

monsterpile wrote:Reason the Wolves lost? Offense and the biggest was those terrible shot clock violations. Shoot the damn ball. If they hit one or get the offensive rebound and score they win the game. Terrible. Otherwise you have to give the Spurs credit defensively.

Rubio was pretty damn good. Yeah he had some turnovers but Leonard is a beast.

Hell of a game defensively for the Wolves overall. Like a few others have said "who are these guys?" It's great to see.

Maybe, but you know I'm going to go a different direction in finding a reason for the loss :)...bench minute disparity. I didn't watch the game, so you guys can tell me if my box score analysis is unfounded. The Spurs were coming off an overtime win the night before and are the older team, so we should have been the fresher team late in the game...if Thibs had coached correctly. But a 35-20 disadvantage in the 4th quarter and OT sent me scurrying to the box score to find the inevitable bench disparity, and it's there in spades last night. After a string of positive games where Thibs trusted his bench (played them over 90 minutes a couple times this week)and the team played well down the stretch, Thibs reverted back to the Bad Thibs and only played his bench a paltry 63 minutes...way under the league average and comparable to how he worked his rotations during our putrid first half of the season. In contrast, the better coach played his bench a whopping 104 minutes! Is there any wonder why we were so sloppy mentally on offense down the stretch, and why our tired defenders allowed SA to score on their first 5 possessions of overtime?

Our superb defense the past few weeks has caused me to conclude that Thibs may be the right guy to take us to the next level. But he seems to panic in games that really matter to him (you know he thought last night was ripe for an upset), and he moves away from his bench way too predictably. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that is one reason that his playoff record is so much worse than his regular season record. Belly, Dunn, Aldrich and Bazz are gritty defenders, albeit sometimes offensively challenged, and can keep a game close (with Tyus at the point) as our starters get needed rest. Jeez, Thibs...please look at the formula that leads to big wins in Utah, and stick with it!

Despite this rant, this road trip leaves me very optimistic about this club. It's up to Thibs now whether he can adjust his rotations to allow us to challenge for that 8th spot. Regardless, it's fun to be only 3 games out and have an inactive draft thread. I have tickets for 5 of the next 6 home games (everyone but the Portland game). If Thibs trusts his bench and we win 5 of the next 6 home games, there will be a lot of excitement in late March I think.

LST first of all you should probably just watch the game it was a good one.

Dieng had a nice stat line but there were times he just wasn't good enough and Thibs went with him over Belly because Belly was having a tough time guarding Aldridge. He maybe could have played more but looking at the night Aldridge had...tough to complain too much. Getting the production from both guys was pretty good.

Bazz played fine he even had a nice dribble middle and found an open player in the corner but they missed the shot. Wiggins was engaged the whole game though doing a lot of good things besides scoring or attempting to score. In additions Rush played very solid in this game. Lately there has been games where Tyus got some of his minutes but not this game. At one point when Tyus was on the floor they were able to put Danny Green on Rubio and that was additional pressure on Rubio. With Rush on the floor they couldn't do that because Mills gives up too much size.

I just didn't see fatigue as a reason for the loss. It was just a hell of a game and the Spurs came out on top. Britt said on twitter it felt like a good game going in the right direction not a game to be super disappointed in. I tend to agree. It does suck though because a play here or there and they could have won it in regulation. This team seems to be headed in the right direction though. It's been great to see.

I am going to piggyback on Monster here about your comment LST. There are games where you can play the bench more minutes but this was not the game. I am a big Tyus fan but he was just super outmatched like Monster said it allowed the Spurs to put Danny Green on Rubio. Tyus also missed 2 layups that he needs to make down the stretch. With Dunn I just don't think you can play to guys who struggle to shoot on the court at the same time with him and Rubio. Even though I believe that Dunn played some pretty damn good defense against the Spurs. The thing about Shabazz is that the Spurs are a terrible match up defensively, He tried to guard Kawhi but Kawhi took it to him (understandable) or he would have to be run of screen after screen chasing Green.

The one Bench guy who played well was Belly but it was once again such a tough matchup for him, I think Thibs wanted to play Belly over Gorgui at the end but he couldn't guard LMA because LMA is just so much bigger. The bench played fine but the bench scored a grand total of 1 point in the first 3 minutes of the 4th quarter and the Spurs got it within 3 and had all the momentum so Thibs went back to the starters.

One more thing I think your talk of Thibs playing the bench more is a little skewed because in the Utah game the only starter to play in the 4th quarter was Towns and Towns came out around the 5 minute mark so that is 45 minutes of garbage time for the bench. The Dallas and the Kings game the bench played more because it was a blow out so the minutes are skewed with garbage time minutes.


If you want to get question Thibs for this game you could say the continue running for the Wiggins PnR with Towns/Rubio. I think that would be fair but like what Thibs said post game that is what the wolves do. Wiggins needs to do a better job at waiting for the screen and Towns needs to set a better screen. Towns only had 4 shots in the 2nd half/OT and 4 rebounds. Towns needs more shots but there were also 3 possessions that ended in shot clock violations where they all were in Towns hands.

This was a game where we miss Lavine offense a lot.

I believe the wolves are taking the next step it is just a disappointing loss because the wolves need to steal games to make the playoffs and this was one where they put them in a situation to steal a win.

kekgeek1 wrote:I am going to piggyback on Monster here about your comment LST. There are games where you can play the bench more minutes but this was not the game. I am a big Tyus fan but he was just super outmatched like Monster said it allowed the Spurs to put Danny Green on Rubio. Tyus also missed 2 layups that he needs to make down the stretch. With Dunn I just don't think you can play to guys who struggle to shoot on the court at the same time with him and Rubio. Even though I believe that Dunn played some pretty damn good defense against the Spurs. The thing about Shabazz is that the Spurs are a terrible match up defensively, He tried to guard Kawhi but Kawhi took it to him (understandable) or he would have to be run of screen after screen chasing Green.

The one Bench guy who played well was Belly but it was once again such a tough matchup for him, I think Thibs wanted to play Belly over Gorgui at the end but he couldn't guard LMA because LMA is just so much bigger. The bench played fine but the bench scored a grand total of 1 point in the first 3 minutes of the 4th quarter and the Spurs got it within 3 and had all the momentum so Thibs went back to the starters.

One more thing I think your talk of Thibs playing the bench more is a little skewed because in the Utah game the only starter to play in the 4th quarter was Towns and Towns came out around the 5 minute mark so that is 45 minutes of garbage time for the bench. The Dallas and the Kings game the bench played more because it was a blow out so the minutes are skewed with garbage time minutes.


If you want to get question Thibs for this game you could say the continue running for the Wiggins PnR with Towns/Rubio. I think that would be fair but like what Thibs said post game that is what the wolves do. Wiggins needs to do a better job at waiting for the screen and Towns needs to set a better screen. Towns only had 4 shots in the 2nd half/OT and 4 rebounds. Towns needs more shots but there were also 3 possessions that ended in shot clock violations where they all were in Towns hands.

This was a game where we miss Lavine offense a lot.

I believe the wolves are taking the next step it is just a disappointing loss because the wolves need to steal games to make the playoffs and this was one where they put them in a situation to steal a win.

Good post. I think a bigger issue with Bazz in this game than his defense was that he isn't a ball handler and with all the pressure the Spurs were putting on that hurts. Bazz wasn't hitting 3's (he has been struggling overall lately) which was partly because he wasn't getting easy wide open looks because of the Spurs defense. A lot of the time when Bazz gets bigger minutes it's when the Wolves have been able to go small. That's not happening against the Spurs.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:

Brooklyn_Wolves wrote:

Q12543 wrote:The Spurs just clamped down, my God those guys can play defense. There was no space out there.

Spurs did it because they have Leonard. Wiggins should have been parked in the weakside corner 3, further away from the action so KL stayed uninvolved the defense. And run Rubio/Tyus with KAT 2 man game. Play more Bazz if they wanted more scoring. But Wolves did the complete opposite and scored 35 points in 2 quarters plus OT. Thibs= bad head coach.

That's what we did the last time we played them and we got blown out. We just needed Wig to play better. It didn't happen and we lost. On to the next game.

Whaaaaat??? Excuse me Cool. But that some bs lies you just posted. I got to call that out.

Last time we didn't get blown out. http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201701170SAS.html

We didn't play any defense but we scored 114 on the Spurs while Wiggins only took 8 shots. Complete contrast to this game. So yeah, I'd rather Wiggins stays away from scoring inefficient point. But our HC has other point of view.

Brooklyn_Wolves wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:

Brooklyn_Wolves wrote:

Q12543 wrote:The Spurs just clamped down, my God those guys can play defense. There was no space out there.

Spurs did it because they have Leonard. Wiggins should have been parked in the weakside corner 3, further away from the action so KL stayed uninvolved the defense. And run Rubio/Tyus with KAT 2 man game. Play more Bazz if they wanted more scoring. But Wolves did the complete opposite and scored 35 points in 2 quarters plus OT. Thibs= bad head coach.

That's what we did the last time we played them and we got blown out. We just needed Wig to play better. It didn't happen and we lost. On to the next game.

Whaaaaat??? Excuse me Cool. But that some bs lies you just posted. I got to call that out.

Last time we didn't get blown out. http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201701170SAS.html

We didn't play any defense but we scored 114 on the Spurs while Wiggins only took 8 shots. Complete contrast to this game. So yeah, I'd rather Wiggins stays away from scoring inefficient point. But our HC has other point of view.

Yeah, maybe I don't recall that game as well as I thought, but if you look at the play by play the game was never in doubt from about the 9 minute mark of the 4th quarter. So not a blowout, but suffice to say it wasn't very competitive in the 4th quarter either.

The point is, using Andrew as a decoy isn't putting forth our best effort. We need him to be efficient for sure, but hiding him isn't going to be an effective strategy.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:

Brooklyn_Wolves wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:

Brooklyn_Wolves wrote:

Q12543 wrote:The Spurs just clamped down, my God those guys can play defense. There was no space out there.

Spurs did it because they have Leonard. Wiggins should have been parked in the weakside corner 3, further away from the action so KL stayed uninvolved the defense. And run Rubio/Tyus with KAT 2 man game. Play more Bazz if they wanted more scoring. But Wolves did the complete opposite and scored 35 points in 2 quarters plus OT. Thibs= bad head coach.

That's what we did the last time we played them and we got blown out. We just needed Wig to play better. It didn't happen and we lost. On to the next game.

Whaaaaat??? Excuse me Cool. But that some bs lies you just posted. I got to call that out.

Last time we didn't get blown out. http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201701170SAS.html

We didn't play any defense but we scored 114 on the Spurs while Wiggins only took 8 shots. Complete contrast to this game. So yeah, I'd rather Wiggins stays away from scoring inefficient point. But our HC has other point of view.

Yeah, maybe I don't recall that game as well as I thought, but if you look at the play by play the game was never in doubt from about the 9 minute mark of the 4th quarter. So not a blowout, but suffice to say it wasn't very competitive in the 4th quarter either.

The point is, using Andrew as a decoy isn't putting forth our best effort. We need him to be efficient for sure, but hiding him isn't going to be an effective strategy.

After the roll Wiggins has been on the last few games you don't hide him. All things considered I thought Wiggins did some good things offensively. There were a number of times when he drove to the basket it created an easy offensive rebound opportunity. Leonard got the better of him but it felt like Wiggins sort of made some plays and probably learned a few things he has to do better or can't do against him.

One thing I just remembered and I think it worth pointing out..Rubio was terrific defensively in this game.

I'd rather lose with Wiggins than try to win without him. Over the long haul you're going to be much better off.