Faith in Finch

[TheZachAttack]

I have a lot of faith in Finch and think we need to take a step back and be patient. This team gets turned around by figuring out how to maximize our best players and set them up for success, not by going away from our best players and accepting failure.

There's so many different things that this team is trying to do right now and so many different pieces that they are trying to connect together. I think we need to focus on establishing an identity and then connecting other pieces to that.

Right now they are trying to establish KAT as a passer/elbow touches, Rudy at the rim, Ant offense, D Lo touches, etc. It's too much. I think the KAT touches can be fine as long as he continues to find weakside shooters if they double and if he actually chooses to be aggressive putting up shots if they don't double.

I would also then spam Rudy high screen PnR with D Lo even though Finch doesn't like PnR. That feels like it's the easiest thing to connect as a bread and butter play that can make this team work and get D Lo into the middle of the floor and leveraging Rudy's gravity as well as passing to shooters in the corner off of that.

As bad as D Lo can sometimes be as a decision-maker, Ant is unfortunately much worse right now. I think Ant versus D Lo and connecting that to Rudy is the biggest thing to figure out right now. Rudy needs to be at the center of this offense. That has to work and his spacing has to be functional in this offense otherwise the whole thing is going to implode.

Get Rudy moving down hill towards the basket and force bigs to have to choose to stay on him or give up open layups/mid range jumpers. We know that can lead to good consistent offense with connected primary, secondary, and tertiary action even if that's open 12-foot jumpers and looks relatively ugly.

This is how you win games now. Ant is still the future and where this team goes depends on him, but he is not good enough to run that level of offense. If Ant is fatigued and needs to work through conditioning then he can work on playing hard defense and playing within flow in offense, spacing the floor, running in transition, a. Get Ant in action with the second unit and Jmac and run the offense through him in those lineups. Eventually, you can try to work him in with the first unit with more primary offensive action. Trying to solve all of this at once feels so daunting.

I think you can simplify. Create fewer live ball reads even though that's what finch prefers from his offense. Create simple rules through Rudy screen and D Lo mid range game that can get you A or B grade shots on every possession and then sprinkle in Towns touches as well to have him use his gravity. That feels doable and you should be able to beat most teams in the regular season.

We can get back to more fluidity and trying to focus on teaching players to be better live ball decision makers and have more freedom once we aren't trying to deal with all of these new elements, our players are back in shape, some more concepts are worked out on both sides of the ball, etc.

[Calinks]

I was super confident in Finch and still am a believer. That said, he is looking terrible lately. I do think he and the team will figure things out though. Its brought right now and this is two seasons in a row where we started off looking bad but we still got time.

[Child of Wonder]

A big part of our problem is so many of our players are simply dumb. It's painful to watch us play elite teams and see how smoothly and efficiently they run their offense and find easy baskets while nearly all of our buckets are tightly contested and a mini-miracle when they go in.

It's been the same problem for years.

[winforlose]

I was super confident in Finch and still am a believer. That said, he is looking terrible lately. I do think he and the team will figure things out though. Its brought right now and this is two seasons in a row where we started off looking bad but we still got time.

He needs to bench Dlo and threaten to bench Ant. They just won’t run Finch’s system. It really is that simple. A coach can gameplan perfectly, but that doesn’t help when guys won’t implement it. Last year they started to listen to Finch and made the playoffs. This year they might not.

The above being true, I do think Finch needs to improve his defensive gameplan. Rudy should always be guarding the non shooter and should rarely if ever defend the perimeter. If they play 5 out then we can talk, but most teams don’t have 5 solid shooters who can all play together and defend. For those rare exceptions we can develop countermeasures such as zones and switching schemes. You can have all the firepower and still lose the war if you don’t bother aiming.

[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.

[TwolvesFanRome]

I was super confident in Finch and still am a believer. That said, he is looking terrible lately. I do think he and the team will figure things out though. Its brought right now and this is two seasons in a row where we started off looking bad but we still got time.

My impression (as I have already written) is that it seems to be stubborn with certain elements. Almost like wanting to prove at all costs and right away that "I'm right".

He must not make this mistake yet. If Russell still hasn't figured out how to lead the offense he has to sit up and give JM more space ... an example ... if Ant continues to force the shot he has to sit up and watch the others play. If Reid "works" he must have more space. The starting five does not necessarily have to work "immediately": we have a season to make it work and reap the rewards in the playoffs..

[TheZachAttack]

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?

[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.

[winforlose]

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.

[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.

[TheZachAttack]

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.

Interesting - good post. Does Rudy need to be sped up or can he just trail and grab offensive rebounds or be there to set screens when we reset if we probe and pull out?

[TheZachAttack]

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.

I agree with this. The biggest problem with this team is executing and playing smart versus Finch. Finch wants to teach players to be able to read and process the game at a high level, be accountable, and make high-level decisions fluidly as those situations come. The reason that he doesn't like the 2 man high pick and roll type of action is because he believes that's a lazy way to play and doesn't actually teach you to make reads and decisions it just gives you pre-defined ones.

It's the same reason he would be slow to call time outs. These guys are never going to learn if they panic and their decision-making/processing goes to **** and doesn't develop any time they are punched in the mouth.

The core problem of this team is that the best players on this team are not strong processors and decision-makers and lack accountability. The question for Finch is do you keep pushing for accountability and to do the hard things to truly become an elite team or do you give them band-aids to fix their short-comings even if it means that when the pressure is on against good teams their decision making and processing isn't good enough to execute consistently.

It's a tough balance, especially with this team.

[TheZachAttack]

I have figured out the path forward after a lot of writing on the topic. The path forward is to ratchet up this D Lo issue over the next 10 games. That means leaning into D Lo versus away from D Lo.

The Wolves need to let D Lo do what he does best and spam the Rudy PnR and let Russell operate in the mid range area and thus off of his gravity to get others involved. D Lo to whatever extent he is a good passer is good more in the Chris Paul mold where he wants to pound the ball and play at his pace and then pick teams apart. Can Russell/Rudy be a strong enough PnR threat to get them going and have consistent action that we can execute that makes both of them positive players? D Lo is a stronger decision-maker and passer than Ant right now despite his stretches of boneheaded play.

If you figure this out and can involve Rudy/D Lo and their spacing on the floor together that gives you a lineup duo that you can stick together on the floor for 20 minutes a game and get open B- shots or better every possession. If it doesn't work then we can say we gave D Lo everything he could possibly have to figure it out and let him play at his full potential.

If it works, then like I said they can be productize players and you can just figure out rotations. If it doesn't work well then you can hopefully say you played above.500 basketball and have solved your hardest problem already this season--the D Lo problem. If D Lo can't be productize, then you can lean into Ant as the primary perimeter shot creator and sell yourself on his inconsistency and the growing pains he will go through a decision maker being worth it because the best version of this team is always with a maximized Ant both short and long term.

This also defines to what extent the Wolves leverage Rudy as a screen and roller or to what extent they are going to try to involve him doing different things than his bread and butter in Utah. I think this solves and solidifies your answers and path forward to the majority of your hardest problems to solve this season which then allows you to figure out how to win at least in the regular season.

______

KAT - I'm not that worried about him outside of questioning if he's a better offensive player losing some of the weight that he lost even before he got sick. He just needs to get into game shape and add weight and start hitting perimeter shots. The passing and approach to double teams has been good. The fit with Rudy is fine as well but can get streamlined.

[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.

Lots of truth there. It looks that way to me.

What's maddening is plenty of times they look good and are playing the right way. They get a nice lead then go into comfort mode, play hero ball with lax defense and give it all back and then some. Turn-overs have been a killer too by veteran players trying to do too much. Why can't they just make the simple play?

I don't know what they are going to do with Dlo except move him at the deadline.

[TheZachAttack]

Dane Moore podcast today said that they are really concerned that the Wolves look like they are going to get carved out by elite ball handlers on PnR jump shots after switching.

First of all, that's a shot every team gives up against those elite ball handlers. Second of all, 40% of NBA 3's across the league are classified as WIDE OPEN (no defenders within 6 feet). This means that every single team in the NBA for the most part thinks this about there team (why do we give up so many wide open 3 point jump shots). This means that on average teams give up 15+ wide open 3 points per game.

I don't think our perimeter defense has felt any worse than that to me. What they did miss though is I think that's the plan and it's a good plan. This team is shaping up to be the best team at defending the rim, limits FT opportunities, and actually is close to the bottom on shots even attempted at the rim. That is a good plan.

What they missed is they said the edge is on the Wolves scoring more because they are going to get cooked. The edge is not the Wolves scoring more, the edge here is basic fundamental execution. If the Wolves go from bottom 5 to top 5 in limiting turnovers, second chance points, and offensive rebounds that's the formula.

If teams aren't getting transition and second-chance points on you, you aren't beating yourself, and you are forcing teams to live on the perimeter and make jump shots... I think you live with that variance. That's a league-leading defensive formula right there at least in the regular season.

The issues here go back to execution and doing all of the details. Teams will make jump shots on us and it will not always look great, but it's a good plan. All of this strong execution then flows into your offense as well as a side bonus.

If the Wolves are good it's because they do these things and make the game easy for them. They have enough talent on the offensive side to figure it out. It is amazing that the more the game changes the more it comes full circle and stays the same.

The good news is all of those things are control. It's effort, execution, and want to related. It's caring about the details and the wy you practice and prepare. We can do those things. Being elite at defending switches with two bigs... probably not. But we don't need to be if we make things easy for ourselves.

[TimberKat]

...

The issues here go back to execution and doing all of the details.

The good news is all of those things are control. It's effort, execution, and want to related. It's caring about the details and the wy you practice and prepare. We can do those things. Being elite at defending switches with two bigs... probably not. But we don't need to be if we make things easy for ourselves.

Agree with most of the pod cast. Execution and details are not a strength of DLo and Ant. Also, we are not getting many open 3s (where we camped out and shoot). At the same time, we aren't closing fast enough to guys that were camping out on 3 point line. I am ok with playing the percentage game for moving/fate away 3s.

[Murphs56]

I'm as guilty as anyone on here at being extremely disappointed at our start but that's because of my optimism that we would match the high expectations. If we take a step back, we have to remember we started last season at 3-7 to 4-9, then we went on to win our next 7 of 8 before going on to lose 5 in a row. Point is, it's a long season and things change fast. We're way too talented to not right the ship.

[winforlose]

I'm as guilty as anyone on here at being extremely disappointed at our start but that's because of my optimism that we would match the high expectations. If we take a step back, we have to remember we started last season at 3-7 to 4-9, then we went on to win our next 7 of 8 before going on to lose 5 in a row. Point is, it's a long season and things change fast. We're way too talented to not right the ship.

I truly believed this was the year we beat the 03-04 record, got 1st place in the West, and went to the finals (maybe even won them.) Today for the first time I no longer believe we will win more than 50. I no longer believe we will be the #1 seed. BUT, I still believe that regardless of seeding we can get deep into the playoffs. I still believe that our size and talent open doors that a lot of teams just cannot close. BUT, this style of play for yourself, 4 guys stand around BS must end. TC and Finch have given this team all the tools. Now they must decide to use them. It might not be as glorious as we hoped. But just like we clawed back in the Suns loss we can claw back this season. Hopefully before things go too far off the rails.

[Battletrigger]

Some people here just live in Disneyland.

[TheZachAttack]

...

The issues here go back to execution and doing all of the details.

The good news is all of those things are control. It's effort, execution, and want to related. It's caring about the details and the wy you practice and prepare. We can do those things. Being elite at defending switches with two bigs... probably not. But we don't need to be if we make things easy for ourselves.

Agree with most of the pod cast. Execution and details are not a strength of DLo and Ant. Also, we are not getting many open 3s (where we camped out and shoot). At the same time, we aren't closing fast enough to guys that were camping out on 3 point line. I am ok with playing the percentage game for moving/fate away 3s.

Yes, I agree. It needs to be the focus. This team needs to focus on the details, not the home runs. They are .240 hitters who hit 40 home runs but strike out a bunch. That's the reason why we lose.

We're focused on the trees instead of the forest. The way this team takes the step is through the details. Teams are allowed to have limitations and weak spots. The difference between good teams is consistency of the details and execution.

Details and execution is in your control. I hope the public conversation shifts here. The way this team gets to where it needs to be is by them not beating themselves and by them making things really difficult for themselves.

This team can have athletic and personal limitations that cause elite ball handlers to beat them or hot shooters to beat them. It can't have those limitations and be a team that doesn't do the details well. If you're that AND you get out scored in transition, out-rebounded and scored in second chance points, and have a negative turnover ratio... then the struggles will continue.

If we are a team that limits opposing possessions against non-set defenses, limits second chance points or at least is positive here, and is a positive turnover ratio team (and ideally not through simply creating more chaos then the other team like last year), and we are one of the most difficult teams to score on at the rim/in the paint we will win a ton of games EVEN if teams can get hot and beat us through perimeter shooting.

I think because this team and even the media hasn't been apart of an organization and culture that do these things we focus on the wrong things.