Minnesota Sports Forum

We are now just over 1/3 of our way into the season.

Over-all things are going pretty well IMHO.

Here are some observations about the season to this point.

If it seems like our schedule has been hard............it is very easy to back those feelings up with facts. We have had the 2nd hardest schedule looking at SOS (strength of schedule) and we have played more road games than any other team except for 1 (utah). So not only are we playing a hard schedule (including 8 games against the top 5 teams (according to the committee of 1), but we are also playing more games on the road. It is sorta like a double punch to the nuts.

If to seems like we have lost a lot of close road games, that too is easy to support. 9 of our 15 losses have been on the road, where we were within 6 points in the last 5 minutes). I'm not sure if that is good or bad.

Also we are slightly more likely to blow out other teams (win or lose by more than 10) than be blown out ourselves. 7 blow out wins versus 5 blow out loses.

I think that a pretty strong case could be made that the bench is playing better now than at the beginning of the season, but the bench was sooooo bad at the beginning of the season, that to say there was improvement here is not that impressive.

I think that this point is pretty obvious to anyone who has watched games, but just for a bit of numerical evidence. over our first 17 games we had bench players with a positive +/- 32 different times. During the next 11 games, we had bench players with a positive +/- 35 different times. During the first 17 games, we had atleast 1 bench player with a positive +/- 64% of the time......during the last 11 we had atleast 1 bench player with a positive +/- 82% of the time.

There are a number of possible reasons for this. Figure these out on your own.

Looking at the starting line up individually here;

Pek.........Started the year slow. Has turned into a legit monster. his #s over the last 5 games are .533 FG%, 9.6 RPG, 23.6 PPG. Those are amazing #s. His year #s are .525 FG%, 9 RPG, and 17.4 PPG. He still does not defend the rim at all and he plays pretty good 1 on 1 defense.

Love......Started the year off well, then slumped a bit, and is now being super amazing. His last 5 games have been .509 FG%, .359 3pt%, 14 RPG, 4.6 APG, 31 PPG. On the year Love has been .458 FG%, .381 3pt%, 13.9 RPG, 4.2 APG, 25.7 PPG. His defense is still questionable and a number of people question his leadership ability. If 3 or 4 specific people get hurt, and he doesn't he will be the MVP of the league.

Brewer.......Started off the year playing pretty well and that continued until the last 4 games. His last 4 games have been the worst 4 game stretch in his career and as far as I can see is on on

oops....it cut off 1/2 of the post....i'll have to finish it later...

Pretty right on so far.

Yep, so far so good. Just gotta tweak that close game record with a little more 4th qtr intensity and we'll be fine. Like you said Markbu, our bench,Brewer, and maybe a little more rookie PT will keep the starters legs fresh down the stretch.

I just don't see how you can look at our record and say pretty good. At peak optimism I think you can say ok, or a bit below expectations. But we are supposed to be a playoff team. We have been mostly healthy, but our only win against a playoff caliber team was Portland on their 4th game in 5 nights. We have blown leads, been a no show against horrible teams and have played horseshit d at some point in every game. We may end up turning it around, but saying things are going pretty well so far are the rosiest color of glasses you could apply to our season based on expectations going into the year.

thedoper wrote:I just don't see how you can look at our record and say pretty good. At peak optimism I think you can say ok, or a bit below expectations. But we are supposed to be a playoff team. We have been mostly healthy, but our only win against a playoff caliber team was Portland on their 4th game in 5 nights. We have blown leads, been a no show against horrible teams and have played horseshit d at some point in every game. We may end up turning it around, but saying things are going pretty well so far are the rosiest color of glasses you could apply to our season based on expectations going into the year.

Not sure what you mean by playoff caliber teams, doper, but we do also have wins against Oklahoma City and Dallas twice, along with a couple wins over Eastern teams that will make the playoffs.

But I agree with your assessment that the team is performing below my expectations so far. The record is not terrible considering the horrendous schedule, but there were 3-4 more wins that were there for us that we could not close out. We need to find a way to win close games, obviously. The next 5 weeks will tell us where this team is destined to finish. I still think they will be 6 or 8 games over .500 by the end of January.

longstrangetrip wrote:

thedoper wrote:I just don't see how you can look at our record and say pretty good. At peak optimism I think you can say ok, or a bit below expectations. But we are supposed to be a playoff team. We have been mostly healthy, but our only win against a playoff caliber team was Portland on their 4th game in 5 nights. We have blown leads, been a no show against horrible teams and have played horseshit d at some point in every game. We may end up turning it around, but saying things are going pretty well so far are the rosiest color of glasses you could apply to our season based on expectations going into the year.

Not sure what you mean by playoff caliber teams, doper, but we do also have wins against Oklahoma City and Dallas twice, along with a couple wins over Eastern teams that will make the playoffs.

But I agree with your assessment that the team is performing below my expectations so far. The record is not terrible considering the horrendous schedule, but there were 3-4 more wins that were there for us that we could not close out. We need to find a way to win close games, obviously. The next 5 weeks will tell us where this team is destined to finish. I still think they will be 6 or 8 games over .500 by the end of January.

OKC didn't have Westbrook in that game, they have taken off since he got back. And Dallas is fighting for the 8 spot and are not a lock for the playoffs by any stretch. That was my point.

At the end of the day, we have a superstar surrounded by a set of highly flawed complimentary pieces.

On defense, we lack rim protection. That will never come from the starting lineup, but we do have a couple of guys on the roster that can help - Turiaf and Dieng. Dieng needs minutes and Turiaf needs to get healthy.

On offense, we lack skilled shooters and finishers at every position outside of Love, Pekovic, and Martin. We knew going in that Rubio and Brewer weren't going to help much on offense, and sure enough, after a hot start from Brewer, he has indeed regressed closer to his career average. Rubio seemed to be getting better for a stretch of games, only to stumble again. Sigh.

What's really killing us is that Barea, Cunningham, and Shved have taken giant steps back from last year in terms of their shooting efficiency (not that it was great last year either, but this season they are in the abyss). Shooting percentages is something you typically see drift back to career average territory after a certain number of games (i.e. Brewer), but it hasn't happened yet. These guys have flat out stunk it up this year.

thedoper wrote:I just don't see how you can look at our record and say pretty good. At peak optimism I think you can say ok, or a bit below expectations. But we are supposed to be a playoff team. We have been mostly healthy, but our only win against a playoff caliber team was Portland on their 4th game in 5 nights. We have blown leads, been a no show against horrible teams and have played horseshit d at some point in every game. We may end up turning it around, but saying things are going pretty well so far are the rosiest color of glasses you could apply to our season based on expectations going into the year.

I'll try to keep it a bit simpler. I have always thought that we would end the season as slightly above average team in the west. Right now we are a .500 team having played one of the toughest SOS and more road games that most in the league. A .500 records with one of the toughest SOS in the league and more road games than most leads me to believe that things are going pretty well.

As we are obviously improving (as shown by road wins and an improved bench, and our 2 blow out wins in a row) and our SOS is going to get easier, it seems pretty obvious to me that we will be an above average team in the west.

Hence the "things are going pretty well" comment..

I hope that was simpler.