Minnesota Sports Forum

Great crowd tonight. Not a huge crowd, but loud and full of energy. I won't lie and pretend I'm not disappointed. I'm hugely disappointed in tonight's loss, but I'm not down.

I'm not down because I love this team and tonight's game reminded me why. We have an incredible group of talented young players. And it's not just their talent. They all play with great passion (with the occasional exception of Wiggins), they all continue to improve and they all clearly pull for each other. The chemistry among these guys is fantastic. We have the building blocks in place to become a very good team that can eventually compete for a championship. In the meantime, it's a joy to watch them play and develop, even though it can be very painful at times.

There was a fun moment in the pre-game shoot-around when Dieng deliberately banged Towns as Towns put up a jump shot. It was a pretty hard shot to the body. Towns got a great laugh out of it as Dieng grinned and walked away. There was a moment during a time out when LaVine went over to Shabazz and extended his hand, apologizing for his poor pass to Bazz in the corner which Bazz ultimately fumbled away. Bazz reached out and patted LaVine, telling Zach "that was on me." The comraderie on this team is a joy to watch.

As for tonight's game, it's not hard to pinpoint why we lost. Three things:

1. Horribly one-sided officiating. I've attended every home game this season and I've only complained once about the officiating. Tonight makes the second time. The Clippers were consistently hammering, grabbing and holding Towns, Ricky, Wiggins and Dieng without getting called while the Wolves were repeatedly getting called for touch fouls. Interesting that the Wolves still had more foul shots than the Clippers. But the horribly slanted officiating in favor of the Clippers was painfully obvious. It cost us the game and it's just not acceptable.

2. Wiggins horrific foul shooting. He was 1-5 tonight from the line. That's unacceptable for the guy who is supposedly our go-to player at the wing. If he hits 4 of his 5 shots tonight we win the game - and that's in spite of the fact that Wiggins was terrible tonight in every other fact of the game. It's his second poor outing in a row. He has to do better.

3. Inexplicable decisions by Sam. Tonight was actually one of Sam's better performances as a head coach this season. He does seem to connect with the players and, in spite of some similarities to Rambis, he's definitely a better coach than Kurt. Yet, even tonight Sam did some things that tipped the scales against us even if only a little. One thing he did that stood out for me was subbing KG for Dieng late in the 4th. Dieng was having an incredible game tonight and was playing really well with Towns. I love KG and I like what he gave us tonight, but Dieng was much better tonight than KG is at this stage in his career. One of the first things to occur after the substitution was KG fouling Chris Paul. That was a huge turning point down the stretch. KG just doesn't have the athleticism anymore to stop his momentum when he comes out like did to double team Paul. Then KG missed that wide-open corner two. Dieng is a much better mid-range shooter than KG at this stage in their respective careers. I'm not out on a limb here and this isn't hindsight because I thought the substitution was a terrible mistake at the time as did a number of other guys sitting near me. I also thought it was a mistake to give Prince minutes that could have gone to a very hot, highly active Shabazz who may have had his best game of the season tonight. I also thought it was a mistake to sub Wiggins for Shabazz late in the 4th given how well Bazz was playing and how poorly Wiggns was playing, but this last point is not my main beef. Bottom line is Towns, Dieng and Bazz were all tremendous tonight, yet none of them played more than 30 minutes. I can't say for sure that more minutes allocated any or all of them (deducted from minutes given Prince, KG or even Wiggins) would have changed the result. But the head coach has to do everything to give his team every possible edge and I just don't think Sam did that tonight - although not as bad as in a number of other games.

Overall, everyone but Wiggins played extremely well tonight. Ricky's defense on Paul was spectacular. Dieng was excellent again on both ends. He and Towns are looking like they might emerge as a very special big-man combo at the C and PF positions. LaVine was terrific. Loved Belly tonight too. That guy can really defend and rebound.

Again, I'm not down. It was a fun night at Target Center and these young guys, along with KG, are a joy to watch. The time will come when this team is a veteran team considered to be a legitimate title contender. Until then I'm going to enjoy watching these young guys playing like the kids they still are - for the love of the game.

I am down, there's too much talent here to be happy with moral victories. 2-9 at home? that's one game better than the joke that are the sixers.

That ending was painful. I was thinking from 20 or so seconds that they should've taken a 3. Instead they try driving down the lane and well the rest is history.

How can they be so pathetic at home? Painful... hate the clippers, whiny coach, whiny PG, pussy C, and douchy PF.

Yosimar wrote:I am down, there's too much talent here to be happy with moral victories. 2-9 at home? that's one game better than the joke that are the sixers.

That ending was painful. I was thinking from 20 or so seconds that they should've taken a 3. Instead they try driving down the lane and well the rest is history.

How can they be so pathetic at home? Painful... hate the clippers, whiny coach, whiny PG, pussy C, and douchy PF.

I share your disdain for the whinny Clippers. Interestingly, Zach was pleading with Sam for a three point play and you could see he was perplexed and disappointed by Sam's decision to go for two.

Couldn't agree more. No excuse to be 2-9 at home. This team has too much talent.

Lip thanks for the report. I wasn't surprised Sam went to KG and Wiggins as both Bazz and Dieng had been out there for quite a while. Dieng was also bleeding from his mouth so It made sense to at least give him a breather and get that taken care of. I thought Sam would go back to Dieng after a short rest. It was weird that he didn't. Maybe the most shocking amazing thing of this entire season was how well Dieng was playing Blake tonight. Dieng has really stepped up his game the last few games.

You also make a good point Bazz maybe should have gotten those clutch minutes also. The Bazz we saw tonight was the guy we saw the first half of the season last year. He was very solid on defense although he wasn't matched up with super dynamic guys he did have a stretch he was guarding JJ and stayed with him well and flying around chasing guys off screens hasn't exactly been a good thing for him most of the year. Hopefully Bazz really gets going.

I try not to complain about officiating but taking away that Bazz basket at the end of that quarter pissed me off. It was ridiculous. The freaking ball was in the basket and it looked so damn close to whether or not it was out of his hand. Maybe Bazz should have got up a shot quicker but that one bugged me.

I don't want it to sound like this was a moral victory but damn this team was all over the place with energy the whole game fighting getting their hands on loose ball etc etc. it sucked to lose this one but it was a fun game to watch. It's impressive the FT shooting of this team sans Wiggins.

lip-
"One thing he did that stood out for me was subbing KG for Dieng late in the 4th. Dieng was having an incredible game tonight and was playing really well with Towns. I love KG and I like what he gave us tonight, but Dieng was much better tonight than KG is at this stage in his career. One of the first things to occur after the substitution was KG fouling Chris Paul. That was a huge turning point down the stretch. KG just doesn't have the athleticism anymore to stop his momentum when he comes out like did to double team Paul. Then KG missed that wide-open corner two. Dieng is a much better mid-range shooter than KG at this stage in their respective careers."

The issue was that Dieng was subbed in before half of 3rd quarter if i remember that correctly, i think Sam rode with him as long as it was possible. Gorgui was probably winded by the time he subbed him out. He needed a guy to guard Griffin other than KAT who was needed on DJ to contest his alley-ops and putbacks. So he went with KG as Bjelica did not do well against him in Staples and Payne would be too big of a gamble.

Sam should imho change rotation so that he could have KAT-Dieng for last minutes, but in given situation I would still finish with Ricky-Zach-Andrew-Belly-KAT anyway. Belly is really smart player, had good game, brings spacing and size wise is as tall as Griffin.

I haven't had a chance to watch the replay yet - but I do feel pretty disheartened by the losses. I think it was after the Orlando game that I commented that I really felt we were on the right path towards contending for a championship which is the ultimate goal. Given that, the losing individual games didn't really bother me at that stage - it was more about development than results for this year.

But man, I expected us to beat Portland and for some reason I really thought we'd beat the Clipps too. I find this really frustrating. Perhaps its the manner of losses and giving up solid leads in the last quarter that I find frustrating because the ability to close games earlier in the season seemed much better.

Anyway, thanks for the upbeat report Lip. Perhaps I'll be able to really focus on some of those 'team comraderie' type moments.

lipoli390 wrote:

Yosimar wrote:I am down, there's too much talent here to be happy with moral victories. 2-9 at home? that's one game better than the joke that are the sixers.

That ending was painful. I was thinking from 20 or so seconds that they should've taken a 3. Instead they try driving down the lane and well the rest is history.

How can they be so pathetic at home? Painful... hate the clippers, whiny coach, whiny PG, pussy C, and douchy PF.

I share your disdain for the whinny Clippers. Interestingly, Zach was pleading with Sam for a three point play and you could see he was perplexed and disappointed by Sam's decision to go for two.

Sam should have listened to Zach! I like that Zach wanted a 3 and no doubt he wanted to shoot it. Doc played sam at the end with his strategy. He had very good ft shooters out there and Sam played right into doc's ploy.

I also felt dieng should have been in there for kg. I'm all for giving him a min to rest then get him back in the game to close out the game. Dieng has been very good the last couple of games and its really encouraging.

Lip, thanks for the upbeat report and the inside look into team chemistry. I couldn't agree more...this really appears to be a group of guys that truly enjoy playing with each other and are focused on building something very good. And they are fun to watch, despite now being 4 games under .500 and an absurdly bad 2-9 at home. Anyway, I really enjoyed your observations about the interaction between KAT/G and Zach/Bazz. Contrast that with the interaction we used to watch with Love, Barea and Cunningham...it's truly a new era, and I prefer this.

Really good to have the old Bazz back. As usual he was busting his butt at both ends of the court, but tonight his efforts showed up more in the box score. One area I think he has really improved in is defensive rebounding, an area he wasn't very good in last year. Yes, his 4 offensive rebounds were helpful and very Bazz-like, but I was more impressed with his 5 defensive rebounds...many of which were tough, contested rebounds. I wasn't troubled by Prince taking some of his minutes though...it's always a treat for me to watch how the defense operates whenever Prince is on the court. I am satisfied with 26 minutes from Bazz, but if he needed more, they should have come from Wig last night and not Prince...Wig obviously wasn't shooting well last night, but more importantly didn't seem to be bringing the intensity we have been seeing from him recently.

The one area where I disagree with you is on KAT's game. While he may have had his most efficient offensive game of the year and unveiled his 3-point shooting that is going to be a big factor in his becoming an all-star for many years, he was completely bullied by DeAndre Jordan, and that was a huge factor in our losing this game. You simply can't allow Jordan to score 20 points, and most of his points were on put back dunks when KAT was not able to block him out. 6 offensive rebounds for Jordan, and I think all of them were against KAT and resulted in dunks. Gorgui is not as strong as KAT, but is more experienced in knowing how to play big bullies like Jordan, and was much more effective in blocking him out. G only had 5 rebounds, but his ability to keep Deandre off the glass was a big factor in allowing Bazz, Ricky and Wig to grab a lot of rebounds. KAT is going to be our best player soon if he isn't already, but he's still a kid, and it was clear early last night that he was physically overmatched against Jordan.

Another disappointing loss, especially on the heels of two other home losses that should have been wins. But like you, I saw a lot of things last night that made me excited to be in the house Wednesday against the Lakers, and give me a lot of hope going forward. Moral victory, no way...but promising future, no doubt.

Nobody has mentioned Ricky yet, and maybe that's because his performance was so mixed. The good? His superb defense against Chris Paul. I thought Ricky totally took Paul out of his game, and it resulted in one of Paul's worst statistical nights. He is truly special on the defensive end of the court. But offensively it was another matter. At times, I preferred Zach at the point last night over Ricky, and that shouldn't be with Zach still learning how to play the point. Ricky was too careless last night, and his 6 TOs really hurt us.

I know most fans want to see more Ricky, Zach pairings and Sam seems to like that at the end of games too, but I don't like it. And last night they just didn't play well together. We were up four when Sam substituted Ricky in for Bazz with 5 minutes left, and we ended up losing by 4. Ricky and Zach are both ball-dominant guys and the offensive flow just wasn't there the final 5 minutes. I agree that Ricky needed to be on Paul the last 5 minutes, but I think I would have kept Bazz in the game.