Game 22 Wolves at Pelicans 12/11/23

[MN7725]

Zion way more explosive, especially driving, than KAT so not a good comparison
but its funny how NOP can give the ball to Zion in high post and get good offense
KAT in high post has been disaster, mainly because of missed open shots

[Calinks]

Free throw central.

[Calinks]

Went from a close game to getting blown out. Pelicans got embarrassed and then they came back and embarrassed us. Good on them, shame on us. Get it together next time, schedule does not get any easier.

[younggunsmn]

KAT needs some help, just absolutely awful on offense.
NO is a big slow immobile team and we are bailing them out by running ISO after ISO instead of making them work and chase on screens.

Terrible defensive gameplan on Zion. Too much fouling. Gobert getting outphysicaled by Jonas and basically every starter losing in their matchup.

We need to play a lot better than this or there are going to be a lot of L's in this tough 16 game stretch.

Badly outcoached and outplayed tonight. Every time we made a run Green brought Zion and Ingram back in and we had no answer.

Pull the starters before someone else gets hurt.

[jpatrick]

Zion way more explosive, especially driving, than KAT so not a good comparison
but its funny how NOP can give the ball to Zion in high post and get good offense
KAT in high post has been disaster, mainly because of missed open shots

That’s the problem, spacing. TBJ, NAW, and Shake aren’t reliable shooters. Very on/off. And Kyle is obviously a disaster in the shooting department. Even when Ant returns, we need one more guard/wing that can really shoot it. When the defenses really scout in the playoffs and isolate weaknesses, they’ll expose our shooting issues if we don’t.

[younggunsmn]

It makes a guy wonder how good Zion Williamson could be if he put the work into his body that Naz Reid has.

[MN7725]

KAT needs some help, just absolutely awful on offense.
NO is a big slow immobile team and we are bailing them out by running ISO after ISO instead of making them work and chase on screens.

Terrible defensive gameplan on Zion. Too much fouling. Gobert getting outphysicaled by Jonas and basically every starter losing in their matchup.

We need to play a lot better than this or there are going to be a lot of L's in this tough 16 game stretch.

Badly outcoached and outplayed tonight. Every time we made a run Green brought Zion and Ingram back in and we had no answer.

Pull the starters before someone else gets hurt.

Pels have no rim protection, so ANT would help obviously

but this was playoff style defense, Pels weren't paying attention at all to Wolves non-shooters
Suns did pretty much same thing

[_AIJ_]

This loss is on Finch. Why didnt he stick with the players the got the game closer???

[winforlose]

A lot went wrong tonight. But the story of the game was 40-18 free throw attempts in the Pels favor. 22 more attempts is impossible to survive.

[MN7725]

Zion way more explosive, especially driving, than KAT so not a good comparison
but its funny how NOP can give the ball to Zion in high post and get good offense
KAT in high post has been disaster, mainly because of missed open shots

That’s the problem, spacing. TBJ, NAW, and Shake aren’t reliable shooters. Very on/off. And Kyle is obviously a disaster in the shooting department. Even when Ant returns, we need one more guard/wing that can really shoot it. When the defenses really scout in the playoffs and isolate weaknesses, they’ll expose our shooting issues if we don’t.

that's true
but NOP would be getting it done with JV, Herb, Marshall, etc

Jim Pete was showing it on replay a few times too, the Wolves would be standing next to each other, not giving KAT passing lanes

but again, the biggest difference is Zion vs KAT with the ball in their hands

[Nick K]

Towns had a bad 2nd half when we really needed him.

[winforlose]

Towns had a bad 2nd half when we really needed him.

They were doubling and tripling KAT forcing the ball out of his hands. The same was not true of our defense against Zion. Finch did not adjust at all.

[FrenchMinnyFan]

It's impossible to win when your opponent shoot 40 FT and you only half.Refs were terrible tonight. KAT start strong and disapear a bit , not beeing help by the Refs...
Starters shoot bad . Except Mike and KAT, NAW and Try were terrible tonight, Rudy was limited with the fouls and always struggle agasint JV. Bad night happens, today we have one of those. Get some rest and be ready for the next one. Hopefully Ant is back. Was nice to see Jaden back, he play quite well.

[Calinks]

No time to panic, losses are going to happen, we are going to lose to some good teams, but the offense really does worry me and I don't know what we are going to do to address it. We don't have enough shooting. I do think we can be a lot better from within but I also think we might need to make a move.

[winforlose]

No time to panic, losses are going to happen, we are going to lose to some good teams, but the offense really does worry me and I don't know what we are going to do to address it. We don't have enough shooting. I do think we can be a lot better from within but I also think we might need to make a move.

Give Jaden time to get his rhythm back. He is our extra shooter. Usually one of Naw, Shake, TBJ can shoot, tonight was a bad night. Also, Rudy really didn’t show up tonight. After the early foul trouble he just disappeared.

[Nick K]

Towns had a bad 2nd half when we really needed him.

They were doubling and tripling KAT forcing the ball out of his hands. The same was not true of our defense against Zion. Finch did not adjust at all.

True, but he had wide open 3s he chose not to take. He must shoot the fricken ball.

[FrenchMinnyFan]

Towns had a bad 2nd half when we really needed him.

They were doubling and tripling KAT forcing the ball out of his hands. The same was not true of our defense against Zion. Finch did not adjust at all.

True, but he had wide open 3s he chose not to take. He must shoot the fricken ball.

I agree. This is a bit worrying. Seems that KAT sometimes choose to avoid shooting 3.

[MN7725]

the offense with ANT not on the court has been bad all year
i think he had the highest plus/minus in the league before he got hurt

every team has a weakness, thats one of the better ones to have in the league, so i'm not pessimistic

its a good team, as was the Butler team

Butler's team, my thought the entire season was, how can a team with 50 yr old Jamal Crawford and Shabazz Muhammad as the backup wings win a playoff series in today's downsized (especially in playoffs) NBA?? And predictably the Wolves were forced to go with some absurd lineups against Houston because guys like Dieng, Taj were non-factors

my thought with this team is, how can a team with 37 yr old Mike Conley as the 2nd best guard/playmaker win a playoff series??
the hope is that Jaden can become reliable offensive player in half court. His dribble is still way too loose for me to really see him be consistent creator

so my worry now is that Wolves face a team that has a beast wing defender (Kings trade for Anonuby for example) that can make ANT's job hard, and that's the series

[life_saver]

We need to sort out things offensively. Good thing we are only 22 games into season. Lot of time left to figure out things offensively before start of playoffs. Main thing is we need another ball handler

[_AIJ_]

11 shots for KAT and thats withohut Ant!