Faith in Finch

[Biff Cooper]

I'm struggling a bit with how "fast" this team is playing on offense. It seems like the coaching staff wants them to play "fast" and take shots early in the shot clock. When you have Gobert and KAT on the floor, it seems like you want to force the other team to defend these large humans, and that someone taking an early jump shot sort of lets the defense off the hook. It is especially troubling to me that we take so many jump shots out of an iso situation that are not in the rhythm of the offense.

This is something that's interesting to me. I think a big reason for a lot of what we see is that one of Finch's first principles it to play with pace and continually look to push the ball. It is just true that attacking defenses that aren't set as often as possible is smart and transition offense can cover holes in half-court offense.

Do we really want to play fluid and fast when we having two bigs on the court and don't have strong perimeter ball-handlers/decision makers outside of Jmac? Do we look at this team and say that if we speed the game up and try to force this team to make decisions and process the game at its faster that we will be better than most other teams at doing that?

Our net rating is higher with them both on. Also as long as we are out pacing our opponents they aren’t getting as set. This makes flow and ball movement easier and gets cleaner less defended shots. It’s when we get out paced that things go to Hell. We need to increase pace significantly, and part of that is speeding up Rudy. In the early season he was throwing it away in pace play. We also are not good at transition defense and getting matched up. I know it is ironic and cliche, but the biggest problem with our playing with pace is we need more of it.

Obviously, push the ball up the court with a purpose every possession. Expect that you are going to get a layup or an open jump shot out of the push. Nobody has a problem with us shooting a wide open shot or layup early in the possession. We need to do better when the other team gets back on defense. A contested jump shot 6-8 seconds into the shot clock is not efficient basketball - especially when you have two premier big men and a third big man who is pretty darn good offensively.

[Nick K]

I'm still fully behind Finch at this point. the players are simply missing shots they should make and are careless with the ball. They are a work in progress.

It is more than that. Finch is the like the wise sensei trying to teach wax on, wax off and the guys are busy waxing off in a different way. Finch is a really smart basketball mind and they just don’t listen to him. He says box out, they don’t. He say get more physical on defense (especially fighting through screens,) they don’t. He says move the ball on offense and play within the flow, they don’t. He says hustle back and get matched up, (in other words play defense with pace,) they don’t. He says no hero ball, they ignore him. Finch looks terrible and might be sick, but even if he is just exhausted, his team isn’t letting him do his job. He needs to take the kid gloves off, and that starts with Dlo to the bench and Ant getting yanked when he dicks around.

It's Finch's job to get these guys to "buy in". I think he will.

[winforlose]

I'm still fully behind Finch at this point. the players are simply missing shots they should make and are careless with the ball. They are a work in progress.

It is more than that. Finch is the like the wise sensei trying to teach wax on, wax off and the guys are busy waxing off in a different way. Finch is a really smart basketball mind and they just don’t listen to him. He says box out, they don’t. He say get more physical on defense (especially fighting through screens,) they don’t. He says move the ball on offense and play within the flow, they don’t. He says hustle back and get matched up, (in other words play defense with pace,) they don’t. He says no hero ball, they ignore him. Finch looks terrible and might be sick, but even if he is just exhausted, his team isn’t letting him do his job. He needs to take the kid gloves off, and that starts with Dlo to the bench and Ant getting yanked when he dicks around.

It's Finch's job to get these guys to "buy in". I think he will.

100% agree with the first part, not 100% with the second part. If you cannot get people to buy, then you need to sell. Finch can sell by benching guys when they don’t execute his offense. Start by moving Dlo to the bench for the Bucks game. Tell him he is capped at 22 minutes a night until he plays quality defense. If he does the cap comes off and he can get as many as the situation warrants. Threaten Ant with the same but with ball movement. Make it clear that hero ball gets him coming off the bench. I love Finch, I truly do, but he needs to get back to that accountability he built in 2020.

[Krapinsky]

I'm losing faith. We have Anthony Edwards. Why can't we get him a clear driving lane?

[winforlose]

I'm losing faith. We have Anthony Edwards. Why can't we get him a clear driving lane?

Because we are missing our open 3s which in turn makes opposing teams dare us to shoot them. JMAC was unguarded multiple times, Anderson at least once, Dlo had a few where they didn’t bother to fight through the screen. They were even cheating off of KAT. When you shoot sub 30% from 3 regularly despite wide open looks, the paint gets packed.

[winforlose]

About 5:15 left to go in the fourth Finch seems to be in pain. I don’t know if it is his back or what, but given how he was looking recently, I hope he is okay.

[TheZachAttack]

I don't think that this win is about Gobert. This is about the Rockets and trusting each other, trusting teammates, and making shots. The mistakes and opportunities to spiral were still there, but they continued to trust eachother, move the ball, give effort, and that led to more made shots.

Trusting the process is a self-reinforcing positive feedback loop that leads to all of the things that we've talked about. When you don't trust the process it leads to a negative feedback loop that leads to spiraling.

I think this is what it comes down to. There may be some things that are harder to do with different skillsets on the floor, but we need to cut the noise and focus on the true source of the problem which is what I said above. The team hasn't been doing this and it's led to losses that they shouldn't have and bad looking basketball. The reason that they aren't winning isn't because they can hurt themselves with turnovers or some sloppy decision making or some missed rebounds and it's not to say cleaning those things up isn't important, however you can't win if you don't trust your teammates, your system, your execution, and give effort.

I hope they build off of this for that last reason and if they do this team will see success with or without Rudy in the lineup.

[TimberKat]

Is it time to start the conversation on Quin Synder, Udoka and Kevin McHale (well, maybe not that desperate)

[Klomp]

It's not a scheme thing. It's a player desire/effort thing. It's easy to blame that on coaches when at the high school or college level, but these are grown men getting paid millions of dollars.

[winforlose]

It's not a scheme thing. It's a player desire/effort thing. It's easy to blame that on coaches when at the high school or college level, but these are grown men getting paid millions of dollars.

Time after time you see their guards blow by our guards. This unbalances the defense. MCD, KAT, Anderson, Naz, pick a name, they have to cover two guys and are often coming into the situation at a bad angle. JMAC and Dlo are getting killed by Brunson. Ant didn’t do much better in the first half. You cannot win if you cannot contain the ball. The simple reason is the scheme cannot work if the players don’t run it and run it well.

[TimberKat]

I think it's more than just ptg play. We don't close to standing 3pt shooters fast enough. The offense set don't seem right. The players are man D and team D challenged for sure. Did the coach not giving the kids enough homework or he lose the team already? They look unprepared and sloppy but coaching deserves some blame. Beasley and Vanderbilt didn't just get smarter because it's Salt Lake City.

[Rauxcee]

Is it time to start the conversation on Quin Synder, Udoka and Kevin McHale (well, maybe not that desperate)

In hindsight, Snyder isn't that great. He is not even with the Jazz this season, and I'm more and more frustrated with how poorly he coached the last 2 or 3 seasons. I'd vote no for you guys.

I obviously only started watching wolves games this season, but I've been very unimpressed with your coach. I don't like the job he's doing for whatever it's worth from a bandwagoner.

[winforlose]

Is it time to start the conversation on Quin Synder, Udoka and Kevin McHale (well, maybe not that desperate)

In hindsight, Snyder isn't that great. He is not even with the Jazz this season, and I'm more and more frustrated with how poorly he coached the last 2 or 3 seasons. I'd vote no for you guys.

I obviously only started watching wolves games this season, but I've been very unimpressed with your coach. I don't like the job he's doing for whatever it's worth from a bandwagoner.

Finch has some rough edges. I am totally not surprised you feel that way. For me there are 3 keys which made me have Faith In Finch and start this thread.

1. In the year Finch took over, (midway through (20/21) the numbers of essentially ever player (one exception, I cannot remember who,) got significantly more efficient. It was stunning how quickly and easily good coaching made a big difference.

2. Despite a 4/9 start to last season, Finch and Beverly managed to get the guys to buy in and turn things around. A bad coach cannot get the trust of the locker room like that.

3. Finch has a reputation for holding players accountable. Between cussing out Ant in practice and benching Dlo in the playoffs, he has the cred been needs to do the job. Add to that the fact that he never minces words and always identifies exactly what went wrong, and I think he has the mind for basketball.

Combine, efficiency increases, team wide system buy in, and reputation/pattern of accountability and you get a good recipe. That said, I am not 100% in love with his schemes. Organized chaos is a little to disorganized, and high wall is not working with the new personnel. I wish he would adapt more and more quickly.

[m2002brian]

Watched this video on the Bucks defense.

Watch on YouTube

With us having one of the best rim protectors in the league, one may think we could employ such a scheme. We should be pressing up more on the perimeter, taking away 3s, and daring them inside.
Often though it seems we are slacking off too far and collapsing too easily.

[minimus]

Watched this video on the Bucks defense.

Watch on YouTube

With us having one of the best rim protectors in the league, one may think we could employ such a scheme. We should be pressing up more on the perimeter, taking away 3s, and daring them inside.
Often though it seems we are slacking off too far and collapsing too easily.

You beaten me on this! What I find most interesting in Bucks transformation this year, is that they play Jevon Carter 26 mpg. He has 8ppg + 2.5rpg + 2.8apg + 1.6(!!!) spg. He is "only" 6'1", but 200lbs, tough, physical defender. I wonder if we can put same low profile defender/secondary ballhandler replacing DLo in starting lineup, to bring more structure, invole Ant and Towns more?

[minimus]

One question: we know that Finch is not a big fan of PnR. But it seems also that DLo is not PG for such "pure motion offense", he is better as spread PnR PG. Also for Gobert a spread PnR based offense seems more familiar. On other hand Towns and Ant thrive in such offense. Do you think "just" reverting our offense to implement some high PnR will help? Or we should replace DLo with another type of PG?

[TheZachAttack]

The sad/not sad? thing for the Wolves is that D Lo is the key. If D Lo can get into the middle of the court, hit mid range shots, and get others involved in rhythm while also hitting 3’s this team can be really good… even more-so in games where Ant is on as well. D Lo is the only player that has this level of upside.

This is sad because this seems like a glass ceiling wagon to hitch ourselves to. D Lo should be Garland and we traded for him to be that.

[minimus]

Interesting that today Finch kept Ant in 4th qtr on the floor despite his horrendous stretch where he turned off the ball twice. Also no timeouts were called in that stretch. In clutch Ant hit ISO mid range jumper and made great cut and dunk. It looked to me like Finch wanted players to figure out. Obviously in last two minutes Finch took control.

[_AIJ_]

Goodbye coach!

[Klomp]

I want to see him play with some "smaller" lineups while Towns is out. I don't think Garza should enter the rotation. Minott hopefully has a better chance, because he brings some qualities the rotation is sorely lacking.

The big winner though should be Kyle Anderson. I know some might worry about spacing, but those concerns can be negated by making defensive stops and getting into open-floor transition opportunities. People think of Kyle as a loaf because of his methodical style, but he does very well in transition. That should get the young guys Edwards and McDaniels some better looks in early offense by pushing the pace.

We need to get Prince and McDaniels healthy though!