AbeVigodaLive wrote:lipoli390 wrote:Looks like this thread has devolved again into a debate about Ricky. I didn't see the game, but looking at the box score I saw a fairly familiar 0-5 in Ricky's scoring column. I share Pork's fatigue with a PG who can't establish himself as a scoring threat.
But again, if we're looking for primary reasons for why we lost this last game, we have to look first and foremost at the performance of those on this team who are EXPECTED to score -- namely our core three and our glue-guy C/PF, Gorgui. When one of our core three -- in this case Towns -- makes only 3 of his 15 shots (20%), including 0-6 behind the arc, we should expect to lose. Add to that the fact that Wiggins missed 4 of 7 free throws while Zach missed 2 of his 3 free throw attempts. Then we have our starting PF (Gorgui) hitting only 38% of his field goal attempts. We simply can't have one of our core three missing 12 of 15 shots and expect to win. And our two wing "stars" can't make only 4 of 10 free throws if we're going to beat comparably talented teams.
Yes, I'd love to upgrade our PG position with someone who can run the offense, defend AND score. But I'm more concerned about the offensive inconsistency we're seeing from our core three, including Andrew's inconsistent effort. I remained concerned about Andrew's continuing unreliability from the free-throw line. And I'm even more concerned about our poor team defense, which is attributable to the entire team. We're not going to be able to replace Ricky with a top PG who can shoot. Instead, if we're going to seriously upgrade that position, we're going to have to count on Dunn's development. Until then, I'm growing tired of the lack of consistency from our core three. Yes, they're young, but I'm tired of the youth excuse as well.
While I agree about much of this... that's just too much pressure on 21 year old kids.
Have a bad game... or even mediocre offensive game... lose. Many teams have a bench guy who can do more than expected to steal a win or three during the season. The Wolves don't even have 5 starters capable of doing that.
If Rubio is absolved of getting blamed for bad losses when he's 0 - 5 and lit up defensively... it's time for us to stop giving him so much praise when he goes 1 - 4 and the Wolves win because Towns goes 13 - 22 fg. My primary problem with the Rubio discussions for 6 years now is that he gets his cake and eats it too in the aforementioned scenarios.
Lip I just want to add that wiggins effort was there in this game. He had 5 rebs but also was fouled going for a rebound in the first half. There was some good effort plays more than his typical game to game effort.
Abe is right on about having a guy step up and score the ball when one of your best players isn't feeling it. Right now from the bench it's basically Bazz or nobody and so far this season...he hasn't even got it going overall which has been tough. He has been doing better lately and put up some points in this game but this team needs someone to step up to win a game like this. Dunn had a nice game so that helped but it wasn't enough.
There is plenty of blame to go around for this loss and I do think Rubio should share in that blame. What makes Rubio so divisive is at any given time he can be part of the solution or part of the problem...or both at the same time. It is a legit conundrum. Like I have said before I'm starting to think Rubio is the next Calderon. A good player with flaws that keeps him from being a high level starter but also Calderon tended to have a value contract. Regardless of how you view Rubio you have to home Dunn progresses nicely. They need something more from the PG position. I think Dunn eventually will be able to provide that the question is how much better will he be.
