Game 15:MIN at TOR

[FrenchMinnyFan]

The game was lost on the Rudy sequence 85 all and Rudy demands a pass inside, Randle refuses, Rudy intentionally turns the ball over. Then after Ant yells at him, Rudy gives up a stupid foul for 2 free throws. All vibes were awful and the energy just died. This team is not happy, and that leads to effort and energy mistakes which loses games to bad teams.

Gobert was open many times in the game and not getting the ball. That was brewing all game long. I called it earlier they need to get him the ball more often. Randle's game has taken away many of Gobert's touches, especially now you have two players instead of just Ant that don't pass the ball.

Not sure feeding Rudy more is the solution but i agree that we should do it when he is really open and don't have to dribble to go to the basket.

You made a point when you speak about the fact that now we have 3 players who don't pass the ball... which make the game totally messy and make Mike way of playing totally useless as he spend more time looking and Randle, DDV play than getting the ball in hand to find the right guy...... the KAT trade at this moment look really terrible...

[TimberKat]

The game was lost on the Rudy sequence 85 all and Rudy demands a pass inside, Randle refuses, Rudy intentionally turns the ball over. Then after Ant yells at him, Rudy gives up a stupid foul for 2 free throws. All vibes were awful and the energy just died. This team is not happy, and that leads to effort and energy mistakes which loses games to bad teams.

Gobert was open many times in the game and not getting the ball. That was brewing all game long. I called it earlier they need to get him the ball more often. Randle's game has taken away many of Gobert's touches, especially now you have two players instead of just Ant that don't pass the ball.

Not sure feeding Rudy more is the solution but i agree that we should do it when he is really open and don't have to dribble to go to the basket.

You made a point when you speak about the fact that now we have 3 players who don't pass the ball... which make the game totally messy and make Mike way of playing totally useless as he spend more time looking and Randle, DDV play than getting the ball in hand to find the right guy...... the KAT trade at this moment look really terrible...

Agree feeding Gobert is not the complete solution but they have to do it a few more times. I see one form JMcD today and Gobert really improved his FT shooting this year. Started last year when his motion is a lot more smooth and consistent.

[Calinks]

Chemistry is cooked right now boyos. Need to get it together. Not too late but this is bad.

Read on Twitter

[FrenchMinnyFan]

Chemistry is cooked right now boyos. Need to get it together. Not too late but this is bad.

Read on Twitter

This is something i don't like with Rudy sometimes. I can understand, emotion are not always easy to control but those kind of issues should be addressed in the locker room, not on the field. I agree with ANT reaction who was clearly piss off.
Tonight Rudy was in the good position a couple of times and did not see the ball.... make him frustrated. Mike should have been there, Rudy would have score at least 3 or 4 more bucket. Randle just care about his stats, he is not a team player, provide no defense.... hope staff see it as many of us see it already.

[RazorC]

Chemistry is cooked right now boyos. Need to get it together. Not too late but this is bad.

Read on Twitter

One of the times Randle shouldve actually passed it to Rudy. Normally he passes to him once he’s caught up in the air on a drive and has to dump it as a bail out and Rudy catches it out of position.

[Guest84]

Wasn’t able to fully focus on the game but one thing I will say is that I think Rudy lacks self awareness about his actual skill.

He should know by now that he’s not the type of player you just dump it to for a one on one in the post. That clip above to me, indicates that Randle has already identified this and isn’t going to just give it to him no matter how good a position he has.

Any other big I’d say drop it to him but not Rudy. It ends in a TO about 90% of the time. Finch also needs to tell him NO.

On another note, I just don’t understand this team. They haven’t won in Toronto or Boston for a combined 20+ years I believe it was mentioned by Alan Horton.

[Note30]

Chemistry is cooked right now boyos. Need to get it together. Not too late but this is bad.

Read on Twitter

Rather have KAT complaining about every foul call. Atleast then it would be worth it.

[younggunsmn]

You know I kept wondering why we keep losing to garbage lottery teams.
Then I finally made peace with the fact that it's because we are also a garbage lottery team.

We thought the KAT/Gobert pairing was a little bit awkward.
The Randle/Gobert pairing is a toxic swamp of utter dysfunction on both ends of the court.

Divencenzo is supposed to be a sniper and is nothing but a complete bricklayer here.
The follow through on his shot is absolutely effing awful like he's clowning around in a pick up game.

A couple months ago we had two guys to build a team around and now we only have one, plus a bunch of mediocre overpaid inconsistent role players and the power forward version of DeAngelo Russell (as many others have pointed out here).

Gobert is playing about the worst I've ever seen him here, just a complete mental midget out there all the freaking time.
And without Kyle Anderson out there to keep him in line and direct traffic its an utter layup line for the other team each and every night. Luka freaking Garza would have given up fewer paint points tonight that's how ineffective Gobert was.

So stoked to owe our 25, 27, 29, and 31 1st round picks plus swap in 26 and 30 and have this dysfunctional mess of garbage to cheer for. We were hard on KAT for melting down in the playoffs against really good teams from Memphis, Denver, and Dallas.
Julius Randle can't even handle crunch time against regular season lottery fodder.

Ownership has to be absolutely thrilled to go 150 million in the hole for this hot pile of garbage.
I foresee some massive selloffs at the trade deadline to try to trim that luxury tax bill.

Finch was utterly invisible tonight.
The time for being a nice guy is over.
It's time to yell and hurt some feelings and sit guys when they are playing lousy.
There are some hungry young guys on the bench who can't possibly be any worse than watching this garbage.

[younggunsmn]

Only positive I saw tonight was Jaden McDaniels actually scratching his potential for one whole game.

[FrenchMinnyFan]

You know I kept wondering why we keep losing to garbage lottery teams.
Then I finally made peace with the fact that it's because we are also a garbage lottery team.

We thought the KAT/Gobert pairing was a little bit awkward.
The Randle/Gobert pairing is a toxic swamp of utter dysfunction on both ends of the court.

Divencenzo is supposed to be a sniper and is nothing but a complete bricklayer here.
The follow through on his shot is absolutely effing awful like he's clowning around in a pick up game.

A couple months ago we had two guys to build a team around and now we only have one, plus a bunch of mediocre overpaid inconsistent role players and the power forward version of DeAngelo Russell (as many others have pointed out here).

Gobert is playing about the worst I've ever seen him here, just a complete mental midget out there all the freaking time.
And without Kyle Anderson out there to keep him in line and direct traffic its an utter layup line for the other team each and every night. Luka freaking Garza would have given up fewer paint points tonight that's how ineffective Gobert was.

So stoked to owe our 25, 27, 29, and 31 1st round picks plus swap in 26 and 30 and have this dysfunctional mess of garbage to cheer for. We were hard on KAT for melting down in the playoffs against really good teams from Memphis, Denver, and Dallas.
Julius Randle can't even handle crunch time against regular season lottery fodder.

Ownership has to be absolutely thrilled to go 150 million in the hole for this hot pile of garbage.
I foresee some massive selloffs at the trade deadline to try to trim that luxury tax bill.

Finch was utterly invisible tonight.
The time for being a nice guy is over.
It's time to yell and hurt some feelings and sit guys when they are playing lousy.
There are some hungry young guys on the bench who can't possibly be any worse than watching this garbage.

Can't actually agree more. This is a situation ( considering how much are paid the guys) that we will see if we have a good coach or just a guy who manage ego in order to keep his position as long as possible. On my opinion, Connely should also be accountable. I can understand that new players need some times to get comfortable with a new team but total lack of effort from Randle ( except for his own stat) should not be accepted.

[FrenchMinnyFan]

Chemistry is cooked right now boyos. Need to get it together. Not too late but this is bad.

Read on Twitter

I relook several times and Rudy was right actually. He got a mismatch and could have been an easy bucket ( or FT where Ruddy pretty good this year) . His reaction was wrong after that but understandable because lots of frustrations in this game.

On my opinion, wrong reaction from ANT who should have gone after Randle for not passing the ball if he got to be frustrated with someone.. Also surprised, Finch did not say anything...

[TwolvesFanRome]

I hope the toy is not broken yet...but I feel so bad...

Anyway: JR must pass that F-ball to Rudy in that situation...all the way.

Rudy was wrong but Randle..............

[Note30]

You know I kept wondering why we keep losing to garbage lottery teams.
Then I finally made peace with the fact that it's because we are also a garbage lottery team.

We thought the KAT/Gobert pairing was a little bit awkward.
The Randle/Gobert pairing is a toxic swamp of utter dysfunction on both ends of the court.

Divencenzo is supposed to be a sniper and is nothing but a complete bricklayer here.
The follow through on his shot is absolutely effing awful like he's clowning around in a pick up game.

A couple months ago we had two guys to build a team around and now we only have one, plus a bunch of mediocre overpaid inconsistent role players and the power forward version of DeAngelo Russell (as many others have pointed out here).

Gobert is playing about the worst I've ever seen him here, just a complete mental midget out there all the freaking time.
And without Kyle Anderson out there to keep him in line and direct traffic its an utter layup line for the other team each and every night. Luka freaking Garza would have given up fewer paint points tonight that's how ineffective Gobert was.

So stoked to owe our 25, 27, 29, and 31 1st round picks plus swap in 26 and 30 and have this dysfunctional mess of garbage to cheer for. We were hard on KAT for melting down in the playoffs against really good teams from Memphis, Denver, and Dallas.
Julius Randle can't even handle crunch time against regular season lottery fodder.

Ownership has to be absolutely thrilled to go 150 million in the hole for this hot pile of garbage.
I foresee some massive selloffs at the trade deadline to try to trim that luxury tax bill.

Finch was utterly invisible tonight.
The time for being a nice guy is over.
It's time to yell and hurt some feelings and sit guys when they are playing lousy.
There are some hungry young guys on the bench who can't possibly be any worse than watching this garbage.

This whole thing started because we traded for Gobert.

Had we just seen what a two center lineup what have looked like with KAT in a cheap setup then we could have seen what other players would have looked like. Instead we went all in on a style we didn't know would work.

To top it off, Gobert is so functionally useless on offense that he has to played around despite having few touches because of his inability to score.

Because of that we overpaid for McDaniels.

Then we had to trade KAT to not hit the second apron line. Moronic.

We're doomed to be a treadmill team with no assets to get better.

Any one can go all in on big moves. It's easy.

What we needed from the 4/5 spot was just one guy who could rebound and hit 3's.

We didn't have to make some massive move. Or we could have developed and just RFA extended McDaniels or traded him. He's just not worth his contract.

We could have focused on getting a lead guard or drafted one or traded for one.

A million things we could have done. All blown to shreds because the new GM who had been here all of two weeks had to go swing his dick.

And if we did have to make some big swing and had to get a big name KD might have been a better fit for this team.

We could have just slow played it and made smart small moves.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[minimus]

We could have just slow played it and made smart small moves.

Nah. It is not NBA2K. Just watch NYK path: Brunson took paycut, Bridges plays for 20mil, this why they could afford massive Towns incoming contract. BUT, they traded five FRPs, paid OG, lost DDV and currently have no bench and no quality backup big. And more importantly they have all possible defensive issues when Towns is responsible for rim protection.

Can our FO do a better job of rebuilding around Edwards? Sure.
Can our coaching staff do a better job of getting the best from our players? Sure.
Can our players simply care more about winning? Sure.

But it is a real life, and such things dont happen overnight.

[El Hespiritu]

My personal conclussions from the game:

-Loose-loose: They ain't any closer to a Flag and we ain't any closer to a Banner.

-The Rookie With A Gangsta Name is not ready yet.

-Fincho is one facepalm ahead to put Ol' Man Jingles into the rotation. Every time out was immeaditely followed by one (or even two) turnovers.

-Conley pointed educately out to The Prophets Of Mike's Decadence what actually happens to the team when he's not there.

-Julius Random is always points-productive even if just from FT.
You can't argue with that.
You just can argue about all of the rest and win all debates.

-Naz swears he lost the plane to Canada and has no idea who was that impersonator they put at court with his shirt.

-Some POR games were hard to watch but this one is an entire different level: watching a Super Nova explossion from the closest planet without sunglasses wouldn't hurt your eyes that much.



In summary: Still Late Pre Season so let's wait a while 'til calling for Rägnarok.
I admit I'm yet sharpening my battle axe tho.

[FrenchMinnyFan]

I strongly disagree about comment regarding Rudy. We make the WCF last year, get the best defense by far so Rudy is not the problem. The problem is trading KAT for a DLo PF and a guy who until now shoot not well.

I listen the post game ITW and am quite astonished that each time we play bad when Mike is absent, coach and player put always on the table how Mike missing is an issue to conduct the game..... i can get it as a 18 years Mike old fan but come on, Mike is 37 years old, he can't be the savior. Finch didn't have a word for Randle bad things, i hope that at least he do it in the locker room. Today Randle, Rudy and ANT should get remarks from the coach...

[Ferulci]

Wasn’t able to fully focus on the game but one thing I will say is that I think Rudy lacks self awareness about his actual skill.

He should know by now that he’s not the type of player you just dump it to for a one on one in the post. That clip above to me, indicates that Randle has already identified this and isn’t going to just give it to him no matter how good a position he has.

Any other big I’d say drop it to him but not Rudy. It ends in a TO about 90% of the time. Finch also needs to tell him NO.

On another note, I just don’t understand this team. They haven’t won in Toronto or Boston for a combined 20+ years I believe it was mentioned by Alan Horton.

- Even for a bigs with stone hands like Rudy, it was a 75% shot. Randle absolutely needs to drop him the ball.
- You got to feed the bigs to keep them engaged. Remember how during Billups Pistons era, the first play was always for big ben no matter what?
- Besides Randle disastrous decision making, I'm astonished by the poor leadership displayed by Ant, who would rather blame Rudy than Julius. That's the definition of scapegoating and not holding others accountable.

[Guest84]

Wasn’t able to fully focus on the game but one thing I will say is that I think Rudy lacks self awareness about his actual skill.

He should know by now that he’s not the type of player you just dump it to for a one on one in the post. That clip above to me, indicates that Randle has already identified this and isn’t going to just give it to him no matter how good a position he has.

Any other big I’d say drop it to him but not Rudy. It ends in a TO about 90% of the time. Finch also needs to tell him NO.

On another note, I just don’t understand this team. They haven’t won in Toronto or Boston for a combined 20+ years I believe it was mentioned by Alan Horton.

- Even for a bigs with stone hands like Rudy, it was a 75% shot. Randle absolutely needs to drop him the ball.
- You got to feed the bigs to keep them engaged. Remember how during Billups Pistons era, the first play was always for big ben no matter what?
- Besides Randle disastrous decision making, I'm astonished by the poor leadership displayed by Ant, who would rather blame Rudy than Julius. That's the definition of scapegoating and not holding others accountable.

With any other big I completely agree. However, I’ve seen Rudy fumble this type of opportunity way too many times to trust him even with great position.

Rudy requires very specific passes otherwise it’s a loss. While he may have drawn a foul, our team isn’t smart enough to take advantage of when they’re in the bonus. So that’s not really a plus either.

[bluethunder0005]

Wasn’t able to fully focus on the game but one thing I will say is that I think Rudy lacks self awareness about his actual skill.

He should know by now that he’s not the type of player you just dump it to for a one on one in the post. That clip above to me, indicates that Randle has already identified this and isn’t going to just give it to him no matter how good a position he has.

Any other big I’d say drop it to him but not Rudy. It ends in a TO about 90% of the time. Finch also needs to tell him NO.

On another note, I just don’t understand this team. They haven’t won in Toronto or Boston for a combined 20+ years I believe it was mentioned by Alan Horton.

- Even for a bigs with stone hands like Rudy, it was a 75% shot. Randle absolutely needs to drop him the ball.
- You got to feed the bigs to keep them engaged. Remember how during Billups Pistons era, the first play was always for big ben no matter what?
- Besides Randle disastrous decision making, I'm astonished by the poor leadership displayed by Ant, who would rather blame Rudy than Julius. That's the definition of scapegoating and not holding others accountable.

With any other big I completely agree. However, I’ve seen Rudy fumble this type of opportunity way too many times to trust him even with great position.

Rudy requires very specific passes otherwise it’s a loss. While he may have drawn a foul, our team isn’t smart enough to take advantage of when they’re in the bonus. So that’s not really a plus either.

There was no one within 4 feet of Rudy other than the small defender he had pinned down under the basket. Rudy's hands suck but anyone and I do mean anyone, could have caught that pass. Randle was an idiot for not getting it to him and Rudy was a baby for acting the way he did from not getting it. That was an easy basket or FTs.

[Guest84]

- Even for a bigs with stone hands like Rudy, it was a 75% shot. Randle absolutely needs to drop him the ball.
- You got to feed the bigs to keep them engaged. Remember how during Billups Pistons era, the first play was always for big ben no matter what?
- Besides Randle disastrous decision making, I'm astonished by the poor leadership displayed by Ant, who would rather blame Rudy than Julius. That's the definition of scapegoating and not holding others accountable.

With any other big I completely agree. However, I’ve seen Rudy fumble this type of opportunity way too many times to trust him even with great position.

Rudy requires very specific passes otherwise it’s a loss. While he may have drawn a foul, our team isn’t smart enough to take advantage of when they’re in the bonus. So that’s not really a plus either.

There was no one within 4 feet of Rudy other than the small defender he had pinned down under the basket. Rudy's hands suck but anyone and I do mean anyone, could have caught that pass. Randle was an idiot for not getting it to him and Rudy was a baby for acting the way he did from not getting it. That was an easy basket or FTs.

All valid points and I def don't disagree from a basketball standpoint. Although there's doubt when it comes to the personnel that has the advantage. We've seen Rudy fumble these same plays in the past so it's not a guarantee he'd even get the foul. I'm sure they want to be able to pass him the ball, but it's just not the best situation.

All in all, Randle prob should've passed him the ball and dealt with whatever after. Clear disconnect within the team right now.