Minnesota Sports Forum

FNG wrote:Last year we won countless games against teams that were clearly better than us but missing key players. Tonight was the opposite. We're better than Portland, and we will beat them 4 times out of 5 if both teams are healthy. Sure they have a great starting lineup...but I would argue ours is better, and there's no question we are a much deeper team with a much deeper bench. But there were all sorts of reasons Portland was favored by 5 1/2 tonight and we were destined to lose:

1) Portland was 100% healthy, and we were missing our most prolific offensive starter and 2 of our most important reserves.

2) This was the second night of a BTB. Ant has said publicly he doesn't play well in back to backs (he proved himself wrong tonight).

3) Portland is a great 3-point shooting team, and we are notoriously bad at defending the perimeter.

4) There hasn't been a big drop off this season when our starters go out...in fact, our reserves have regularly outplayed the other team. But having to play guys like Wendell Moore and Austin Rivers instead of Prince and JMac is a big problem. To put some numbers next to it, Prince and JMac have a combined on/off of +24.9...Rivers and Moore Jr. are a combined -35.9. That's a 60.8 point swing per 100 possessions...nuf said.

I know most here aren't fans of moral victories...I am. Hanging with Portland tonight told me a lot about this team. This is the 5th entertaining game we have played without KAT, and we are 3-2. This team has been fun to watch recently every night.

I'm a fan of on/off numbers over a large sample size (and especially over an entire career)...it's a stat that seldom lets me down over a large sample size in evaluating a player's importance to a team. But there were two negative numbers tonight that don't match at all what I saw. I thought SloMo and Naz were both outstanding tonight, but they were -12 and -17, respectively (DLo was overheard thanking both of them in the locker room post game ;-) ) SloMo is rapidly becoming my favorite player on the team, and was an efficient 14-7-6 tonight with only 2 turnovers. As he gets more and more comfortable being the de facto PG, he allows DLo to thrive more in a shooting guard role (24 points on only 15 shots despite 5 turnovers and only 3 assists). I think replacing KAT in the starting lineup with SloMo brings out the best in Russell by allowing him to play more off ball. It will be interesting to see what happens when KAT comes back. Does he substitute SloMo for Jaden (who had the same number of rebounds as jester tonight despite jester going to bed before the game was over) in the starting lineup, allowing Dlo to continue to play more off ball. We'll have to see.

Anyway, I'm excited to see what happens Monday night. Calf injuries are killing us right now...they tend to linger and recur, so I don't expect JMac back by then. Healthy Portland is too good for us if we're missing three key players, so we will have to overachieve Monday to steal a game on the road.

FNG wrote:Last year we won countless games against teams that were clearly better than us but missing key players. Tonight was the opposite. We're better than Portland, and we will beat them 4 times out of 5 if both teams are healthy. Sure they have a great starting lineup...but I would argue ours is better, and there's no question we are a much deeper team with a much deeper bench. But there were all sorts of reasons Portland was favored by 5 1/2 tonight and we were destined to lose:

1) Portland was 100% healthy, and we were missing our most prolific offensive starter and 2 of our most important reserves.

2) This was the second night of a BTB. Ant has said publicly he doesn't play well in back to backs (he proved himself wrong tonight).

3) Portland is a great 3-point shooting team, and we are notoriously bad at defending the perimeter.

4) There hasn't been a big drop off this season when our starters go out...in fact, our reserves have regularly outplayed the other team. But having to play guys like Wendell Moore and Austin Rivers instead of Prince and JMac is a big problem. To put some numbers next to it, Prince and JMac have a combined on/off of +24.9...Rivers and Moore Jr. are a combined -35.9. That's a 60.8 point swing per 100 possessions...nuf said.

I know most here aren't fans of moral victories...I am. Hanging with Portland tonight told me a lot about this team. This is the 5th entertaining game we have played without KAT, and we are 3-2. This team has been fun to watch recently every night.

I'm a fan of on/off numbers over a large sample size (and especially over an entire career)...it's a stat that seldom lets me down over a large sample size in evaluating a player's importance to a team. But there were two negative numbers tonight that don't match at all what I saw. I thought SloMo and Naz were both outstanding tonight, but they were -12 and -17, respectively (DLo was overheard thanking both of them in the locker room post game ;-) ) SloMo is rapidly becoming my favorite player on the team, and was an efficient 14-7-6 tonight with only 2 turnovers. As he gets more and more comfortable being the de facto PG, he allows DLo to thrive more in a shooting guard role (24 points on only 15 shots despite 5 turnovers and only 3 assists). I think replacing KAT in the starting lineup with SloMo brings out the best in Russell by allowing him to play more off ball. It will be interesting to see what happens when KAT comes back. Does he substitute SloMo for Jaden (who had the same number of rebounds as jester tonight despite jester going to bed before the game was over) in the starting lineup, allowing Dlo to continue to play more off ball. We'll have to see.

Anyway, I'm excited to see what happens Monday night. Calf injuries are killing us right now...they tend to linger and recur, so I don't expect JMac back by then. Healthy Portland is too good for us if we're missing three key players, so we will have to overachieve Monday to steal a game on the road.

leado01 wrote:I missed watching the Friday/Saturday games for a family event in Palm Beach.

I was able to semi-stream/gamecast/follow while talking to relatives I see every other year. What's interesting is that the perception of who and how good the Wolves are has changed amongst casual NBA fans in the past two years.

There's an expectation that the Wolves are a mid-tier playoff team that should at least win a first round series. That's a pretty dramatic change since I last visited with these relatives.

We will get there. We aren't necessarily improving at the pace we thought we would improve at, but we will get there.

TheSP wrote:Am I the only one who thinks this team is more fun to watch without KAT?

FNG wrote:

TheSP wrote:Am I the only one who thinks this team is more fun to watch without KAT?

Not at all, SP. I'm not saying they're better without KAT, but they are definitely more fun to watch. The last 5 games have been some of the most entertaining basketball of the season.

lipoli390 wrote:

FNG wrote:

TheSP wrote:Am I the only one who thinks this team is more fun to watch without KAT?

Not at all, SP. I'm not saying they're better without KAT, but they are definitely more fun to watch. The last 5 games have been some of the most entertaining basketball of the season.

I agree that this team has been more fun to watch since KAT went down. Note we were really fun to watch last season with KAT but no Gobert. KAT and Gobert together seems to result in a slower, less exciting brand of basketball. On hte other hand, the game against the Pacers around Thanksgiving was fun to watch and we have KAT and Gobert together in that one.