Thunder at Wolves GDT

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Seven technicals tonight? Who hurt these refs? Why are they so sensitive? Goodness.

[kekgeek]

The refs tossed Ant, Gobert,Dlo

Other Ts too Anderson, Finch, Nowell, Rivers

I have not been this pissed at officiating in a long ass time.

Hope they enjoy that money

[Q-is-here]

The refs tossed Ant, Gobert,Dlo

Other Ts too Anderson, Finch, Nowell, Rivers

I have not been this pissed at officiating in a long ass time.

Hope they enjoy that money

The officiating was bad, but also credit to OKC. That's a well coached, resilient team. We threw everything we had at them in terms of effort and heart and they withstood all our counter-punches. They made shots that they normally don't make, but it seems like that happens a lot to the Wolves these days....

Really hoping Moore Jr. takes Rivers out of the rotation. It would be a real bright spot if he keeps playing competently. Doesn't look out of place compared to what I saw in the pre-season from him. Still could fizzle though, so not getting my hopes up.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Thought Rudy Gobert should have been called for a Flagrant 1 when he tripped Kenrich Williams, but if we're being honest Gobert needs to control himself better in that moment. The game got much more difficult for Minnesota once he was tossed. He's probably still the Wolves best player and removing him from the game was very impactful.

I thought our guys showed great fight and resiliency, but moral victories aren't enough. They'll have to steal one against a top team to make up for this loss.

[Q-is-here]

Thought Rudy Gobert should have been called for a Flagrant 1 when he tripped Kenrich Williams, but if we're being honest Gobert needs to control himself better in that moment. The game got much more difficult for Minnesota once he was tossed. He's probably still the Wolves best player and removing him from the game was very impactful.

I thought our guys showed great fight and resiliency, but moral victories aren't enough. They'll have to steal one against a top team to make up for this loss.

Hate to say it, but the season is starting to slip away at this point. We have just dropped way too many games that we should have won on paper. We need like 6 or 7 improbable wins at this point. Not going to happen.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Thought Rudy Gobert should have been called for a Flagrant 1 when he tripped Kenrich Williams, but if we're being honest Gobert needs to control himself better in that moment. The game got much more difficult for Minnesota once he was tossed. He's probably still the Wolves best player and removing him from the game was very impactful.

I thought our guys showed great fight and resiliency, but moral victories aren't enough. They'll have to steal one against a top team to make up for this loss.

Hate to say it, but the season is starting to slip away at this point. We have just dropped way too many games that we should have won on paper. We need like 6 or 7 improbable wins at this point. Not going to happen.

I'm not ready to go that far, personally. I know we don't like to use last season as a comparison or barometer, and urgency is absolutely needed, but the Wolves were a game below .500 (24-25) as late as January 28th before going 22-11 over their next 33 games and winding up 46-36 on the year -- 3.0 GB of the fifth-seed. There's just too much basketball left to play for me to feel uneasy given the talent on the roster. Another month from now should be more telling, I think, but I've seen some good things from this team lately. Need that to reflect in the wins column, of course.

[FNG]

Just finished watching the replay, and trying to figure out why I'm not depressed after losing to OkC by 7 at home. I think it's this:

-Thunder are pretty good. They're not normally going to shoot like that (33.8% on threes for the season, 42.3% tonight!), but with Jaden in foul trouble and Prince out, we know we are going to give up a lot of open looks beyond the arc...our other guards other than Rivers and JMac just don't defend the perimeter well.

-I hate losses, but you can tell by the positive tone in the GDT that others agree this was a very entertaining game...two teams playing hard.

-It's difficult to win in the NBA when your arguably two best players are out. Many times last year I didn't feel great when we beat teams that I knew were better than us but were missing two or more of their best players. Tonight the shoe was on the other foot, and we have to live with it. We're going to lose a lot of games with KAT out (and an absurd ejection for Gobert) so I can't call this a bad loss.

That said, it was frustrating to watch us be so careless with the ball. I'm starting to believe there is no more important stat in basketball than assists to turnover ratio. We beat the Grizzlies a couple days with almost all the stats making it look like a Memphis blowout...but we had 26 assists and only 12 turnovers. Tonight we had 25 assists and 23 turnovers...what a disastrous turnaround! Our five best playmakers not named JMac (Russell, Ant, Moore Jr., Rivers and SloMo) had 16 assists and 17 turnovers...you're just not going to win many games when you are so sloppy with the ball.

And it starts with our starting PG. I know we rip Russell a lot in this thread and it starts to get repetitive, and I really enjoyed watching him get to the basket last night, but you don't have much chance of winning when your starting PG is a -16. Only Jaden was worse at -22, and he was unable to do much against SGA except foul him....Shai is a tough matchup for anyone. But while Russell looked good at times out there and did a nice job of getting to the basket against an undersized Thunder team, he seemed to abandon the spread pick and roll style that led to him having 10 assists and only 2 turnovers in the previous game...and no surprise, he was a team leading +18 in the Memphis win. That's a 34 point turnaround for Russell in just two games!

It's going to be difficult to win over the next month without KAT and damn near impossible without Gobert, but we would have won tonight if we had protected the ball better. Russell and Ant kept us in the game with some brilliant one-on-one play...good on them for recognizing OkC has no interior defense. But one-on-one play is not a winning prescription. With KAT out, our guards need to protect the ball better, and it just didn't happen tonight.

[FNG]

Okay, I just looked at the box score, and I'll join the chorus in saying the refs were also instrumental in this loss. Gobert was on his way to a monster game against undersized Thunder with 6 points and 4 rebounds (as well as an intimidating interior presence for the marvelous SGA who was able to get to the basket with ease) in only 9 minutes. Sure that was a stupid move by him to kick Williams, but there's no fricken way that should be an ejection. Changed the nature of the game.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Oh, boy... That game was yet another example of how traditional plus-minus, especially of the single-game variety, can often be a misleading statistic. I'll forever argue that plus-minus is best-used as a lineup/unit metric instead of an individual catch-all. There's just too much context withheld from it to be consistently meaningful.

I believe anyone who seriously watched last night's game knows Anthony Edwards and D'Angelo Russell were the only reasons Minnesota hung around last night, especially after Rudy Gobert got ejected, so I won't spend much time elaborating there. Naz Reid stepped in admirably and posted a career-high in rebounds (18) so kudos there as well. It's a game Minnesota should have won. They let it slip away with some untimely turnovers and missed shots late, along with Oklahoma City hitting some real toughies down the stretch. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has played at an elite level this year and might be top-five in the NBA right now.

It's a bad loss, but I saw encouraging fight in our guys. They'll get an extended break here with their next game coming Wednesday at home against Indiana. That's several days to reset and come back stronger. Favorable stretch on the schedule ahead.

[Lipoli390]

Oh, boy... That game was yet another example of how traditional plus-minus, especially of the single-game variety, can often be a misleading statistic. I'll forever argue that plus-minus is best-used as a lineup/unit metric instead of an individual catch-all. There's just too much context withheld from it to be consistently meaningful.

I believe anyone who seriously watched last night's game knows Anthony Edwards and D'Angelo Russell were the only reasons Minnesota hung around last night, especially after Rudy Gobert got ejected, so I won't spend much time elaborating there. Naz Reid stepped in admirably and posted a career-high in rebounds (18) so kudos there as well. It's a game Minnesota should have won. They let it slip away with some untimely turnovers and missed shots late, along with Oklahoma City hitting some real toughies down the stretch. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has played at an elite level this year and might be top-five in the NBA right now.

It's a bad loss, but I saw encouraging fight in our guys. They'll get an extended break here with their next game coming Wednesday at home against Indiana. That's several days to reset and come back stronger. Favorable stretch on the schedule ahead.

Cam - I agree with you that the plus-minus stat is not a good measure of an individual player's performance in a particular game and it is often misleading. I also agree that Edwards and Russell were clearly the Wolves best players last night and the reason the Wolves were in the game.