Game Report - Wolves v. Nuggets

[Lipoli390]

There's no mystery surrounding tonight's loss to Denver and no need to nitpick the game. The Wolves lost tonight because their shooting was horrendous. If you shoot 35% from the field and make only 6 of 45 3-point attempts in the NBA you will lose! It's that simple. Denver's good defensively, but that's not the story tonight. Time after time, Wolves' players missed wide-open unrushed 3-point attempts, not to mention multiple minimally-contested 2-point attempts.

Was Saunders outcoached tonight? Yes, I think he was. One of the worst examples was having Wiggins hold and shoot to close out the 4th quarter. With about 45 seconds left on the clock, there appeared to be no play designed. Instead, reminiscent of last season, Wiggins simply brought the ball up and dribbled down the shot clock outside the arc beyond the top of the key. There was hardly any movement off the ball and no attempt by Wiggins to penetrate. No one other than Wiggins touched or even came close to touching the ball on that possession. Then Wiggins, who is not a good 3-point shooter in spite of his sporadic moments of heroism, hoisted up a 3-pointer that clanked off the rim.

But again, in the end it was horrendous shooting by the entire team that denied the Wolves what would have otherwise been an impressive home win against a very good team. Layman looks like a shooter. He has picture-perfect form, but he just isn't accurate. That's the player he was the second half of last season so I guess it shouldn't be a surprise. If he were the shooter many were hoping he'd be, the Wolves would have won tonight even with nothing more from any of the other guys on the team. He had so many great looks set up by his teammates and he repeatedly missed them - ending up 0-6 from behind the arc. Okogie hit 2 of his 6 three-point attempts and Wiggins hit 1 of his 6. Layman didn't hit any. And that's typical from him so far this season as he's only hit 39% of his field goal attempts and 29.7% of his 3-point attempts. Substitute Kendrick Nunn for Layman and the Wolves win tonight, probably with some room to spare.

There are some good things, however, that I took away from this game. Okogie continued to play well on both ends, in spite of being among the Wolves parade of poor shooters tonight. He still made things happen with rebounds, steals and tenacious defense. And unlike others, he at least hit some three-pointers. I was also impressed by Culver. Yes, his 3-point shooting continued to suck as he missed all 4 of his attempts. He also missed 2 of his 4 free-throw attempts as he continues to be poor free-throw shooter. But he made some really nice plays tonight and hit 4 of his 5 two-point attempts. He continues to surprise me with how crafty and controlled he is with the ball and tonight he showed a quick burst I didn't know he had when he exploded to the basket for a dunk. He has some nice skills and what seems to be a very high basketball IQ. If he can fix his broken shot, I think he can develop into an all-star caliber player. I love the way McLaughlin played tonight. He's really quick and very smart with the ball. He should have played more than 8 minutes tonight.

We definitely missed Teague and Napier tonight, but since I'm worried about the long term, not individual game outcomes this season, I actually prefer having the Wolves play without them (or at least without Teague) since neither is likely a part of this team beyond this season.

The good news is that the Wolves showed a lot of heart and mental toughness hanging in there as they came back from 16 down in the 4th in spite of their horrendous shooting. They took the game into overtime to almost beat one of the top teams in the West. Culver showed some promise and Okogie continued to impress. This team needs to add shooters. That was painfully obvious against Denver and isn't anything new to those of us who have been watching this team. Further, Ryan Saunders has to make sure the ball moves on every single possession and he has to STOP having Wiggins play a role reserved for the likes of Michael Jordan, Kawhi Leonard, LeBron James and James Harden. It's absolutely ridiculous. Meanwhile this team is still above .500 and has hung with every team except the Bucks and Sixers.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Good report Lip. I agree that Culver showed some encouraging signs. His instincts, footwork and touch with either hand around the basket seem to be there. It's more of a confidence and adjustment to the speed of the game issue. The shot though...As I've said all along, that will ultimately determine whether he's great or good/just OK as a player.

One of my theories when complaining in the past about our 2-point happy offenses under Flip, Mitch, and Thibs was that even if we don't have great shooters, simply having the green light to shoot the 3 will help guys become more confident with their shot and therefore develop into better 3-point shooters. Welp, that theory has proven dead wrong so far! Ugly.

It's a travesty that this team doesn't have a full-time shooting coach on staff.

[60WinTim]

You neglected to mention how many 3's KAT missed... Or who had the most turnovers...

Ryan got some nice run out of that Okogie-Graham-Wiggins-Covington-KAT lineup in the 4th quarter. I wonder if that is something that might be used in the future, even if Teague and/or Napier are available?

While a win would have been better, I am still quite encouraged about what this team might accomplish this season.

This was the first game of a 5-games-in-7-days stretches. Will be interesting to see if the team can make progress just playing on the court!

[Coolbreeze44]

I had no problem with Wiggins taking that shot at the end of the 4th quarter. He's earned it this year, and I felt if anyone was going to make a big shot it would probably be him. He didn't make it, that's the way it goes. You should be mentioning that he made good plays throughout the 4th quarter in the role of primary ball handler. Again, if his teammates could make a shot he would be getting 10 assists per night.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

I had no problem with Wiggins taking that shot at the end of the 4th quarter. He's earned it this year, and I felt if anyone was going to make a big shot it would probably be him. He didn't make it, that's the way it goes. You should be mentioning that he made good plays throughout the 4th quarter in the role of primary ball handler. Again, if his teammates could make a shot he would be getting 10 assists per night.

All of what you said is true, however, I think what the point was that Wiggins had an isolation play to win the game instead of there being an actual play designed. And even worse, he settled for a contested jumper two feet behind the three-point line. Granted, I think he played pretty well. That possession, though, is one that I think everyone would like to have back.

[mjs34]

I had no problem with Wiggins taking that shot at the end of the 4th quarter. He's earned it this year, and I felt if anyone was going to make a big shot it would probably be him. He didn't make it, that's the way it goes. You should be mentioning that he made good plays throughout the 4th quarter in the role of primary ball handler. Again, if his teammates could make a shot he would be getting 10 assists per night.

All of what you said is true, however, I think what the point was that Wiggins had an isolation play to win the game instead of there being an actual play designed. And even worse, he settled for a contested jumper two feet behind the three-point line. Granted, I think he played pretty well. That possession, though, is one that I think everyone would like to have back.

That whole situation is a miserable fail by the wolves. If you gain possession with 35 second on the clock you should have two options. The first is to push the ball and go for a two/one, the other is to run your regular offense using whatever part of the shot clock you need to get a good shot off. You can't limit the other team enough to make a big difference, particularly against a wolves defense.

Standing around letting the clock tick away and then taking a bad shot only results in giving your advantage away. Why waste 15-20 seconds of shot clock time worrying about what the other team might have left. Unless there is under 30 seconds when you take possession in that situation, you are only screwing your own team. Not sure why Ryan didn't call a TO before that play.

[crazy-canuck [enjin:18955461]]

I had no problem with Wiggins taking that shot at the end of the 4th quarter. He's earned it this year, and I felt if anyone was going to make a big shot it would probably be him. He didn't make it, that's the way it goes. You should be mentioning that he made good plays throughout the 4th quarter in the role of primary ball handler. Again, if his teammates could make a shot he would be getting 10 assists per night.

All of what you said is true, however, I think what the point was that Wiggins had an isolation play to win the game instead of there being an actual play designed. And even worse, he settled for a contested jumper two feet behind the three-point line. Granted, I think he played pretty well. That possession, though, is one that I think everyone would like to have back.

Not sure if anyone ekse had noticed, but wiggs 3 pt shot actually looks better the 2 or 3 feet behind the 3 pt line than near the 3 pt line.

Would have preferred he attacked the rim, but saunders gave wiggs a growth moment and he missed.

[Lipoli390]

I had no problem with Wiggins taking that shot at the end of the 4th quarter. He's earned it this year, and I felt if anyone was going to make a big shot it would probably be him. He didn't make it, that's the way it goes. You should be mentioning that he made good plays throughout the 4th quarter in the role of primary ball handler. Again, if his teammates could make a shot he would be getting 10 assists per night.

All of what you said is true, however, I think what the point was that Wiggins had an isolation play to win the game instead of there being an actual play designed. And even worse, he settled for a contested jumper two feet behind the three-point line. Granted, I think he played pretty well. That possession, though, is one that I think everyone would like to have back.

You got it right, Cam. I wasn't being critical of Wiggins. I was criticizing our head coach for failing to call a real play and failing to utilize 4/5 of his players on the floor for an entire critical possession.

I really like the way Wiggins is playing so far this season and he performed better than most of his teammates last night. But he's not James Harden and Saunders has to do better than just putting the ball in Wiggins' hands out high for a clear-out with little off-ball movement and no screens or cuts off the ball.

[Lipoli390]

You neglected to mention how many 3's KAT missed... Or who had the most turnovers...

Ryan got some nice run out of that Okogie-Graham-Wiggins-Covington-KAT lineup in the 4th quarter. I wonder if that is something that might be used in the future, even if Teague and/or Napier are available?

While a win would have been better, I am still quite encouraged about what this team might accomplish this season.

This was the first game of a 5-games-in-7-days stretches. Will be interesting to see if the team can make progress just playing on the court!

No need to mention KAT's missed threes. If I had, I would have mentioned his three-point shooting as a positive in contrast to Layman just as I did mentioning the 3-point shooting of Okogie and Wiggins.

I didn't mention KAT's turnovers (Covington was just as bad in that area on a per-minute basis) because I saw the loss as a function of horrendously poor shooting, which rendered emphasis on any other stat trivial. For the same reason, I didn't mention KAT's 16 rebounds either.

But the good news is that everyone's shooting (except Covington's) cam around tonight against Detroit. And so far this team has shown some toughness and resilience even when things aren't clicking or their shots aren't falling.

[Monster]

I knew going into this one knowing that Wolves likely lost because I accidentally saw something about it on a friend's instagram who is a Nuggets fan.

I'm just gonna say that going to overtime against the Nuggets with no real experienced PGs was kinda impressive. Okogie had a nice game.