Kekgeek grades G21 vs Clippers

[kekgeek]

Conley: B
Ant: B
Jaden: A-
Randle: A
Rudy: A+
Naw: B+
Naz: B
DDV: B
Minott: A+

[DNatagal]

Love the fact that Minott played enough outside of garbage time that he earns a grade of ant type. He played at a level that will hopefully get him more chances.

[FNG]

Love the high grades, kek...I coulda used you as my professor when I was in college! But yeah, tough to disagree with any of these grades. We played hard, and everyone contributed.

I've been hard on Ant, but his effort on defense was notable tonight. And even though I ripped him for criticizing the home crowd for booing 4 games ago, you can't ignore the fact that we have won three in a row since then and are playing much harder. And maybe he's learning that he doesn't have to score close to 30 for us to win...we were 8-10 with him averaging 28 PPG, and now we have won three in a row with him only averaging 15 PPG. Hmm...

Rudy's aggressiveness was really fun to watch. But he can only push things on the defensive end if he feels comfortable that there will be low man help behind him...and they really has been the last few games. Randle seems to finally be getting how this defense works. Keep it up.

Finally, you can't overstate the positive impact Mike has even when he puts up meagre stats...both ends of the court seem much more under control when he plays. Assist to TO ratio is something I watch closely, and it's always better when Mike is on the court...31/14 last night, and 31/15 the game before. And I'll keep pointing out our record with and without him (well, at least until I'm proven wrong )...we're now on a 53-win pace when Mike plays (11-6), and 0-4 when he is out injured. I remain convinced that the only two guys we can't afford to have out are Rudy and Mike...we're deep enough to survive anyone else being out.

[Lipoli390]

Love the high grades, kek...I coulda used you as my professor when I was in college! But yeah, tough to disagree with any of these grades. We played hard, and everyone contributed.

I've been hard on Ant, but his effort on defense was notable tonight. And even though I ripped him for criticizing the home crowd for booing 4 games ago, you can't ignore the fact that we have won three in a row since then and are playing much harder. And maybe he's learning that he doesn't have to score close to 30 for us to win...we were 8-10 with him averaging 28 PPG, and now we have won three in a row with him only averaging 15 PPG. Hmm...

Rudy's aggressiveness was really fun to watch. But he can only push things on the defensive end if he feels comfortable that there will be low man help behind him...and they really has been the last few games. Randle seems to finally be getting how this defense works. Keep it up.

Finally, you can't overstate the positive impact Mike has even when he puts up meagre stats...both ends of the court seem much more under control when he plays. Assist to TO ratio is something I watch closely, and it's always better when Mike is on the court...31/14 last night, and 31/15 the game before. And I'll keep pointing out our record with and without him (well, at least until I'm proven wrong )...we're now on a 53-win pace when Mike plays (11-6), and 0-4 when he is out injured. I remain convinced that the only two guys we can't afford to have out are Rudy and Mike...we're deep enough to survive anyone else being out.

FNG - I agree we can afford to have Rudy or Mike out for any length of time. But you have to include Ant as a third player we can’t afford to lose if only because of the attention he attracts from opposing defenders. Moreover, it’s Ant’s perimeter defense that combines with Rudy’s interior defense to make this team a potentially great defensive team as we were last season. I’m not sure how long we’d hold up without NAW either.

I love what we’re seeing defensively from this team the last few games. But I’m concerned that our offense isn’t what it needs to be. More significantly, I’m worried about how dependent we are on Conley and Rudy. Even though Mike has played better lately, he’s still not the player he was last season and at age 37 with a long trail of injury issues behind him we can’t count on him to hold up. Rudy has proven to be resilient and he’s still in his early 30s. But things happen in the course of an 82-game season and we don’t have a big remotely close to filling his shoes defensively. My sense is that, if Rudy goes down, our best move would be playing Minott at the PF position alongside Randle or Naz.

I’ve been high on Minott ever since we drafted him and it’s great to see him turn the corner. I remember Larry Brown saying right after Minott was drafted that he would have been a lottery pick if he had stayed in school another year or two. Larry is one of the best basketball minds we’ve ever had and he rarely talks up players like that. When I saw Finch praising Minott’s play in practice before the season I remembered Flip telling me that you can tell from practice when a young player has turned the corner. We already saw some signs from Minott last season in his much-improved ball-handling, his previously unmentioned passing skills and his improved discipline defensively staying in front of players. Flash forward to this season and you could see it all coming together in Summer League and preseason. Last night Minott showed us it’s for real.

I have to mention Jaden’s performance last night. He’s been a disappointment so far this season but last night was a breakthrough game for him. He scored efficiently but more importantly he had 5 rebounds in 24 minutes and only 1 personal foul. Getting rebounds and not fouling are two huge keys to Jaden’s development. Let’s hope what we saw from him last night is just the beginning.

[kekgeek]

Love the high grades, kek...I coulda used you as my professor when I was in college! But yeah, tough to disagree with any of these grades. We played hard, and everyone contributed.

I've been hard on Ant, but his effort on defense was notable tonight. And even though I ripped him for criticizing the home crowd for booing 4 games ago, you can't ignore the fact that we have won three in a row since then and are playing much harder. And maybe he's learning that he doesn't have to score close to 30 for us to win...we were 8-10 with him averaging 28 PPG, and now we have won three in a row with him only averaging 15 PPG. Hmm...

Rudy's aggressiveness was really fun to watch. But he can only push things on the defensive end if he feels comfortable that there will be low man help behind him...and they really has been the last few games. Randle seems to finally be getting how this defense works. Keep it up.

Finally, you can't overstate the positive impact Mike has even when he puts up meagre stats...both ends of the court seem much more under control when he plays. Assist to TO ratio is something I watch closely, and it's always better when Mike is on the court...31/14 last night, and 31/15 the game before. And I'll keep pointing out our record with and without him (well, at least until I'm proven wrong )...we're now on a 53-win pace when Mike plays (11-6), and 0-4 when he is out injured. I remain convinced that the only two guys we can't afford to have out are Rudy and Mike...we're deep enough to survive anyone else being out.

Ya, hard for me to go lower than a B on any of the top 9 guys. Even though some guys didn’t shoot well they all busted their asses.

There was a play where the wolves turned it over and Ant and Jaden were back for a 3 on 2 advantage. Naz busted his ass back beat the 2 clippers players to the rebound after the missed layup and he was fouled just a winning play.

Then Ant thanksgiving get together changed everything. I do appreciate that even though Ant shot poorly he is not forcing anything and playing team basketball.

Then Jaden held Harden to 1 FG all game. Big props to him

[Lipoli390]

Conley: B
Ant: B
Jaden: A-
Randle: A
Rudy: A+
Naw: B+
Naz: B
DDV: B
Minott: A+

As always, I generally agree with your grades, kek. But a B seems too high for DDV and Naz given their poor shooting last night. DDV was; 1-5 from the field and 1-4 from behind the arc. Naz was 1-4 from the field and 0-2 from behind the arc. I’d give each of them a C+. Can’t say enough good things about the way Rudy’s been playing lately. This team needed a veteran to step up and lead. That’s exactly what Rudy has done. He’s really stepped up and led by example.

[kekgeek]

Conley: B
Ant: B
Jaden: A-
Randle: A
Rudy: A+
Naw: B+
Naz: B
DDV: B
Minott: A+

As always, I generally agree with your grades, kek. But a B seems too high for DDV and Naz given their poor shooting last night. DDV was; 1-5 from the field and 1-4 from behind the arc. Naz was 1-4 from the field and 0-2 from behind the arc. I’d give each of them a C+. Can’t say enough good things about the way Rudy’s been playing lately. This team needed a veteran to step up and lead. That’s exactly what Rudy has done. He’s really stepped up and led by example.

That’s fair. I mentioned above (it was the exact time you posted your response to FNG). That I thought Naz and Donte busted their asses last night on the defensive end and on small little things like keeping Balls alive and cutting. They production probably deserves a downgrade but I appreciate effort when the shot isn’t falling and I thought Naz, Donte and ANT busted their ass last night

[Lipoli390]

Conley: B
Ant: B
Jaden: A-
Randle: A
Rudy: A+
Naw: B+
Naz: B
DDV: B
Minott: A+

As always, I generally agree with your grades, kek. But a B seems too high for DDV and Naz given their poor shooting last night. DDV was; 1-5 from the field and 1-4 from behind the arc. Naz was 1-4 from the field and 0-2 from behind the arc. I’d give each of them a C+. Can’t say enough good things about the way Rudy’s been playing lately. This team needed a veteran to step up and lead. That’s exactly what Rudy has done. He’s really stepped up and led by example.

That’s fair. I mentioned above (it was the exact time you posted your response to FNG). That I thought Naz and Donte busted their asses last night on the defensive end and on small little things like keeping Balls alive and cutting. They production probably deserves a downgrade but I appreciate effort when the shot isn’t falling and I thought Naz, Donte and ANT busted their ass last night

Good point, kek. I’ll raise my grade for both from a C+ to a B-. . Seriously, defensive effort is so important to this team that it deserves significant weight in any evaluation.

[DNatagal]

This is a defense first team when they are winning. Effort is a base element to playing defense. Defense and rebounding can hide a lot of warts on a bad offense.
The Wolves have had the right combination the past few games.
Just want to point out that the offense has been bad, but they have won by almost 50 points total the last 2 games. When the Wolves were barely winning close games at the beginning of the season, the offense was league average with a poor defense.

Which way do you think this team becomes a top 4 team this season in the West?

[FNG]

I tend to be a little more Pollyannish about the wolves than the typical poster here, but I'm going to depart from my normal glass half full perspective to provide a little reality check. We all love 3 game winning streaks, including two blowouts. But who did we beat? We barely beat a Clippers team that, despite playing hard, was missing its two best players on our home court. Then we beat an aging Lakers team missing one starter that arrived in minny at 3am after playing in Utah...they looked awful. And last night we beat a Clippers team missing several players that appeared to have no interest in competing. On the positive side, we played hard in all three games. But again...the competition, or lack thereof.

So now we get another break playing a Warriors team that's lost 4 in a row, has three starters banged up, and will have played the night before. A loss would make all of us question where this Wolves team is going, but I expect a win. The real test will be Sunday. If we can beat the Warriors twice in a row and come home to face the Lakers again riding a 5-game win streak, I'll feel really good that we have turned the corner.