Minnesota Sports Forum

Fun to be at a game where the Target Center is almost filled to capacity. A great, fun crowd. Unfortunately, not a great game. But I'll take the win. We need to develop a culture of winning and tonight's win is part of that. Here are what I'd consider the highlights and lowlights of the Wolves performance tonight:

HIGHLIGHTS:

1. Kevin Martin -- Nice to see Martin get his stroke back, although he's the sort who could go 3-12 the next game. He was obviously key to tonight's win. You can definitely see his teammates pulling for him.

2. KAT -- Towns was, for me, the biggest highlight of the night. His 26 points, 14 boards and 3 blocks in 35 minutes tell most of the story. But the rest of the story for Towns tonight was his all-out effort and passion on the court. What's really gratifying is the fact that he brings that effort and passion to every minute of every game he plays. Then there's his skill set. His shot is a thing of beauty. When a shot leaves his hands you feel it's going to go in - whether it's a contested hook shot in the paint, a 12 foot jumper or a three-pointer. I loved his sprint down the court and bow to the crowd after his three-pointer in the 4th. He has incredible vise-like hands and tremendous timing as well as a nose for the ball. No question that he's our # 1 cornerstone player of the future.

3. Shabazz -- Bazz was fantastic tonight. 15 points and 5 rebounds in 15 minutes. His energy and hustle on both ends were inspiring. What was mystifying was Sam's failure to get Bazz more than 15 minutes of PT, especially when considering how poorly Wiggns and Dieng were playing. But that's a lowlight for discussion later.

4. Ricky -- I'm at a loss over the Ricky-bashing in the game day thread. Yes, Ricky was 0-4 from the field. But he got to the line 6 times and made all but one of those free throws. He had 12 assists, including some beautiful vintage Rubio passes that few other PGs in the League can pull off. Then there were the 9 rebounds. Keep in mind, most of those rebounds were either in a crowd or on a loose ball -- in other words they weren't uncontested gimmes. Ricky does a whole assortment of things that are positive difference-makers and he did them again tonight. He had the highest plus/minus on the team tonight at 22.

LOWLIGHTS

1. Wiggins -- His poor handle was on full display tonight. So was his tendency to stand around and not pursue rebounds and loose balls. Those things and his inconsistency game to game have to be fixed. This was his third poor game in a row. The talent is there and he's only 20 years old. But he has a lot of work to do to harness his full potential.

2. Dieng -- Gorg has been really good lately, but he had a bad game tonight. His hands were shaky as he let passes slip through his hands he should have caught. He passed up open shots he typically makes and missed all three of the shots he took.

3. LaVine -- just a bad game from Zach tonight. I love his shot and his moxy, but he can't just keep jacking up shots from anywhere anytime. His offensive foul st center court was really dumb. But, he's only 20 and this was the first bad game he's had in quite a while.

4. Sam - It's just really hard to understand Sam's thinking. We're ahead by 2 points with 5:30 left in the first half. Bazz is on fire, having his way with the smaller rookie defender Russell. What does Sam do? He calls a timeout and takes Bazz out of the game. Very strange. Bazz is having a tremendous game scoring AND rebounding, but he somehow ends up playing only 15 minutes while Wiggins plays 36 minutes having a terrible night. Then at the end of the game, Sam calls timeouts and leaves Bazz and LaVine on the bench, with Dieng playing instead, on key offensive possessions where we need to score. On the last play of the game, he takes out Towns, our best interior defender, best shot-blocker and best rebounder. The Lakers got up a decent shot and then got the rebound setting up another good look. We got lucky tonight with the Lakers missing both attempts in the final seconds. And we can't know for sure whether Towns would have come out and blocked the first shot attempt or gotten the rebound to prevent the second shot. But the point is that I can't see a good reason for not having him in there at that moment. I'm sure the Sam defenders will respond in force. That's the beauty of a sports message board. But I have to believe there are better, smarter head coaches than Sam out there who can and will eventually take the reins.

Good write up lip.

I agree 100c/o on Sam and his head scratching moves. He looks like an amateur in managing the game. Every game he does things that make you question his thought process.

How about Sam having Martin on the floor for defense in regulation and OT when you need a stop? Pulling Bazz as he heats up? Never going back to Bazz? The team as a whole frequently playing to the level of competition is a direct reflection of the coaching staff. We got so much talent on this team yet its not showing consistency or enough improvement = Sam and his staff aren't getting the job done!

No one is going to question Ricky's intangibles and that's what makes it so frustrating to watch. If he only had a mid range jump shot, how about a set three point shot, or maybe a jumper off the dribble, hell he ain't even got a floater. He passed on an easy layup tonight to drive towards the baseline and whip a pass at point blank range to Dieng. He's absolutely not a threat what so ever with any shot on the floor! The adjustment LA made was just go under the pick and roll cause who cares if he takes a shot that's what they wanted anyway. I'm slinging hate Ricky's way cause you can't be a starter and such a non-threat and expect your team to be very good. Let's not even talk about his defense tonight, cause he is normally good in that area.

Why is it hard to understand the Ricky bashing? His inability to score the ball almost cost us the game. The missed wide open corner three late in the 4th. Instead of hitting a runner on his wide open drive to the hoop before the help defense got there he made a pass to Dieng who was setup to get a rebound on the shot that never happened and he fumbled the ball to the tune of a turnover. In OT we ran a double pick for Rubio on our last possession and he pulled a Zach. He was immediately looking to pass off the picks and the defense knew it so they stayed on Towns and Wiggins like glue and the whole play broke down and Rubio dumped the ball to Wiggins at the top of the key with the defender all over him. Then instead of going to the corner, Ricky stays there and he actually runs towards Wiggins when Wiggins is trying to make a move and his defender just trapped Wiggins and forced what was an essential turnover. So A) he should have done more to be a scoring threat on the PnR because that is what makes the PnR work on a fundamental level and B) his movement after his pass put Wiggins in a God awful spot to make a decent attempt at a shot. Each of those plays kept LA in the game allowing them to almost win the game. Also his defense on Russell was hot garbage for most of the 4th quarter (he let up multiple wide open 3's playing way off Russell as like some kind of roaming help defender on whoever had the ball) and by the time he actually decided to play him tight, Russell was already in a grove where good defense just can't stop good offense. If he respects Russell the whole quarter he may never get in that groove and that changes the whole game.

Russel was 2 of 7 against Rubio on the 4th and OT.

+ 22. Haters.

I bet his VORP and ARM and RISP was high too.

criteriado wrote:Russel was 2 of 7 against Rubio on the 4th and OT.

Criteria do - Thanks for bringing some facts into the picture.

Kahns -- Ricky can't shot, Ricky can't shoot, Ricky can't shoot. I get it. But there's a whole lot more to the game than one player's shooting. The point is that Ricky's play in every other facet of the game last night was very good to excellent, making him a net positive. Over the course of his career, he's been a huge net positive and the stats bear that out. Ricky put Towns in such a bad spot last night that Towns could only score 26 points on better than 50% shooting. As for that one play involving Wiggins, Ricky was smart enough not to leave Wiggins alone at the top of the key with a defender all over him knowing the shaky state of Wiggins' ball handling.

Thanks for the report Lip.

- Lip, I think you're spot on with your Highlights. KAT was tremendous and I agree that he is a true cornerstone talent. The things he's doing at 20 years old are phenomenal. We should all feel very lucky to have him.

- I would add Team Defense to Lip's lowlights. I mean, how do you let these chuckers get away with that kind of performance on our home floor!? It's just baffling to me how teams come into Target Center and suddenly turn into the Golden State Warriors. We can't let the second worst team in the league come into Target Center and shoot 52% and put up 114 points in regulation. That is inexcusable. And everyone is to blame, from the coaches on down to the players.

- It wasn't possible for Martin to keep shooting as poorly as he has been given his long track record in the league. We don't win that game without him last night. It was good to see him break out of the slump.

- For the Rubio bashers out there, we probably wouldn't have even been in this game if it wasn't for him and Martin. He was spoon feeding KAT and KG good look after good look on the pick and roll. Those guys had tons of uncontested open jumpers and layups thanks to Ricky. And he helped big-time on the boards tonight too.

All in all, I guess it was a bittersweet win. Bitter because of how poorly we played defense at times. Sweet because we won and saw further glimpses of greatness from KAT.

I am not a huge Sam Mitchell guy, like some of you, BUT I am trying not to critique his coaching this year. This is now his team, but ultimately, it is/was Flip's. I think there was a distinct plan going into this year and I see Sam holding strong to that most of the time. Its an 82 game season and most coaches keep a very similar game plan night in and night out. Its easy to question why Bazz was not on the floor late in the game and not go with the hot hand. BUT he is young and often times (ie Zach LaVine) young players are bound to make a big mistake after a series of good plays. You cannot assume he is going to stay hot and play him longer. Sam has a role for Bazz right now and he stuck to it. Now I know he stuck with Martin longer than usual last night because he was hot, but I am guessing that has always been the plan (when and if Martin plays like we expect him to), especially since Wiggins/Bazz/LaVine can be inconsistent.

I will be more critical of Sam when we are truly in a playoff chase and we have seen a little more growth from some of our guys.

That's only the second game I've seen Randle play and he's a beast. I liked Sam putting Prince on Randle for the last play in OT to deny him the ball and increase the likelihood of not getting a last second call. Because we haven't had any answer for Randle I assumed they would run a play for him (crazy not to) and although I agree that Towns is the better interior defender I didn't have a problem with Dieng being on the court, especially given that he impacted Russel's last second shot. He might make decisions a hair quicker than Towns for now which is what you need for one play (then again he might not).

Scott might be less of a coach that Mitchell. But he could also be in full rebuild mode (I still would have gone to Randle).