Minnesota Sports Forum

Wolves will be without pat bev, dlo or Nowell. No PG for the Wolves

Bolmaro to get his 1st career start

Unfortunately, we're about to see the value of D'Angelo Russell the hard way. I noticed he had some kind of a wrap on his foot/ankle last game. Hopefully it's a short-term thing and he's back sometime this week along with Patrick Beverley.

At least Karl-Anthony Towns is playing as well as Jarred Vanderbilt and Jaden McDaniels. Leandro Bolmaro is getting the start and Jordan McLaughlin will have to step up his play significantly.

Need Anthony Edwards and Malik Beasley to be shot-makers tonight.

.....aaaaaand the injury/illness bug is now really starting to impact us. This is why I went fairly low on my wins prediction, since a fully healthy roster appears to be a .500-ish club based on the results last year and early this year. This team doesn't have the depth (IMO) to withstand injuries in the same way others teams do. Leo is going to get some wide open 3's tonight. We'll see if he is willing/able to take and make them because I have to believe the Hawks will be bringing extra guys at KAT and Ant.

Q12543 wrote:.....aaaaaand the injury/illness bug is now really starting to impact us. This is why I went fairly low on my wins prediction, since a fully healthy roster appears to be a .500-ish club based on the results last year and early this year. This team doesn't have the depth (IMO) to withstand injuries in the same way others teams do. Leo is going to get some wide open 3's tonight. We'll see if he is willing/able to take and make them because I have to believe the Hawks will be bringing extra guys at KAT and Ant.

Not saying that it'll subside for the rest of the season, but Minnesota's set to get Patrick Beverley back this week. Both Jarred Vanderbilt and Anthony Edwards have already returned from whatever illness they were dealing with. Jaden McDaniels makes his return tonight. Karl-Anthony Towns is back tonight after having that tailbone contusion. D'Angelo Russell was listed with "ankle soreness" instead of another "ankle sprain" so I would assume he'll be back within the next game or two.

I think what's kind of fortunate for Minnesota is that the games these guys have missed were likely going to be tough to win even with them active -- meaning that the Wolves haven't actually dropped any games that we were expecting to win due to missing players.

I agree about the depth being an issue, but I think they've done a good job of keeping the ship afloat... for now.

Camden wrote:

Q12543 wrote:.....aaaaaand the injury/illness bug is now really starting to impact us. This is why I went fairly low on my wins prediction, since a fully healthy roster appears to be a .500-ish club based on the results last year and early this year. This team doesn't have the depth (IMO) to withstand injuries in the same way others teams do. Leo is going to get some wide open 3's tonight. We'll see if he is willing/able to take and make them because I have to believe the Hawks will be bringing extra guys at KAT and Ant.

Not saying that it'll subside for the rest of the season, but Minnesota's set to get Patrick Beverley back this week. Both Jarred Vanderbilt and Anthony Edwards have already returned from whatever illness they were dealing with. Jaden McDaniels makes his return tonight. Karl-Anthony Towns is back tonight after having that tailbone contusion. D'Angelo Russell was listed with "ankle soreness" instead of another "ankle sprain" so I would assume he'll be back within the next game or two.

I think what's kind of fortunate for Minnesota is that the games these guys have missed were likely going to be tough to win even with them active -- meaning that the Wolves haven't actually dropped any games that we were expecting to win due to missing players.

I agree about the depth being an issue, but I think they've done a good job of keeping the ship afloat... for now.

Agree....for now. This team has such a tough stretch....and it lasts for literally weeks. That six game losing streak really hurt. We should have not lost to Orlando and we should have split with the Clippers. I know we made up some ground with the wins against Miami and @ Philly, but damn, we could have used more margin for error coming into this stretch.

December is a buzz saw for us. If we can be within 4 games of 500 at the end of the Month I will be impressed.

Looking forward to the game. Realizing I have a major detractor on this, I don't believe missing DLO hurts us that much. I mean what are we going to do without his shooting prowess?

Play good defense, make some shots and we have an excellent chance to get the W.

thedoper wrote:December is a buzz saw for us. If we can be within 4 games of 500 at the end of the Month I will be impressed.

I agree...I'll take four games under .500 by the end of the month. The problem is, the schedule is really hard in January too...11 out of 15 games on the road. I'm hoping we can be within 10 games of .500 by the beginning of February, and then have a strong finish to the season.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Looking forward to the game. Realizing I have a major detractor on this, I don't believe missing DLO hurts us that much. I mean what are we going to do without his shooting prowess?

Play good defense, make some shots and we have an excellent chance to get the W.

I don't know, Cool...I'm surprised the Wolves are still favored by a couple points. I'd take the Hawks plus the points. Last game Bolmaro was much more effective than DLo, but the rest of the season our defense has been best when DLo has been on the court. I'm looking forward to seeing Leo for 30 minutes, but with KAT hurting and our two PGs out, Atlanta should win by double digits.


But if we pull this one out, I'll be advocating for a DLo for Simmons swap before the weekend!

FNG wrote:

thedoper wrote:December is a buzz saw for us. If we can be within 4 games of 500 at the end of the Month I will be impressed.

I agree...I'll take four games under .500 by the end of the month. The problem is, the schedule is really hard in January too...11 out of 15 games on the road. I'm hoping we can be within 10 games of .500 by the beginning of February, and then have a strong finish to the season.

Is it, though? Look at the opponents in January. I'd say there's only five games out of 15 where the Wolves will be significant underdogs. The first seven to start the month are pretty winnable with a four-game stretch of Oklahoma City (twice), Houston, and New Orleans. Then they have a tough finish of the month against the top teams in the Western Conference before getting a very favorable February. I think the Wolves are going to be just fine if they can weather the storm in December.