Minnesota Sports Forum

I will try to bring this back while keeping it relatively short most of the time. Here is the game 2 version of the 2 + 1:

1) I don't care that Ant had a poor shooting night. I don't care that he kept shooting to try to find his rhythm. What i do care about is he was responsible for a lack of ball movement spanning several minutes throughout the game. The way we have been moving the ball has been mostly tremendous through two games, and it's how we play our best. I want Ant to get the most shots on the team but I want them to come inside our flow, not working against it. When he has it going he can score either way.

2) I didn't like how much Ant and Melo were staggered tonight. I love watching them play together and it didn't feel like we had much of that tonight. It looks like Melo is often going to be the first sub, but I'd rather him come back and finish the quarter with Ant than going 10 minutes with only one of them on the court. I can't remember exactly when, but there was a time during the competitive phase of the game where neither one of them was out there.

Plus 1 - We are probably going to see these ups and downs with Joan, but I was really happy to see him put the first game behind him and look good in his first stint. As Lip said if we can just stay with him we might really have something by the end of the year. It's not always going to be pretty but the court time is invaluable for him.

And that's the 2 + 1 for game 2 on the season. Great to be 2-0 and coming home.

Great to have your 2+1 back, Cool! I had the same sense of frustration with Ant’s sticky fingers tonight. He really needs to resist his impulse to play one on five basketball. Perhaps the biggest value Melo brings is that when he’s on the court, it stops Ant from reverting to that bad tendency we saw tonight.

Lipoli390 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 23, 2026 11:24 pm Great to have your 2+1 back, Cool! I had the same sense of frustration with Ant’s sticky fingers tonight. He really needs to resist his impulse to play one on five basketball. Perhaps the biggest value Melo brings is that when he’s on the court, it stops Ant from reverting to that bad tendency we saw tonight.

Yes, that's why I want to see them out there together most of the time. Lamelo only played 23 minutes tonight, I wonder if that will be something we see more often. Kind of an in-game load management.

Hooray for the return of the 2+1! And I agree with all three points…the first two being related. I also am not a fan of staggering Ball and Ant. While they are both gifted offensive players, it’s clear that they bring out the best in each other when they are out there together. It’s hard to argue with Finchys rotations when we are 2-0, but I want to see the Ball/Ant tandem as much as possible.

I love how Joan keeps offensive possessions alive…he’s relentless on the offensive glass. He’s still so raw, but he deserves his 15 mpg on athleticism and effort alone. It’s going to be fun to watch him improve every month this season.

So I agree that Ant was forcing things this game and obviously trying to shoot himself out of the shooting dip (no reason to call it a slump at this point), I'll offer one caveat:
He did start working in the flow of the offense more in the 2nd half of the game and was clearly looking to pass and find the better shot.

One thought I kept having throughout the game was, "this offense is so fucking healthy." Which was pretty well underscored by the very even distribution of scoring among the players. They didn't light up the scoreboard, but Orlando is a good defense and I just thought it was so awesome to how the ball found its way to so many different players. Everyone is so much more willing to pass in these first two games compared to last year, and they're all playing with so much joy. I know there will be ups and downs and there is so much season to play but this looks like it's gonna be a lotta fun and hopefully a special season

Good to have the segment back Cool. I thought Ant had two segments of 3 or so minutes each where he didn't pass the ball and took some bad shots trying to get himself going. I do think he realized it wasn't his night, and focused more on taking the best defender out of the play and letting Ayo or Ball take the reigns while he focused on moving the ball, playing defense, and passing it ahead. Ant wasn't good in the first half, but was fantastic in the 3rd quarter when he played the whole quarter and the team outscored Orlando 29-15.