Minnesota Sports Forum

Want to thank all of you for giving me some feedback yesterday in regard to this journal. I appreciate the kind words and look forward to continuing to share my gameday thoughts. I can't change the title of this due to branding, but I think the Plus 1 will incorporate more than one theme on a regular basis. So even though, it won't officially be the 2 + 2, I'll provide more positive content most nights. It will be kind of like the Big 10 having 14 teams. Anyway, thought we might get this one tonight but couldn't get the stops necessary make up for our offensive shortcomings. Here is the "Ricky, where are you" 2 + 1:

1) Andrew played 37 minutes but only got up 14 shots, he hit 8 of them. Zach played 17 minutes and got up 15. Martin played 17 minutes and got up 11, only making 3. The point is we need to feed Andrew when he is playing this well. I would have liked to have seen more isolation sets for him on the block. Tony Allen does a good job on him, but we made his job easier by having Wig hang on the perimeter all night. Nobody can really handle him on the block, and it's a much more efficient way to attack than all the 2 point jump shots we take.

2) Until Zach became hot from 3 late, this game really demonstrated our woeful 3 point shooting and how it hurts us. Not only did we shoot a poor percentage, we just didn't take enough. Memphis is no 3 point juggernaut either, but they scored 12 more points on 3's than we did, and was a big reason for the final deficit of 8. This is another reason I think Zach needs to play the 2. He is one guy who can get hot from deep for us, and it's much easier for him when he's playing off the ball. I wonder what his game would look like if he got up 7-8 3's every night. Bottom line is we aren't going to be a complete team until we improve in this area.

Plus 1 - KG played really well tonight. I would think if he plays like that our chances of winning are pretty good. He's not as great defensively as he once was, but he still plays good team defense. It was also good to see him play over 23 minutes, must have been feeling good tonight.

We shot 50% from the floor and 90% from the line. Not bad for a Ricky DNP game. But the two points above are big reasons we couldn't get the W tonight.

And that's Cool's 2 things I didn't like tonight Plus 1.

People always talk about three point shooting in terms of three points rather than simply the extra one point. As I see it, in spite of getting eleven more shots than Memphis the Wolves only made one more so the net difference in non-free throw scoring was only two points. The Wolves lost the game not at the three point line, they lost at the foul line where they had eight more fouls, resulting in six more shots and makes from the charity stripe.

Don't misunderstand, I know the value of the three point shot, and the Wolves have to get better at it, but that didn't lose this game and saying the were outscored by twelve there doesn't sit well with me, they gave up four more points than they would on any other shot.

Yeah 14 shots for Wiggins is not enough when he is in a groove like he is now. Still would like to see him attack the rim more as well.

It's obvious how much the team needs Rubio, yet these 4 games without him haven't been nearly as bad as the carnage last year. In fact they really should have won at least one game, if not two. Sadly my gut tells me they will have two more chances to win without him before he returns.

Lavine is coming alive, too bad he couldn't stay out of foul trouble. As of right now it looks like he could fill K-Mart's instant offense role off the bench. I'd like to see three changes once Rubio gets back: Bazz starts instead of Prince, Miller backs up Rubio, and Lavine is the first wing off the bench. I'm guessing none of them will happen.

4-6 sucks after the strong start, but I don't see this team fading into the playoff abyss. The schedule gets weaker after Miami, and if Rubio gets back in the mix (sad that I have to use the word "if") I think they can go on a winning streak.

I agree with your points Cool we should really involve guys who are efficient much more esp. Wigg and KAT. I would say tho that for that to happen we need decent PG on the floor and good coach :-) .

It looks to me that our vets are warming up, as i said in other thread, it is to be expected as really old players cannot push too hard in season prep and need to play themselves into shape.

3pt shooting is huge problem, not that we would miss those points that much (even though it hurts), but it is big problem for floor spacing and it shows that we are not playing modern brand of basketball.

I certainly don't want to see Bazz start. I want Zach or Bjelica starting well ahead of Bazz. They are both multiskilled players. Bazz is just a scorer who is a liability to ball movement and defense. I don't want to see his minutes go up any more unless there is an injury.

I only saw the last 5 minutes of the game, and brief moments before that, but I was surprised at how few shots Wig ended up with. The few times I checked in during the game he was aggressively attacking the basket, but he only ended up with 14 shots. You're right...Wig needs far more than 14 shots in 27 minutes.

My opinion on this next topic is based on a very small sample size, so ignore it if you want, but the box score seems to support it. I listened to the first 10 minutes of the game on the radio, and Miller of course came in early for Zach with 2 fouls. I was pleased when Andre had a couple early steals that were instrumental in keeping us in the game, and I was thinking maybe we are too tough on Andre about his defense. But when I turned on the TV, every time I watched Andre on D he was either getting easily beaten off the dribble or he was gambling in a fashion that made the rest of the team defense vulnerable. The result was as expected...too many open jumpers. When I was watching, Andre was clearly the primary reason the worst shooting team in the league was making over 50% of their shots. And it also explains why Andre was a terrible -17 for the game, despite having his usual very good offensive game. He simply can't be relied upon to play decent NBA defense anymore.

That's why I was screaming at the TV screen when Sam substituted Andre in for Bazz with three minutes left in the game. Zach was having a really nice game at the point (he was plus 9 up to that time) despite being in foul trouble due to some questionable calls and being matched up against a very good Mike Conley. We were playing well and only down one at that point, and what we needed most were defensive stops. But instead Sam chose to go with a lineup designed to stop nobody, and the results were predictable...in the final three minutes the Grizzlies were 3-3 from the field and 13-14 from the line. That's 20 points scored by the worst shooting team in the league in only 3 minutes...at that rate, Memphis would have put up 320 points for the game! I have been praising Sam's matchups all season, and thought it was one of the main reasons we were 4-5 before yesterday. But matching Andre up against Conley and Zach against Tony Allen when we needed stops was a blunder. I'm convinced we win the game if he stays with Zach, Wig, Bazz, KG and Towns. All looked fresh and could have finished the game.

Andre is what he is, and we can't expect much from him at this point on defense, so I don't blame him. This loss is on Sam Mitchell's end-of-game moves. Let's hope he learned something from it so we avoid future end-of-game defensive collapses.

LST, if you look at the whole game, Memphis just flat-out made the shots we wanted them to take....Lots of mid-range and long 2's and 3's, many of which were heavily contested. Gasol, Conley, and Randolph couldn't miss from outside. Those three hardly had any easy points in the paint.

Of course Memphis picks the night they play us to break out of their shooting slump....

Q12543 wrote:LST, if you look at the whole game, Memphis just flat-out made the shots we wanted them to take....Lots of mid-range and long 2's and 3's, many of which were heavily contested. Gasol, Conley, and Randolph couldn't miss from outside. Those three hardly had any easy points in the paint.

Of course Memphis picks the night they play us to break out of their shooting slump....

Thx for that observation, Q...I admit I didn't see most of the game, and from the box score, assumed we were giving wide-open looks a la last season. Sounds like this was more about the Griz being absurdly hot most of the game.

But I did watch the last five minutes, and the defense the final three minutes (after Miller came in) was laughable. I mean, it would be difficult to give up 20 points in three minutes to Golden State, but we managed to do it to the lowest scoring team in the league! I didn't see Sam's post-game conference, but as I said earlier, I hope he learned something from those final three minutes.

longstrangetrip wrote:

Q12543 wrote:LST, if you look at the whole game, Memphis just flat-out made the shots we wanted them to take....Lots of mid-range and long 2's and 3's, many of which were heavily contested. Gasol, Conley, and Randolph couldn't miss from outside. Those three hardly had any easy points in the paint.

Of course Memphis picks the night they play us to break out of their shooting slump....

Thx for that observation, Q...I admit I didn't see most of the game, and from the box score, assumed we were giving wide-open looks a la last season. Sounds like this was more about the Griz being absurdly hot most of the game.

But I did watch the last five minutes, and the defense the final three minutes (after Miller came in) was laughable. I mean, it would be difficult to give up 20 points in three minutes to Golden State, but we managed to do it to the lowest scoring team in the league! I didn't see Sam's post-game conference, but as I said earlier, I hope he learned something from those final three minutes.

No doubt they ended poorly, but they generally played some decent defense leading up to that point and Memphis was just making their shots. This is where Ricky can be so disruptive. Even if the other team is hot from the field, he can take a timely charge, force a travel, or get a steal. We just don't have other guys that force turnovers in the same way he does.

Q12543 wrote:

longstrangetrip wrote:

Q12543 wrote:LST, if you look at the whole game, Memphis just flat-out made the shots we wanted them to take....Lots of mid-range and long 2's and 3's, many of which were heavily contested. Gasol, Conley, and Randolph couldn't miss from outside. Those three hardly had any easy points in the paint.

Of course Memphis picks the night they play us to break out of their shooting slump....

Thx for that observation, Q...I admit I didn't see most of the game, and from the box score, assumed we were giving wide-open looks a la last season. Sounds like this was more about the Griz being absurdly hot most of the game.

But I did watch the last five minutes, and the defense the final three minutes (after Miller came in) was laughable. I mean, it would be difficult to give up 20 points in three minutes to Golden State, but we managed to do it to the lowest scoring team in the league! I didn't see Sam's post-game conference, but as I said earlier, I hope he learned something from those final three minutes.

No doubt they ended poorly, but they generally played some decent defense leading up to that point and Memphis was just making their shots. This is where Ricky can be so disruptive. Even if the other team is hot from the field, he can take a timely charge, force a travel, or get a steal. We just don't have other guys that force turnovers in the same way he does.

Good to hear you saw a decent defensive effort most of the game...you gotta accept that opponents are going to have red-hot nights now and then. And I agree that despite the good defensive iffort, they really miss Rubio's disruptiveness. Andre had 3 steals yesterday, but my sense was that they were Brewer-like steals...i.e. arising from excessive gambling. I think that has a lot to do with his minus 17 yesterday, because his offensive numbers were very good.