Game Report: I have seen the light!
Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 11:20 pm
This is the first Wolves game I have attended live in a long, long time, with seats about 10 rows up behind the Wolves bench. Nice seats!
And here is the light I have seen: I doubt we even win 30 games this year. We will only win when a couple of guys catch fire to carry us to a win, or the opposing team goes into a sustained funk. But if both teams play to their mean, we will likely lose.
So why is this team broken? #1) it can't shoot, and #2) it sucks at defensive discipline. The contributing factors to these problems are youth, inexperience, and coaching. We can debate which of these contribute more, which means it's probably about equal shares of each.
#1) We can't shoot. We miss at an alarming rate in warmups. KG at age 40 still has the best touch of any player on this team. How sad is that? Rubio misses so badly it makes me wince. I don't know how the hell Dieng even hits a shot in a game. If we cannot hit shots at a high rate in warmups, how can we hit them in a game?
But even if we could hit shots at a decent rate, Mitchell's offense, or lack thereof, would bring down the rate during games. The only real ball movement comes from the vets that must know how important ball movement is to create open shots. But we see very little ball movement from our youth, so we do not get nearly as many wide open shots as opposing teams. How much of this is youth, and how much is Mitchell? I do not know, but it is big a problem.
And it does not help playing so many guys every night. It must be tough for most players to get into the flow of the game when minutes are so sparse. I guess this is a problem with having so many players that either deserve to play, or need to play in order to develop. Trade Martin? Bazz to the D-League? I do not know what the answer is, and it will likely continue for the remainder of the season (until injuries strike -- where are they when you need them!).
#2) We suck at defensive discipline. Maybe tonight was an anomaly, but we fouled a ton. It was largely due to laziness and/or stupidity (inexperience?). And when we were not fouling, we were giving up wide open shots. I see Sam is going with a lineup change tomorrow. My guess is LaVine will start for Kevin Martin. We will see. I highly recommend Mitchell's post game presser. He rambles on a lot about the issues listed above...
https://soundcloud.com/wolves-radio/sam-mitchell-postgame-22?in=wolves-radio/sets/12-15-wolves-vs-denver
And here is the light I have seen: I doubt we even win 30 games this year. We will only win when a couple of guys catch fire to carry us to a win, or the opposing team goes into a sustained funk. But if both teams play to their mean, we will likely lose.
So why is this team broken? #1) it can't shoot, and #2) it sucks at defensive discipline. The contributing factors to these problems are youth, inexperience, and coaching. We can debate which of these contribute more, which means it's probably about equal shares of each.
#1) We can't shoot. We miss at an alarming rate in warmups. KG at age 40 still has the best touch of any player on this team. How sad is that? Rubio misses so badly it makes me wince. I don't know how the hell Dieng even hits a shot in a game. If we cannot hit shots at a high rate in warmups, how can we hit them in a game?
But even if we could hit shots at a decent rate, Mitchell's offense, or lack thereof, would bring down the rate during games. The only real ball movement comes from the vets that must know how important ball movement is to create open shots. But we see very little ball movement from our youth, so we do not get nearly as many wide open shots as opposing teams. How much of this is youth, and how much is Mitchell? I do not know, but it is big a problem.
And it does not help playing so many guys every night. It must be tough for most players to get into the flow of the game when minutes are so sparse. I guess this is a problem with having so many players that either deserve to play, or need to play in order to develop. Trade Martin? Bazz to the D-League? I do not know what the answer is, and it will likely continue for the remainder of the season (until injuries strike -- where are they when you need them!).
#2) We suck at defensive discipline. Maybe tonight was an anomaly, but we fouled a ton. It was largely due to laziness and/or stupidity (inexperience?). And when we were not fouling, we were giving up wide open shots. I see Sam is going with a lineup change tomorrow. My guess is LaVine will start for Kevin Martin. We will see. I highly recommend Mitchell's post game presser. He rambles on a lot about the issues listed above...
https://soundcloud.com/wolves-radio/sam-mitchell-postgame-22?in=wolves-radio/sets/12-15-wolves-vs-denver