Minnesota Sports Forum

In general i would say that we are matching up quite well with Rockets.

1. Howard vs. PEK - I believe that PEK has stronger base and should be able to fight hard or even deny low post positions both of them need to be effective

2. Love vs. PFs - There should be clear advantage for Love tomorrow, T.Jones is very young and a bit undersized and Love will draw him to the perimeter and really test Rockets defense

3. wings - our chance in here is that Corey could be able to play 1on1 defense on Harden, we also have Ricky for some double teams if needed, but still Parsons/Harden are really hard to defend so advantage Rockets

4. Ricky vs. Beverley/Lin - Ricky should be able to defend Beverley/Lin to the point he could seriously damage pace of Rockets offense, this is imho actually the key for tomorrow's game

5. bench - well, i will better not analyze this as i don't want to spend my time thinking about our bench

Conclusion - I think we have very good chance to win against Rockets and i am definitely looking forward to see this game

One thing the Rockets don't do well is take care of the basketball. One thing Ricky and Brewer do well is force a lot of turnovers. Let's hope we can get some easy buckets off turnovers, because I don't see us stopping them otherwise.

One interesting note:

Houston has been waiting and resting at home for two days.
Minnesota is traveling from MN to Texas for a back-to-back.


[Note: A blowout on Friday was a good thing for MN. They did get to limit minutes quite a bit.]

I agree that we have the advantage at PF, but don't sell T. Jones short. He has really picked up his game in the last week. This is a really scary offense. Fortunately they are also giving up the most points in the league.

Q, good point about turnovers. Not only do they not protect the ball very well, they also are very poor at creating turnovers. They have by far the worst turnover differential in the league. Really tough matchup tonight, but Ricky and Corey creating turnovers and easy baskets gives us a chance.

Ehh. Houston's half court sets are actually pretty terrible. They play everything through Harden when he's on the floor. I'm not as scared of their offense as you guys might be. I've watched a good amount of Rockets games this year (still a big Parsons fan, go Gators), and there are always stretches in games where their offense gets extremely stagnant unless they can get a couple fastbreak buckets to get the tempo back in their favor. As long as we're efficient and get to the line tonight like we're built to do, we have a great chance at winning. If we miss our open shots and have a night where we don't do work at the FT line, we're in trouble. Missed shots turn into fastbreak chances. That's one of the areas where Houston is at their best.

This game will IMO be decided by the refs, if they let Pek and the big baby Howard bang on each other the Wolves will win as Howard curls up into a ball and cries. If they don't he will put Pek in foul trouble and the big baby will gloat as though the refs played no role.

Looks like Harden will likely be OUT tonight with a sore foot according to Houston beat writer @Jonathan_Feigen. McHale ruled him game-time decision.

This would be well-needed for our Wolves. Dodging Harden? Yep. I'm a fan of that.

"James Harden (foot), Ronnie Brewer (calf) & Greg Smith (knee) all out tonight vs Timberwolves. J-Lin starts for Harden."

Well this worked out quite well. Throw Rubio on Lin, Martin on Beverly, Brewer on Parsons.