CoolBreeze's 2 Things I Didn't Like Tonight Plus 1

[Coolbreeze44]

No Ricky, no Pek, no Kmart - Wolves 120 - Lakers 119 at Staples. Enough said. Here is tonight's 2 + 1:

1) Very disappointed in Andrew tonight. While his young teammate rose to the challenge, Andrew faded into the woodwork. Kobe got the best of him a couple times, and then he stopped engaging and went into Bad Kmart mode. Everybody is going to have an off night from time to time, but he just wasn't a factor at all. I want to see more fire and pride in your personal performance than that. I hadn't seen him be intimidated before tonight.

2) The overall defense was a joke. But it usually starts with our failure to stop dribble penetration. If we could start by improving in this area, it would make a significant difference on our overall team D. Every guard or wing did a poor job tonight on penetration. And then our rotations are usually to slow to catch up. For a team that has good potential as far as defense goes, we sure stink right now.

Plus 1 - I was so impressed at how stone cold Zach played tonight in what had to be a game he always dreamed of playing in. I mean you talk about a cool customer for a 19 year old, this was very, very impressive. It was almost silly how totally in the zone he was. Inside, outside, dribble drives - I had goose bumps. I agree that his best position is the 2, but I see no reason why he can't be a combo guard. We have every right to be sky high on Andrew, but don't forget about our other teenager. This kid is tough as nails and has ice water in his veins.

Great to beat the Lakers in LA with the team we had available tonight.

And that's CoolBreeze's 2 things I didn't like tonight Plus 1

[worldK]

Agreed cool. Wiggins needs to assert himself more. He did play good d(as good as you can) on kobe though.

Lavine was great tonight. We need him to be a scoring and attacking pg for the 2nd unit going forward like he was tonight.

[Phenom]

Kobe taught Andrew some lessons tonight for sure but it will be good for him down the line. Loved the Zach show tonight. These 2 teenagers are going to elevate this team to new levels.

[SameOldNudityDrew]

Awesome win. Yeah, our defense was atrocious, and it was the Lakers, but it's just so nice to win a game these days. They were exploiting our lack of depth down low early on and then it just became a shooting gallery for both teams. I liked seeing our guys fight and go to the floor for loose balls. I even saw a couple nice Shabbazz Muhammad passes! Wiggins was bad, but he's a rookie. He'll have up and down games. Can't get too excited about his good games or too worried about his down games at this point until we really start seeing long term patterns in 15-20 game chunks. Of course, LaVine was in the zone, and Mo played great too.

It's fun to watch LaVine when he's playing like that. There wasn't much ball movement while he was in, part of the reason Wiggins and other guys didn't get many offensive touches, but he was in the zone so it's understandable he took so many shots. He was having trouble fighting through picks defensively (another reason I'd like to see him at the 2) but his on the ball defense on Young at the end was pretty decent. I've said this elsewhere, but I'd love to get LaVine more burn at the 2 while Martin's out. More games like that in the next couple months and some consistent 15-20 point performances and I'd think about moving Martin and make room for LaVine as the future at the 2. It's a big if, but I'd love to see more nights like tonight from Zach (and fewer night's like Andrew's).

Mostly though, it's just great to win. Down the stretch, on the road. That's so key for helping our young guys come together and learn how to win games. And the win matters. If we'd have lost, Zach's game all of a sudden becomes something that people see as a waste or worse, people might start wondering if he should've shot so much (he should have). And if we'd have lost, Andrew's bad game becomes something that people might feel like cost us the game, which isn't the right lesson for the kid. Win, and everything gets cast in a more positive light. I love it. Plus it's the Lakers. Great to beat them at home.

[Phenom]

Also, I love how Corey has been playing lately. On D, he does things that he could thrive with on a good defensive team but this team is bad and he gets burned too much. His outside shot is reminiscent of his rookie year, which is not good but other than that, he is in his prime on the court. His basket cuts are outstanding and his finishing around the rim is really something when you think about his first stint here. He used to blow wide open fast break layups. His dribble is ugly as ever but is rarely a cause for a TO. He is just a smart player and has very good awareness. I'm glad Flip (says) that he won't trade him. I want him around showing the young guys different things and helping this team hit their stride in the near future.

[Phenom]

And speaking of defense, with as porous as its been, I'd like to see more shell defense to help protect the paint. That has probably been the most effective of the sets I have seen. It leaves the weakside open but baby steps call for protecting the strong side first.

[SameOldNudityDrew]

Also, I love how Corey has been playing lately. On D, he does things that he could thrive with on a good defensive team but this team is bad and he gets burned too much. His outside shot is reminiscent of his rookie year, which is not good but other than that, he is in his prime on the court. His basket cuts are outstanding and his finishing around the rim is really something when you think about his first stint here. He used to blow wide open fast break layups. His dribble is ugly as ever but is rarely a cause for a TO. He is just a smart player and has very good awareness. I'm glad Flip (says) that he won't trade him. I want him around showing the young guys different things and helping this team hit their stride in the near future.

Agree. I LOVE Corey Brewer. Seriously, my favorite wolf of all time. He's obviously not our best player in history or even right now, but I just love how hard the guy works and how much fun he has while playing the game. LaVine and Wiggins should both be learning how to leak out for fast break buckets like Corey, how to make those basket cuts, and just absorb his overall hustle, effort, and love for the game. Put Brewer's energy into Wiggins right now and the kid would be a star tomorrow. I'd like to see Brewer get a little less playing time to make some room for the young guys, but trading him would be really tough to swallow.

[Brandon BassHole [enjin:8183321]]

LA-vine. I expect him to play great everytime he is in L.A. because he went to UCLA. He wants to show out when he plays there. This game proves it a little, I was watching the Lakers broadcast and thats mostly what they talked about and that UCLA had lost today, they repeatedly said UCLA lost and thats why he played so well, to make up for that.

I also read somewhere Lavine and Muhammad know next to nothing about the UCLA campus, so I think we can put the bruin spirit thing to rest and that they just play well because their SQUAD is still there

[SameOldNudityDrew]

Anybody notice Dieng had 8 assists last night? He made a couple nice bounce passes to cutters and smart kick outs to shooters. He's had some nice passing games before too. I like the idea of running a little more offense through him if we can get him the ball about 10 feet from the basket near the elbow and having Wiggins in particular make backdoor and baseline cuts to see if we can get him some easy buckets and get him to the line more.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Excellent 2+1, cool...you nailed it tonight.

I'm old enough to have watched The Minneapolis Lakers beat the Ft. Wayne Pistons 142-135, so this was my kind of game. There was no defense in the NBA back in the late 50s, and no defense tonight...this game definitely brought me back to Sunday afternoons at the Minneapolis Armory! Not happy with the Wolves' defense at all, but man was this a fun game!

As Cool pointed out, our defensive struggles starts with the inability of Mo and Zach to prevent penetration, but beyond that, our help defense was absolutely terrible. I'm not too worried about this though, because Ricky will eventually return, and so will our defense.

What an odd game for Dieng. I thought his recognition on defense was the worst I have ever seen from him...he just wasn't there to help when our PGs repeatedly got beat off the dribble. But offensively was a different story. To answer Drew's question...no, I didn't notice that he had 8 assists, at least until I saw the box score. They ran a lot of offense through him, and his recognition on offense was as good as it was poor on defense. Terrific vision...and he did it all with no turnovers!

Corey has had a really good early season, and he played one of his best games tonight. Maybe his one game at PG had him looking at his offensive role differently, but he was very much in control the entire game without sacrificing that tremendous energy. 8 assists and only 1 turnover with some really creative passes. I still cringe though when I see him heading toward the corner for another bricked three...Flip needs to discourage that shot.

I know Flip gets frustrated with Bazz being out of position, but was his defense any worse than our other wing reserves? I wish Bud would work as hard on defense as Shabazz does. Yeah, I was scratching my head a couple times tonight, but he also played with his usual energy and even contributed a couple steals. Getting only 12 minutes with four guys hurt tells me how he is valued by Flip. I'd like to see him get Chase's minutes, but Flip sees it differently.

I know I have a Jim Peterson-like man crush on Robbie Hummel, but I just love the way he plays basketball. He continues to lead the team in +/-, and put up another plus tonight even though Flip was forced to play him at center. It was painful to watch him trying to guard much bigger centers (kind of reminded me of watching Luke trying to guard Kobe at Staples a couple years ago), but he also presented a match up issue for the Lakers when we were on offense, and he added an efficient 7 points that helped keep us in the game.

We're not going to win many games with three starters out, including our best player and our leading scorer, but tonight reinforced my belief that this will be a .500 club if Ricky is able to return healthy. Bad news for our draft pick, but good news for our development curve.