I'm still a huge fan but I realize that he isn't MJ or even Kobe level yet, and maybe he never will be. I still am probably being a homer thinking he will be the best player in the NBA (him and Wemby in 2-3 years). But we'll see. Maybe a coaching change is really needed, because I hear Finch say the right things, but the players and Ant specifically doesn't listen enough (regular season play mostly).Coolbreeze44 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 18, 2026 3:30 pmThis is a great post WF. Especially the part about defense having to be a 5 man orchestra of sorts. Minnesota sports fans are generally sensitive to criticism of their favorite player. But I like that some of us can see the forest through the trees and be objective. Q makes excuses for Ant's defense, and then follows with "I'm not making excuses for Ant". Either you are or you're not. Ant is a great basketball player that hasn't figured out yet if winning is his top priority. I hope along with everyone that eventually he figures it out, but I'm not putting big money on it.Wolvesfan21 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 18, 2026 2:13 pmAnt's regular season defense for sure to my eye test has dropped this year. When we had the #1 ranked defense a few years ago I think he simply played on that end much more. Obviously he is capable of doing it, he simply doesn't care enough to do so now and focus on his offensive bag.FNG wrote: ↑Wed Mar 18, 2026 12:35 pm Abe: regarding your comment about the defense flipping a switch after a dreadful first quarter. After the first quarter, I was ready to declare my take that Ant was the main problem for our defense the worst take ever on this board. But then everything changed. Dane Moore asked Finchy about this after the game, and his answer made sense, but was not very flattering to Ant on two fronts. Finchy said the coaches came out with a flawed game plan: they were concerned about the outside shooting of Booker and Green (Green, really Chris?), and so they asked Rudy to play high wall defense. This hurt our defensive rebounding, and the Suns were able to score easily inside with Rudy not there...hence Ighodaro going off for 14/5 in the first 18 minutes. But the coaches changed the game plan sometime in the second quarter and had Rudy play drop coverage instead, and we all saw what happened.
Knee jerk conclusions after one game without Ant:
1) Ant is the primary problem on defense. When he's not on the court, our defensive rating is equal to the Pistons's. And once the coaches changed a bad game plan, our defense without Ant was stellar in this game.
2) We've heard numerous times post-game that the coaches drew up a good game plan, but the players didn't follow it. Finchy implies in his comments that the players did follow the game plan in this game...both the original flawed one, and the corrected one. So Ant doesn't play, and suddenly the players follow a game plan. Hmm...
As great as Ant is and he is a great player, he's been a poor leader on the court this year in the regular season. If he was to up his defense, play quicker and more in line within the game plan we'd be right there I think with SA and OKC. Maybe I'm a homer saying that, but I think it'd be possible.
See the problem with defense is, you need all 5 players playing it. One weak link or half effort and the other team will exploit it, and they do. We have too often seen both Ju and Ant play half ass defense for many games or most of the game. When your lead dogs play half ass, it simply doesn't matter how good a defense the other 3 or 4 guys play. It just doesn't matter at that point. Not only that it will rub off on the other players too.
I kind of hate blaming the best player, but in the end, how he goes the Wolves go. The W/L record is really on him, good or bad. Saying that if he simply wasn't as talented or capable I wouldn't put it all on him, and certainly many games his teammates have failed too, no question. But I think overall he hasn't played up to his ability. As great as he is I really think he could be in the MVP race, and because our record isn't up to snuff, he obviously isn't the MVP.
I think part of it is he is so confident in his ability that he figures to himself most of the time, I'll just do my thing and we'll win. It's not really working well though, as we see with our record. Maybe this time off, just like for Ju last year will slightly humble him and he'll get back to focusing on team basketball first and foremost.
