Minnesota Sports Forum

Watching the NBA playoffs this year, it's tough to avoid thinking that a team's passing seems to be a huge factor in its outcome. Teams that have multiple passers on the floor and who move the ball well tend to reap seemingly disproportionate benefits.

Two questions.

1) To what extent would you agree with the statements above?

2) How would you go about improving our team's passing?

3) How would you be willing to address passing along with other areas we need help with, including 3 point shooting and defense?

This is a good topic I've thought about the same thing the last few weeks as I have been watching the playoffs. It's really starting to influence how I want to play with the guys I play with. We need to move the ball a lot more.

A lot of team passing is culture. Get guys to buy in move the bal don't stand around make plays for each other etc. Basically do what the Spurs have been doing for 15 years.

Obviously having a bunch of guys that are good passers helps along with good 3 point shooting. GS has both.

For the Wolves the first question is whether you believe Thibs can get the right type off culture on offense. I feel reasonably good about that.

Next you want to try and improve some guys skills and try and improve the roster from within

Get more shooting and improve the guys you already have in that dept.

At some point you may start looking at taking out some young players that don't fit into this. -Camera pans to Bazz working on his right hand flip shot- lol I think the Wolves have guys especially the building block guys that would want to buy into that culture.

This consideration is why a guy like Rudez has some value as a deep bench player. He is willing to make the right play pass the ball and he can shoot. I'm not saying we should for sure keep him but he has some positives. Bjelica obviously fits in VERY well considering this topic.

monsterpile wrote: At some point you may start looking at taking out some young players that don't fit into this. -Camera pans to Bazz working on his right hand flip shot-

That is funny.


2) Good point about team culture there. And I agree part of the answer is in how we use guys we already have.

3) I'm glad you mentioned Bjelica could bring some passing and three point shooting, assuming he can rebound from a tough first season. And Rudez seemed to give us some decent passing and actually some decent defense last year (I think had had surprisingly impressive opponent FG%).

I think passing becomes a lot easier when there's more space on the court.

Fitting passes into tight places... yikes. Plus, when you have guys scrambling to get out and cover, they're out of position and everybody is in recover mode so you can start zinging that ball all around...

I don't know...How great was OKC at passing? Now granted, they ultimately got beat and aren't in the Finals, but hadn't they just vanquished one of the universally acclaimed defensive units of the current era that also is always gushed over for their ball movement in San Antonio? So how important was passing in that series?

I've never been a proponent of adhering to a set formula for winning basketball. Obviously there are some table stakes, and so of course a contender needs to be able to achieve some baseline of unselfish ball movement. I just quibble a bit with the notion that the baseline is a copy & paste of Golden State or prior versions of San Antonio.

As for the Wolves, I think they already have enough passing "DNA" in their core group that it's not much of a concern to me. With the exception of Shabazz, every single one of our young guys has shown a proclivity to hit the open man. Some do it better than others, but collectively they will only improve with experience.

Q12543 wrote:I don't know...How great was OKC at passing? Now granted, they ultimately got beat and aren't in the Finals, but hadn't they just vanquished one of the universally acclaimed defensive units of the current era that also is always gushed over for their ball movement in San Antonio? So how important was passing in that series?

I've never been a proponent of adhering to a set formula for winning basketball. Obviously there are some table stakes, and so of course a contender needs to be able to achieve some baseline of unselfish ball movement. I just quibble a bit with the notion that the baseline is a copy & paste of Golden State or prior versions of San Antonio.

As for the Wolves, I think they already have enough passing "DNA" in their core group that it's not much of a concern to me. With the exception of Shabazz, every single one of our young guys has shown a proclivity to hit the open man. Some do it better than others, but collectively they will only improve with experience.

Good post. One thing I will say though to some extent it felt like OKC's lack of passing those last 3 games was a reason they lost. They seemed to abandon some of the ball movement that had made them successful. Obviously that wasnt THE reason they lost a lot of that had to do with GS but I think that's partly why this topic was raised.

monsterpile wrote:

Q12543 wrote:I don't know...How great was OKC at passing? Now granted, they ultimately got beat and aren't in the Finals, but hadn't they just vanquished one of the universally acclaimed defensive units of the current era that also is always gushed over for their ball movement in San Antonio? So how important was passing in that series?

I've never been a proponent of adhering to a set formula for winning basketball. Obviously there are some table stakes, and so of course a contender needs to be able to achieve some baseline of unselfish ball movement. I just quibble a bit with the notion that the baseline is a copy & paste of Golden State or prior versions of San Antonio.

As for the Wolves, I think they already have enough passing "DNA" in their core group that it's not much of a concern to me. With the exception of Shabazz, every single one of our young guys has shown a proclivity to hit the open man. Some do it better than others, but collectively they will only improve with experience.

Good post. One thing I will say though to some extent it felt like OKC's lack of passing those last 3 games was a reason they lost. They seemed to abandon some of the ball movement that had made them successful. Obviously that wasnt THE reason they lost a lot of that had to do with GS but I think that's partly why this topic was raised.

I heard a stat that was something like... 12 of the final 13 possessions in the Game 6 meltdown had 1 or fewer passes...

Well then, I think you'll like Thibs comments on passing... (recorded this morning)

http://www.danpatrick.com/2016/06/06/tom-thibodeau-breaks-down-nba-finals-discusses-t-wolves-gig

60WinTim wrote:Well then, I think you'll like Thibs comments on passing... (recorded this morning)

http://www.danpatrick.com/2016/06/06/tom-thibodeau-breaks-down-nba-finals-discusses-t-wolves-gig

Good interview. Thanks for posting, Tim!

I do believe winning teams pass the ball well as long as the players have a good idea on where their shots will be coming from. We still have some sorting out to do, in terms of who will get the most shots and when. The nice thing is, KAT can score without being a high-volume shooter (rebounds/put backs, free throws and jump shots), Wiggins gets to the line and LaVine is 3rd fiddle (wont be allowed to take a ton of bad shots). I think with Ricky being the PG and being a pass-first guy, the rest of the team follows his lead and is fairly unselfish. The bench will need to pass well and work together, which means that Bazz may not fit. More passing is always good!