Game 17 | OKC @ MIN

[thinktank]

Scared about Ant’s injury.

All that force of his came down right on that hip and he bounced off the floor even. Nooooooo. No.

[karch34]

Now GSW needs to blow out SAC for Wolves to make the in-season tournament

Looks like we can't make it in. It's either GSW or SAC to get in. That SAC game was a lot bigger than I thought.

Unlikely but my eyes are on the bigger prize and if we get a little extra rest I’m good. Great game tonight and nice to see Brown get his moment and crush it. I think Shake’s is coming.

[KGdaBom]

Still think we are going to only play .500 the rest of the year. Would you still be satisfied with a 45-37 season record which is what we end up with playing .500 from when we were discussing this?

45? Fifty is nifty, but sixty would be so sexy!

Calinks was talking about how .500 ball the rest of the season would be OK. I challenged him on it and to me it seemed like he stood by it. I'm seeing nothing less than 50 wins and 60 would be sexy. I'm not counting on that by any means. My prediction... 55 and 27. Win 2 out of every 3.

[Nick K]

Lets not overlook the bench in general. They put up 43 points! Won the game for us when towns, conley, and NAW struggled. Towns made 8 of 8 from the line and 2 of then late when critical.

[Klomp]

Troy Brown was phenomenal. What a hero, we had nothing on offense tonight. Rudy was unreal on defense, what a King. Just massive to get a win against the number two team in the west with Towns having a really bad game, Ant not playing in the 4th, and no Jaden. That's a big time win man. HUGE!

Still think we are going to only play .500 the rest of the year. Would you still be satisfied with a 45-37 season record which is what we end up with playing .500 from when we were discussing this?

You're taking what he said way out of context. He never said they'd go .500 the rest of the way, just that they might have some .500ish stretches which is totally reasonable.

[Calinks]

Troy Brown was phenomenal. What a hero, we had nothing on offense tonight. Rudy was unreal on defense, what a King. Just massive to get a win against the number two team in the west with Towns having a really bad game, Ant not playing in the 4th, and no Jaden. That's a big time win man. HUGE!

Still think we are going to only play .500 the rest of the year. Would you still be satisfied with a 45-37 season record which is what we end up with playing .500 from when we were discussing this?

I never said I think we are going to play .500 the rest of the year. At least that is not what I meant to say if that's how it came out. I just said I would like to get far enough ahead that if it got to the point where we did wind up playing .500 (because of injury or some other reason) we would still be good enough to make the post-seaosn because we are so far above .500. Or if we had bad stretch where we played .500 or less for a while, we wouldn't have to worry about fallout out of the playoff picture.

I don't think we will be a .500 team all the sudden for no reason but I also don't expect us to not have some bad stretches stay in the top 1-3 spots all season without any hicups. I suspect there will be some rough spots at some point for one reason or another, we may have one right now with this Ant injury.

[Calinks]

Troy Brown was phenomenal. What a hero, we had nothing on offense tonight. Rudy was unreal on defense, what a King. Just massive to get a win against the number two team in the west with Towns having a really bad game, Ant not playing in the 4th, and no Jaden. That's a big time win man. HUGE!

Still think we are going to only play .500 the rest of the year. Would you still be satisfied with a 45-37 season record which is what we end up with playing .500 from when we were discussing this?

You're taking what he said way out of context. He never said they'd go .500 the rest of the way, just that they might have some .500ish stretches which is totally reasonable.

Thank you sir.

[Domejandro]

With this win, Minnesota now has a two loss lead over the next place team in the Western Conference. Interestingly enough, while Minnesota is the only team that has four losses, six Western Conference teams have six losses.

[Calinks]

I'm sad we are out of the IST. I feel like we could have won, the freaking Warriors might get in and that seems like a joke with how the have been playing lately. We really dropped the ball getting blown out by the Kings at home.

The saving grace, we will probably get two really easy games as make up games. I hear one of them might be against the Grizzlies which would be nice. Two easy conference wins right now, particularly while Edwards is hurt would be some good medicine.

[TimberKat]

With this win, Minnesota now has a two loss lead over the next place team in the Western Conference. Interestingly enough, while Minnesota is the only team that has four losses, six Western Conference teams have six losses.

I think this year is going to be like last year where a couple losses will drop a team 4 spots. So hopefully we remain healthy for the rest of the season.

[KGdaBom]

Troy Brown was phenomenal. What a hero, we had nothing on offense tonight. Rudy was unreal on defense, what a King. Just massive to get a win against the number two team in the west with Towns having a really bad game, Ant not playing in the 4th, and no Jaden. That's a big time win man. HUGE!

Still think we are going to only play .500 the rest of the year. Would you still be satisfied with a 45-37 season record which is what we end up with playing .500 from when we were discussing this?

I never said I think we are going to play .500 the rest of the year. At least that is not what I meant to say if that's how it came out. I just said I would like to get far enough ahead that if it got to the point where we did wind up playing .500 (because of injury or some other reason) we would still be good enough to make the post-seaosn because we are so far above .500. Or if we had bad stretch where we played .500 or less for a while, we wouldn't have to worry about fallout out of the playoff picture.

I don't think we will be a .500 team all the sudden for no reason but I also don't expect us to not have some bad stretches stay in the top 1-3 spots all season without any hicups. I suspect there will be some rough spots at some point for one reason or another, we may have one right now with this Ant injury.

I challenged you/questioned you on it a few times and it sure seemed to me like you thought we were going to play .500 the rest of the way and that it would be just fine. I'm glad to find out that isn't what you intended.

[KGdaBom]

Troy Brown was phenomenal. What a hero, we had nothing on offense tonight. Rudy was unreal on defense, what a King. Just massive to get a win against the number two team in the west with Towns having a really bad game, Ant not playing in the 4th, and no Jaden. That's a big time win man. HUGE!

Still think we are going to only play .500 the rest of the year. Would you still be satisfied with a 45-37 season record which is what we end up with playing .500 from when we were discussing this?

You're taking what he said way out of context. He never said they'd go .500 the rest of the way, just that they might have some .500ish stretches which is totally reasonable.

It didn't seem out of context to me. However, he has stated that was not his intention so I'm cool with that.

[theGreatRC]

These wins have been amazing, the defense keeps us in these games.

Rudy is amazing, I gave him so much **** last year, but damn it's time to give this man some props. DPOY right now for sure.

Troy Brown Jr had some big stones today.

Lastly, hope Ant is ok. Next two games are against Utah and Charlotte, not even mad if he has to miss those games

[KGdaBom]

I'm sad we are out of the IST. I feel like we could have won, the freaking Warriors might get in and that seems like a joke with how the have been playing lately. We really dropped the ball getting blown out by the Kings at home.

The saving grace, we will probably get two really easy games as make up games. I hear one of them might be against the Grizzlies which would be nice. Two easy conference wins right now, particularly while Edwards is hurt would be some good medicine.

ANT is very resilient. I would not be surprised to see him playing the very next game and being just fine. I also would not be surprised with him being out for a couple weeks. If he is he sure picked a good time to do it.

[FrenchMinnyFan]

Grin and Grind style tonight, king of Grizz 200x Years. Not sexy at all, lack of offense sometimes but what a defense. When you play defense in NBA, (even in the ERA), you got chances to win. Now let's recover and move to next one. Utah will be on B2B, i hope they sit ANT and let him recover.

[wolves_89]

I'm growing a bit concerned about Conley's minutes, I don't want to see him playing 30+ minutes a night repeatedly. The Wolves need to find a real backup PG to take some of the load. Coming into the season I had hopes for Milton, but at this point he just doesn't seem able to fill that role.

[Guidus88]

I'm growing a bit concerned about Conley's minutes, I don't want to see him playing 30+ minutes a night repeatedly. The Wolves need to find a real backup PG to take some of the load. Coming into the season I had hopes for Milton, but at this point he just doesn't seem able to fill that role.

Agree! JMac injury is having more impact then expected...

[FrenchMinnyFan]

I'm growing a bit concerned about Conley's minutes, I don't want to see him playing 30+ minutes a night repeatedly. The Wolves need to find a real backup PG to take some of the load. Coming into the season I had hopes for Milton, but at this point he just doesn't seem able to fill that role.

Agree. Even if he say post game he was not tired, he was for me out of gas most of the 4th. The main reason why he keep missing 3. Playing 37 min at 36 is not the best thing to do. But i can understand the coach who needed the floor general there specially without ANT and with KAT struggling. Even tired, he manage to deliver 8 Ass for 0 TO!

[shrink]

I'm growing a bit concerned about Conley's minutes, I don't want to see him playing 30+ minutes a night repeatedly. The Wolves need to find a real backup PG to take some of the load. Coming into the season I had hopes for Milton, but at this point he just doesn't seem able to fill that role.

Agree. Even if he say post game he was not tired, he was for me out of gas most of the 4th. The main reason why he keep missing 3. Playing 37 min at 36 is not the best thing to do. But i can understand the coach who needed the floor general there specially without ANT and with KAT struggling. Even tired, he manage to deliver 8 Ass for 0 TO!

I agree. The other benefit to getting a Conley some help to keep him healthy is that Ant plays less hero ball when Mike is on the floor. I think Conley said something about how Ant wants to learn how to be a passer like him, and Ant seems to play less sticky, like he’s trying to impress Conley. We can’t lose Mike because of overwork.

[shrink]

I also wanted to mention that I loved hearing the fans give so much cheering for defensive possessions. I think that’s motivating for any player, but particularly those bench guys who don’t hear those cheers as often.