Minnesota Sports Forum

Since the D-Will trade we have doubled our number of road wins. . We are 2-1 on the road over that time. We were 2-6 on the road before. More important, are the caliber of wins in the past 3 road games.

Some observations about those wins

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[*] Both are playoff teams (if the season ended today)
[*] Both teams had better records than us when we played them.
[*] Dallas is a very good team playing on their home floor.....and is our only road win against a team with a winning record.
[*] Detriot was easily the most dominate road win that we have had in the season to date
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here are a few similarities that I have noticed during our last 3 road games.

Good bench play......
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[*] During the Detroit game, they shot .464% from the field, .333% 3pt, added 19 boards, 10 dimes, and 5 steals.
[*] During the Dallas game the bench shot .444% from the field, .400% 3pt, added 18 boards, 9 dimes, 2 steals, and 2 blocks
[*] During the OKC game the bench shot .454% from the field, added 10 boards , 5 dimes, 3 steals, and 2 blocks.
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Obviously, the bench play was better in the 2 wins. And for 3 road games in a row, our bench has shot very respectably. That is a great change for us.

Our ball movement has been very good over these 3 road games also. We have had 12 players get 3 APG or more over this time period.

Ricky is shooting better......over those 3 games he shot over .500% (15 of 27)

Love has shot his 3s well (9 of 17) and got to the line a bunch. (his FG% still sucks)

Martin has been hitting his 3s also (10 of 18) and got to the line a bunch.

Pek has been scoring over 20 ppg and averaging 8 boards

Brewer has been Brewer....scoring efficiently, taking 3s that he shouldn't be taking, and grabbing a steal or 2 each game. His passing seems to be getting a bit better.


It is hard to say which of these things is most important. They are all good to see.

The improved production from the bench is the most significant IMHO. For much of this season our bench had been unbelievably bad. Seeing consistent improvement has been wonderful. We don't need miracles from our bench, just some consistent play. They have provided that. (the consistency of the FG% over those 3 games is sort of freaky)

Ricky starting to score again is huge also. Him scoring opens up more passing lanes for him, which allows him to do what he is best at.

I've never thought that Pek was the problem, but we need his help while Love can not seem to buy a 2 pt shot. If it wasn't for Pek we would have almost 0 low post scoring.

These are observations from my end......if you have any others, please share them. There must have been things that changed about the past 3 road game that we had that I have missed.

For the Wolves to be a good team, we have to be able to win on the road......it looks like we are starting to do that now. It is about damn time.

While it's encouraging to see the improved play from our bench on the road, we're only talking about 3 games here. It's tough to gauge trends with that kind of sample size.

The best news of all is the fact that Turiaf and Budinger traveled with the team and appear to be getting ever so close to re-joining the lineup. It can't come soon enough.

I agree, and I am more hoping that these trends continue, than stating emphatically that they will continue. That said, the decent bench shooting, over the past 3 road games, is consistently anomalistic enough where it might be confused for being statistically relevant.

3 and 2 on the road since the D-Will trade. That is a huge improvement over the 2 and 6 start before the trade.

We are still seeing pretty dramatic improved bench play. Tonight we saw another game with the bench shooting over .420% FG%, an impressive .555% from 3-land, adding 15 boards, 9 assists, 2 steals and a block.

The frequency that we are seeing improved play from the bench is good for the heart.

During the 2nd quarter the 2nd team did a good job extending the lead.....that is one of the few times that has happened.

No points from Martin today and not a really good game from Rubio, which made it all the more important that our bench played well.

We had a typically efficient scoring game from Brewer, plus he boarded well.

We passed pretty well with another game with 3 people with more than 3 assists

Love shot well ( and well from 3 land). So that is still showing to be important for road wins.

Good to see us building some consistency on the road!