Minnesota Sports Forum

http://www.minnpost.com/sports/2015/03/longer-wolves-deny-importance-three-pointers-worse-theyll-be

Nothing groundbreaking in this article, but quite damning nonetheless. I was at the Portland game that Robson references, and Flip's offense was a thing of beauty...really a joy to watch. But it's not sustainable. The NBA rules award a 50% bonus for making a shot beyond the arc, and it's foolish to not take advantage it. Card-counting blackjack players know this, and alter their bets to take advantage of a deck rich with faces and aces because the rules offer that same attractive bonus for blackjacks. Why doesn't Flip get this?

Wolves made 12 three pointers yesterday. How'd that turn out?

Yeah, the part where Flip says no NBA team actually runs plays for 3-point shots is total and complete B.S. Our defense is the victims of these plays on most nights. My God, does he think we're idiots!?

Flip just doesn't get it and don't try to tell me he does because he has yet to combat the shooting more threes argument with the fact that he lacks good 3 pt shooters. He always finds some other BS reason to deflect the question because he doesn't believe in the changing culture of the NBA offense. We have to play damn near perfect to win against good teams using his system in today's game. Meanwhile everyone else is hedging their bets for off shooting nights by jacking up 3's just for sheer volume purposes. The fact that the top 3 % of shots coming from midrange teams are 3 of the four worst teams in the league should be enough for him to realize it doesn't work. How does nobody emphasize that stat to him? That's not good company to keep in the stat pool. It pisses me off because he is jeopardizing our future with his bull shit instead of being open to new trends and trying them before putting them down. Flip isn't the smartest guy in the room, but he is coaching and managing this team like he is and it is not good for our future if he doesn't become more open to new concepts and ideas.

Just look at the Grizzlies. Hollins was a dinosaur and they brought in Hollinger and Joeger and determined that Marc is a god from the high post and they should probably run more of the offense through him and they went from the bottom of the playoff hunt to one of the front runners. They didn't even add threes. They just used the stats to help better their offense with their existing personnel. They were open to other information and it took them to another level instead of continuing with the Hollins system that couldn't adapt to what advanced stats said they could do better. The Grizzlies aren't that different from the Hollins days. They've just focused their efforts on more efficient opportunities that existed but weren't emphasized.

This is not a "flash in the pan" type thing. This IS how the league will be played for the next 20-30 years (until new rules are made to expand the 3-point arc, add in a possible 4-pointer, or other extremely innovative rules.).

Smart people from business, math, tech. industries are infiltrating their way into pro sports, and its apparent in the way that teams are focusing more and more on data and statistical trends. When I'm not praying for some luck to draft Karl Anthony-Towns, I'm spending my time praying that THIS Wolves franchise (with so much young talent and so much promise) can finally accept and embrace these concepts sooner than later.

I'm a lot less worried about whether or not we take more 3's than the brutal defense this team plays or doesn't play or whatever. It's 2013 Vikings and Dallas defense level bad maybe even worse actually. GS played some solid D before they added some top notch defenders so we should be able to at least have some sort of clue out there. Throw tons of cash at Mike Malone to be an assistant? I would think he will be in pretty high demand and might have some HC options. I agree this team should attempt more 3's one way or another but please fix that defense.

I'll admit I'm a casual fan and there are a lot of people on this board who know more than me. So I need help because I am confused.

A half court offense is what Flip runs. Been around since Bobby Knight was winning national chanpionships, maybe even been around since those all white team Adoph Rupp ran at Kentucky. We are running a half court.

We have two players, Wiggins and Lavine, who run the court like deer. We have a point guard whose greatest strength is passing and court vision (anticipation). Shouldn't we be running a fast break offense?

Never mind defense. I know Flip doesn't coach that. Flip the GM needs a new coach.

I'm glad you mentioned that papal. Guess what initiates transition opportunities? Good defense and stops. We have guys that can and should be killing it in fastbreak points, but we're so poor defensively we just don't get as many easy runs as we should.

Please give Karl-Anthony Towns.

Is the philosophy lacking or the talent to hit jump shots lacking. When Flip became coach I feared the talent wouldn't suit his style of play . Other than Martin who can hit open jumpers on a regular basis ? If they can't hit 15 footers why should we expect them to be hitting 3s if the offense was predicated on it? It's the lack of talent more so than the philosophy IMO. What coach in this league would get this group to play better defense and start making shots?

PorkChop wrote:Is the philosophy lacking or the talent to hit jump shots lacking. When Flip became coach I feared the talent wouldn't suit his style of play . Other than Martin who can hit open jumpers on a regular basis ? If they can't hit 15 footers why should we expect them to be hitting 3s if the offense was predicated on it? It's the lack of talent more so than the philosophy IMO. What coach in this league would get this group to play better defense and start making shots?

Sure the talent isn't there, but the point is that Flip's system needs to be run almost to perfection to win games because an offense predicated on 2's just has a smaller margin for error. We got beat in pretty much every facet of the game against the Jazz except from behind the arc and we won the game because it gave us a big enough margin of error to overcome the other deficiencies in that game. It doesn't make sense to have a system that has less margin for error to be able to win games. The differential in FG% is hardly ever going to be enough in our favor to give us any easy wins. When the other team makes 3 more threes than us it puts us in a 9 point hole. That takes a minimum of 5 perfect possessions inside the arc to overcome versus just 3 needed made 3's out of the same 5 possessions giving us a two possession margin of error. The margin for error is just greater in scenario 2 and thus makes the game easier.

Why should we be running a system that makes the game harder to win? When you're bad, your only shot at winning is to push the pace and get hot. Meanwhile we are grinding out two point possessions and it is the reason we were getting consistently blow out at the beginning of the year. You can't overcome deficits when you're only making twos while also giving up the same or a better shooting percentage on the other end. The only way out of that hole is the extra point the 3 gives you. Why make the game harder than it needs to be? It doesn't make sense.