Post Games Thoughts. Cavs. Number 2.

[coolcono]

Good- Edwards. I felt like I wanted to see Edwards in the game at the end while it was still close. Before it seemed like he was just getting garbage time. He attacked fairly well again and adequate on defense.
McDaniels- Great two way player. Probably the best one on the Wolves.
Rubio/Nowell pairing- It seems like they work well together.

Meh- Vanderbilt- He played alright defense, but Okogied big time on offense.
Reid- Too soft, even though he got this points.

F- D'Lo. He got two three pointers at the end of the game after a terrible night shooting.
Okogie- Vanderbilt should get time ahead of Okogie.
Some real blunders for simple rebounds.

Other- It would interesting to look at coaching analytics. Point differentials after 1st quarter, in second half, and on time various increments in the fourth quarter.

[K4P]

Can't really be too mad at any individual player for this loss. The overall effort was pretty consistent despite yet again having no interior presence, and a lot of lackluster shooting. It's tough to have to rely on Russell and Beasley to carry the offense every night when there are 1-3 total non shooters on the court at any given time.

I also really dislike the late game strategy of just defaulting to Russell contested threes. There's so much variance in his offensive consistency game to game, and I'm never confident his shot is gonna fall until it does.

[WolfAddict]

We lost because of a combination of our "shooters" having bad nights, and the coach not recognising this and changing it up - Saunders needs to pull his bloody socks up and start seeing what we all see

Question: Why are none of the other staff pointing this out? Surely there's someone in the org that can see what is blatantly obvious and has the balls to say something... surely.

[UnFadeable21]

Big time missed opportunity tonight for our Minnesota Timberwolves. Cavs had Drummond and Larry Nance missing tonight and we couldn’t capitalize.

Worst game of the year for Malik Beasley and DLo Russell. They combined for 3-14 from 3 tonight. Nothing was falling in for them from outside. Sexland out played our two big salary starters tonight which just can’t happen.

Josh Okogie should be demoted to the bench or a DNP going forward. He’s a complete non threat on offense and still can’t dribble 3 years into his career. This 6’4 power forward thing has to come to an end. Jaden McDaniels should start at the 4 moving forward. He provides rim protection and can hit the outside shot. He’s the future and best power forward on this roster.

This is a game where we missed Towns, someone who could score on the inside and take pressure away from the guards. Jarrett Allen just dominated on both sides of the floor tonight. Ed Davis is trying hard and Naz Reid is better as a back up. It’s good to see Big KAT on the bench which signals his imminent return.

Spurs, OKC x 2, and Mavs left on this 5 game road trip. Wolves need to go 3-2 and make up ground for such a poor start to the season.

[Rookie-Mistake]

Bad.

1. Coaching. Jim Pete pointed out that we shouldn't be hard closing out on inefficient shooters like Okoro from 3. Our players continually did it. If it wasn't identified by the coaches as a need then it's on them because I agree with Pete that it opens us inside when we chase them off the three point line. OR it has been told to the players and they are just not listening, I lean towards them being told to chae anyone off the three point line.

2. Coaching. Your bench players claw back a slim lead that the starters created. Don't bring them back as heroes with 7mins to play. Within 2 minutes of this Cleveland went 11-2. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

3. DLO. Max Contract. You are held to a higher accountability.. if one of the young guys on the team chucked up random threes and didn't get back on D. They would be subbed straight away. DLO has a long leash that needs to be shortened. Again. This is on coaching.

Good.

Nowell, McDaniels, Naz. The young guys on the smallest contracts.

Cleveland announcer, was having a ball watching all the block shots. Good on him. He has a weird accent but I like it!

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[Calinks]

Positive. Edwards looked good again, that's 3, 4 game in a row. He was dreadful before so I'm very happy about that. Him being a good player will save the season.

[jbk1234]

Good game guys. Both games I was screaming not to let the Wolves hang around without Towns because they were playing with a ton of energy and you could tell they were hungry for Ws.

I just have to ask, what's going on with D'Lo's sideburns? When you add in the headband, it almost looks like a puppy costume.

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[PharmD]

Good game guys. Both games I was screaming not to let the Wolves hang around without Towns because they were playing with a ton of energy and you could tell they were hungry for Ws.

I just have to ask, what's going on with D'Lo's sideburns? When you add in the headband, it almost looks like a puppy costume.

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[Rookie-Mistake]

The sideburns are affecting his play

Good game guys. Both games I was screaming not to let the Wolves hang around without Towns because they were playing with a ton of energy and you could tell they were hungry for Ws.

I just have to ask, what's going on with D'Lo's sideburns? When you add in the headband, it almost looks like a puppy costume.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J327A using RealGM mobile app

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6003 using RealGM mobile app

[Crazy-Canuck]

Good game guys. Both games I was screaming not to let the Wolves hang around without Towns because they were playing with a ton of energy and you could tell they were hungry for Ws.

I just have to ask, what's going on with D'Lo's sideburns? When you add in the headband, it almost looks like a puppy costume.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J327A using RealGM mobile app

Why you disrespecting leia?

[m2002brian]

Bad.

1. Coaching. Jim Pete pointed out that we shouldn't be hard closing out on inefficient shooters like Okoro from 3. Our players continually did it. If it wasn't identified by the coaches as a need then it's on them because I agree with Pete that it opens us inside when we chase them off the three point line. OR it has been told to the players and they are just not listening, I lean towards them being told to chae anyone off the three point line.

2. Coaching. Your bench players claw back a slim lead that the starters created. Don't bring them back as heroes with 7mins to play. Within 2 minutes of this Cleveland went 11-2. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

3. DLO. Max Contract. You are held to a higher accountability.. if one of the young guys on the team chucked up random threes and didn't get back on D. They would be subbed straight away. DLO has a long leash that needs to be shortened. Again. This is on coaching.

Good.

Nowell, McDaniels, Naz. The young guys on the smallest contracts.

Cleveland announcer, was having a ball watching all the block shots. Good on him. He has a weird accent but I like it!

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6003 using RealGM mobile app

Maybe Jim can be our coach and Cheryl can be his assistant.

Seemed to work the other way pretty well.

[Jedzz]

We lost because of a combination of our "shooters" having bad nights, and the coach not recognising this and changing it up - Saunders needs to pull his bloody socks up and start seeing what we all see

Question: Why are none of the other staff pointing this out? Surely there's someone in the org that can see what is blatantly obvious and has the balls to say something... surely.

I kept checking through out game. Numbers corroborated what the eyes were seeing. The starters were struggling and kept falling behind in score, the bench was doing much better and kept bringing the team back to a tie even slight leads, before the starters come back and fall behind again. Of course, the bench is somewhat playing against their bench fully or partially. That has some to do with it.

I agree though that if the coach absolutely never strays from his preordained hockey lineups to start certain quarters or finish the game, then we are asking to lose. When you've got significantly warmer shooting players to use, use them. All they need is an open shot and it doesn't matter who they are playing against, the warmer shooters will produce more. Maybe Saunders just doesn't feel that just any players can play well together or something. But the Okogie thing is starting to alarm many.

[Calinks]

Jarret Allen with 23/18 with 5 blocks on 7/9 shooting

That's all you need to know. We cannot handle bigs, huge disadvantage every night with zero advantage.

[Jedzz]

Forget about 3s, no one was carrying the team with those this night. But overall FG...

Okogie--------------17% FG---1-4 ---3 points
Rubio---------------25% FG---1-4 ---2 points
Vader--------------25% FG---1-4 ---2 points
Beasley-----------35% FG---5-14---10points
Russell-----------37% FG---7-19---18 points
Nowell----------38% FG---5-13---12 points
------------------40% FG-------------------------------------
Edwards--------42% FG---5-12---13 points
Reid------------45% FG---5-11---12 points
Layman--------50% FG---2-4 ---5 points
McDaniels--- 50% FG---5-10---11 points
Davis----------60% FG---3-5 ---8 points

Usually having 6 players reach double digits is a very good sign. Maybe that's how the score was close?

I'm not sure what the psychological dysfunction is on this team about shooting. But I know I'm tired of how they shoot.

Maybe they should hold a contest each game. The best shooting percentage in the last game is the 5 players starting the next game no matter who it is.

Edwards
Layman
McDaniels
Reid
Davis

Looks like a starting plan to me next game.

[PharmD]

Jarret Allen with 23/18 with 5 blocks on 7/9 shooting

That's all you need to know. We cannot handle bigs, huge disadvantage every night with zero advantage.

Playing a team on a back to back and getting dominated again by a new set of bigs lol

[Heimdal]

Wolves 11 FTs
Collin Sexton 11 FTs
Cavs 31 FTs

Every game is like this. I know playing small is a reason, but we get zero respect.


I still feel like our players have no idea what to do on offense. Not enough movement, too dependant on shooting contested 3s and attacking the rim being whacked in the process while not getting any foul calls.

[shangrila]

I don't see any reason to keep Saunders around.

I get the team will look better with Towns back but I'm sure even a turd would look better if you put a bow on it. There's no accountability on either side of the court, no offensive system, rotations suck at best and are actively detrimental at worst, timeout management is nonexistant. I don't expect us to win but it's how we're losing that's the issue and a lot of it falls on Ryan's shoulders.

[packforfreedom]

I am positivly surprised by Nowell. He's active, seems to have good touch around the rim and a solid first step. But the best thing about him, is that he makes quick decisions, which is an invaluable skill. I am glad he's getting minutes.

[Charly]

Every shot in the last 7 minutes of last quarter was a 3s after chuking.
No 2s shots in the quarter by the starters.
WAF are coaching doing?
Small ball stinks and every time it appears, the game is blown up!
This team needs any game plan but catch the ball, chuck and shoot.

[Norseman79]

Edwards stopped touching the ball in the 4th. It was like Rubio mentioned before when he said guys were playing hero ball - by guys, he means Russell and Beasley. Saunders doesn't have the balls or knowledge to clamp them down. Why did we look so much better when DLo wasn't playing? Because the ball was actually moving.