12/1 - POSTGAME | Minnesota Timberwolves (107) - (111) Oklahoma City Thunder

[spearsy23]

George and Adams were great. Russ is a disaster on offense.

There needs to be some Grey area here. Russ was horrible shooting and took some awful shots. He also had 14 assists and Adams isn't the threat he is without Russ's interior passing.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Melo only takes 7 shots and we have one of our best offensive games.

They had a great offensive game in their last win and Melo took 17 shots.

Being able to have a good offensive game in spite of him doesn't change anything. Looking for Melo isos is one of the problems with the offense.

[ThunderBolt]

No, I said Adams isn't the threat that he is without Russ. A single game not withstanding the majority of Steven's opportunities are created by Russ.


There have only been 6 guards in the league with 14 assists in a game this year. Acting like many guys could replicate that impact is stupid especially when you add 9 rebounds (hint: only 1 guy has done that all year). Russ is 4th among point guards in RPM despite shooting like crap all year. People need to understand that even as bad Russ he's still pretty damn good.

I just quoted your verbatim and you denied it. You’re absolutely ridiculous and just looking for an argument.

You need to look again, because my exact quote was that Steven "isn't the threat he is without Russ". Not that he's a nothing without Russ, but Russ generates the majority of Steven's offense, he is absolutely not the same threat with every other point guard.

No Russ hasn’t been “pretty damn good” despite his poor shooting. Defense is a thing too and when you frequently leave your man early and get rebounds, then your if your team wins it’s in spite of you and not because of you. “You people” need to understand that and quit being fanboys.

M'kay. We can ignore the reality behind the data because you like your narrative. We have a great defense, and despite you guys acting like he is giving up 25 a night, Russ is part of that. The defense is 2.5 points better with him on the court. His DRPM is 4th in the league among point guards. Russell Westbrook continues to not be the problem, despite his glaring issues he is a large positive on the court.

You have no basis to say what Steven is or isn’t with every other point guard unless you’ve seen Adams play with every other point guard. If you want to argue that Russ is better for Adams that Semaj, Norris Cole and even Raymond Felton, then I’ll agree.

I agree that Russ is a better defender than Raymond Felton. If you’re argument is comparing the reigning mvp with an overweight and older veteran then I think that shows his game is struggling this year.

[spearsy23]

I just quoted your verbatim and you denied it. You’re absolutely ridiculous and just looking for an argument.

You need to look again, because my exact quote was that Steven "isn't the threat he is without Russ". Not that he's a nothing without Russ, but Russ generates the majority of Steven's offense, he is absolutely not the same threat with every other point guard.

No Russ hasn’t been “pretty damn good” despite his poor shooting. Defense is a thing too and when you frequently leave your man early and get rebounds, then your if your team wins it’s in spite of you and not because of you. “You people” need to understand that and quit being fanboys.

M'kay. We can ignore the reality behind the data because you like your narrative. We have a great defense, and despite you guys acting like he is giving up 25 a night, Russ is part of that. The defense is 2.5 points better with him on the court. His DRPM is 4th in the league among point guards. Russell Westbrook continues to not be the problem, despite his glaring issues he is a large positive on the court.

You have no basis to say what Steven is or isn’t with every other point guard unless you’ve seen Adams play with every other point guard. If you want to argue that Russ is better for Adams that Semaj, Norris Cole and even Raymond Felton, then I’ll agree.

I agree that Russ is a better defender than Raymond Felton. If you’re argument is comparing the reigning mvp with an overweight and older veteran than I think that shows his game is struggling this year.

Having watched Steven Adams play for several years I think I can fairly safely assess his offensive skills which are limited to rim runs both in transition and off pick and roll and put backs. Of course there was probably no way anyone could guess deandre Jordan would see a dip in his scoring and efficiency without Chris Paul either

I'm comparing the reigning MVP with the rest of the league. He is failing by the standards he set, but he is still an upper tier player even in his current state. You lack any nuance, either a guy is trash or exceptional.

[ThunderBolt]

You need to look again, because my exact quote was that Steven "isn't the threat he is without Russ". Not that he's a nothing without Russ, but Russ generates the majority of Steven's offense, he is absolutely not the same threat with every other point guard.


M'kay. We can ignore the reality behind the data because you like your narrative. We have a great defense, and despite you guys acting like he is giving up 25 a night, Russ is part of that. The defense is 2.5 points better with him on the court. His DRPM is 4th in the league among point guards. Russell Westbrook continues to not be the problem, despite his glaring issues he is a large positive on the court.

You have no basis to say what Steven is or isn’t with every other point guard unless you’ve seen Adams play with every other point guard. If you want to argue that Russ is better for Adams that Semaj, Norris Cole and even Raymond Felton, then I’ll agree.

I agree that Russ is a better defender than Raymond Felton. If you’re argument is comparing the reigning mvp with an overweight and older veteran than I think that shows his game is struggling this year.

Having watched Steven Adams play for several years I think I can fairly safely assess his offensive skills which are limited to rim runs both in transition and off pick and roll and put backs. Of course there was probably no way anyone could guess deandre Jordan would see a dip in his scoring and efficiency without Chris Paul either

I'm comparing the reigning MVP with the rest of the league. He is failing by the standards he set, but he is still an upper tier player even in his current state. You lack any nuance, either a guy is trash or exceptional.

I never said that and it’s absolutely false. Again, as has happened with you and I in the past, you can’t handle criticism of Russ and get overly defensive. Funny how a guy who argued with someone quoting him verbatim now wants to put words in others mouth.

Steven Adams will always have limitations on the offensive end but it’s obvious he’s made improvement over the years and he deserves some of that credit too. Of course Russ helps his game. I never said he didn’t. Yes I’m comparing Russ not only with his high standards that he set but also with the high standards of other elite point guards. That makes a lot of more sense than comparing him with the mediocre backups of last year or Raymond Felton to show his impact on the team. Adams will always need help but it’s not unreasonable to think russ isnt the only player in the league that is capable of getting him the ball to score. I feel confident saying this because we saw George do this successfully tonight.

I can appreciate russ’ loyalty, enjoy watching his athleticism when he’s hot and still be critical of his game. It’s got flaws, big ones. Some games he entirely carries the team to victory. Other games it seems like he undoes all of the good from previous game. There is a reason russ is one of the most criticized guys in the league and it’s not anyone’s personal vendetta. Ball dominant, high usage point guards that shoot a low percentage with high turnovers tend to be controversial.

Obviously Russ is better than all of our bench but Alex Abrines and Patrick Patterson don’t have the usage russ does. It would be great if both of those guys would step up for the team. Regardless of the impact they have, it won’t be on Russ’ level because they are role players. I never said Russ is responsible for all of this team’s problems but he’s not free from blame. Games where he shoots 6-21, 0-8 3p, 14 assists, 7 turnovers and 9 rebounds are going to make it tough to beat good teams unless George and Adams play like they did tonight.

[Kiwi_thunder]

It is interesting reading people's takes on Adams limitations offensively. Listening to his post game interview tonight he talked about valuing possessions, so normally he wouldn't of tried taking his steal to the hole. He would normally have waited for a better quality shot. So honestly I think a lot of his limitations are self imposed. Maybe he is sick of watching the big 3 waste possession after possesssion while he plays the good team soldier? Anyway I really liked what I say from PG and Adams and hopefully it continues. Both of them and felts had a couple of good 3 man possessions. This is encouraging if Russ continues with his low IQ play.

[Mick75]

Great game by PG and Steven! Another awful performance from Russ. He is better than that and I still got hope for him to turn it around. He is still forcing up ugly 3s. Somebody should tell him when it’s time to stop taking the 3. Try three attempts a game, if they fall great. If not stop that nonsense and feed the ball to PG or Melo for the open three.


Not convinced at all! Individual great performances bailed us out. Looking for some more of them Ls.

[Dadouv47]

Steven Adams was great but he had a lot of easy buckets because our offense finally switched with Russ & PG13 both handling the ball. PG13 made some crazy good passes. Our 2 best players took care of the BB while Melo barely touches it, which is great. We still started playing too slow in the 4th though

[Pillendreher]

We got the win but this just is no fun. We hit our apex in somewhere in the 2nd quarter and then it's just downhill from trying to drag ourselves over the finish line.

Russ was beyond horrific after the 2nd quarter. 4/16 from the field, 0/7 from 3, 7 TOV, 7 AST. I don't know what the hell is wrong with him, but his just cannot go on. We were up 52-35 when he checked in in the 2nd and the downfall started right then and there. 96 ORtG, 116 DRtG the rest of the way.



Since the Boston game, we have only cracked a 100 ORtG 3x in the 3rd quarter: vs the Clippers, vs the Mavs the next game and vs the Spurs. That's insane.

I'm just so sick of this. Can we please get a good performance for 48 minutes just once? We have the 2nd best NetRtG in the first quarter, the 8th best in the 2nd quarter, the 24th best in the 3rd quarter and the 26th in the 4th quarter.
How is that possible? Are they out of shape? Are they tired mentally?

[Pillendreher]

The only reason why this is a W is because the coach finally put 2 of the big 4 on the floor for most of the game.

One of the 4 plus bench might as well be ground plus shovel

I hate this. Donovan did the same thing against the Warriors because we needed that win desperately. Now he did the same last night.

Why is he only really pushing for wins when he feels like his ass is on the line and/or the team can't afford another loss? How should we expect the team to give 100 % effort and play well all 48 minutes when the coach clearly doesn't give a **** about winning every game?

[Old Man Game]

We got the win but this just is no fun. We hit our apex in somewhere in the 2nd quarter and then it's just downhill from trying to drag ourselves over the finish line.

Russ was beyond horrific after the 2nd quarter. 4/16 from the field, 0/7 from 3, 7 TOV, 7 AST. I don't know what the hell is wrong with him, but his just cannot go on. We were up 52-35 when he checked in in the 2nd and the downfall started right then and there. 96 ORtG, 116 DRtG the rest of the way.



Since the Boston game, we have only cracked a 100 ORtG 3x in the 3rd quarter: vs the Clippers, vs the Mavs the next game and vs the Spurs. That's insane.

I'm just so sick of this. Can we please get a good performance for 48 minutes just once? We have the 2nd best NetRtG in the first quarter, the 8th best in the 2nd quarter, the 24th best in the 3rd quarter and the 26th in the 4th quarter.
How is that possible? Are they out of shape? Are they tired mentally?

That's pretty unreal.

Is it pretty much a given that we're going to regret giving him that 5 year max at some point during that contract? Starting to feel that way and possibly sooner than later.

[Pillendreher]

We got the win but this just is no fun. We hit our apex in somewhere in the 2nd quarter and then it's just downhill from trying to drag ourselves over the finish line.

Russ was beyond horrific after the 2nd quarter. 4/16 from the field, 0/7 from 3, 7 TOV, 7 AST. I don't know what the hell is wrong with him, but his just cannot go on. We were up 52-35 when he checked in in the 2nd and the downfall started right then and there. 96 ORtG, 116 DRtG the rest of the way.



Since the Boston game, we have only cracked a 100 ORtG 3x in the 3rd quarter: vs the Clippers, vs the Mavs the next game and vs the Spurs. That's insane.

I'm just so sick of this. Can we please get a good performance for 48 minutes just once? We have the 2nd best NetRtG in the first quarter, the 8th best in the 2nd quarter, the 24th best in the 3rd quarter and the 26th in the 4th quarter.
How is that possible? Are they out of shape? Are they tired mentally?

That's pretty unreal.

Is it pretty much a given that we're going to regret giving him that 5 year max at some point during that contract? Starting to feel that way and possibly sooner than later.

Depends. Is this some sort of physical problem or is it just mentally? You don't forget how to play just over the course of one summer.

EDIT:

This is his shotchart for those 16 FGA:



That's

-Four attempts in the restricted area (made three)
-Two attempts in the paint (non-restricted) (made zero)
-Three attempts from midrange (made one)
-Seven attempts from 3 pt range (made zero)

Yesterday, he attempted twelve pull-up jumpers - six 3s, six 2s. He made two 2s and zero 3s.

Another interesting stat: On 20 drives of Westbrook, we scored 6 pts. This is the PTS% (PTS scored relative to the amount of drives) of Russ:

14/15: 10.2 drives, 7.4 PTS, 73.0 PTS%
15/16: 10.1 drives, 7.1 PTS, 70.7 PTS%
16/17: 11.3 drives, 7.7 PTS, 67.8 PTS%
17/18: 17.0 drives, 6.6 PTS, 38.8 PTS%

FG% 14-17: 47.4 %
FG% 17/18: 44.1 %
FTA/Drive 14-17: 28.5 %
FTA/Drive 17/18: 8.9 %
AST/Drive 14-17: 10.4 %
AST/Drive 17/18: 14.0 %

Russ not getting FTs on those drives is killing us offensively. He's 4th in total Drives to the basket, 15th in total PTS on drives and 20th in FTA on drives.
Granted, he's (only) 9th in FGA on drives, but that's still very problematic for us since he is our only real 'driving force' to the basket. Last season we scored on 67 % of our drives, this season it's down to 44.9. And before somebody claims 'Well, duh, that's the new rules; everybody's PTS% is down', we ranked 15th as a team; this season we're 26th in PTS% on drives. We increased our volume in drives from 23 a game to 36 a game, yet our scoring on drives only very slighlty increased from 15.5 to 16.2.

[Dadouv47]

Russ being out of shape is unfortunately a bit normal. Last year he didn't play more minutes than he used to but the intensity was crazy high for him. This and his knees issues at the beginning of the season and you have the reasons why he's not 100%.

He's still in a better shape than during the first 10 games of the season IMO. Overall his game is better but he's still taking some stupid shots and I feel like he doesn't know what to do in clutch time (hesitating between passing and attacking and slowing the pace too much).

[Atomic Punk]

Some of these responses here are sadly typical. Most of you guys can’t even enjoy a win without nit picking the s**t out of everything. They played very well in stretches and showed good energy throughout. To expect them to come out and dominate for 48 minutes is pretty unreasonable. And I love how panicked some people get when other teams go on runs. Guess what, they are trying to win too. I thought it was an exciting game and I was happy to see the Thunder close one out under pressure.

I am starting to think that this team could rattle off 5 or 6 wins in a row and people would still find a way to piss all over everything. Out come the graphs and stats that show how awful the team is and even though they won, they really shouldn’t have and a loss would be better to prove how much they suck. If the team looses, its because Donovan is mentally (Please Use More Appropriate Word) and Russ is trash and look how good Olidipo is now that he is playing somewhere else. If they win, it’s just blind, dumb luck or the other team rolled over.

Break it down any way you like, a win against a good team like the T-Wolves is a positive, there are things in this game they can build off of and things they still need to work on. Will they? I guess we’ll find out.

[bondom34]

Are people really questioning the contract? Really?

[Dadouv47]

Are people really questioning the contract? Really?

The same that were drinking champaign when he extended...

[dakomish23]

There needs to be some Grey area here. Russ was horrible shooting and took some awful shots. He also had 14 assists and Adams isn't the threat he is without Russ's interior passing.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Melo only takes 7 shots and we have one of our best offensive games.

They had a great offensive game in their last win and Melo took 17 shots.

Being able to have a good offensive game in spite of him doesn't change anything. Looking for Melo isos is one of the problems with the offense.

In spite of him? He was a big part of why they won that game.

And who said anything about Melo ISOs? You said FGA.

The #’s Out of his 16.3 FGA, 4.2 are of the ISO variety. He makes 1.7 of them. So those 2.5 FGA are on of the problems why this team looks like a disaster on offense?

He’s shooting 40% on 5.2 catch and shoot 3PA. That’s what I want to see go up.

[Atomic Punk]

Are people really questioning the contract? Really?

The same that were drinking champaign when he extended...

Yeah, just.....wow.

[slick_watts]

this wasn't an inspiring victory. what a terrible game from westbrook. and the lack of contribution from patrick patterson and alex abrines is alarming. our bench might very well end up worse than last year if those two don't show up-- especially patterson.

another close one that shouldn't have been. lucky to pull it out in the end; sooner or later we were going to win some of these.

[Atomic Punk]

this wasn't an inspiring victory. what a terrible game from westbrook. and the lack of contribution from patrick patterson and alex abrines is alarming. our bench might very well end up worse than last year if those two don't show up-- especially patterson.

another close one that shouldn't have been. lucky to pull it out in the end; sooner or later we were going to win some of these.

As usual, I have a different take. I thought it was encouraging that they held it together down the stretch and they did do some good things on both ends of the floor. The ball movement at times looked very good.

Now Patterson and Abrines, they are a big concern. Obviously the team was counting on those guys to be contributors off the bench, in fact, I thought they would be the most consistent and provide a big boost. Either they are hurt or Donavan just has no confidence in them. Not sure what is going on there.

[ThunderBolt]

this wasn't an inspiring victory. what a terrible game from westbrook. and the lack of contribution from patrick patterson and alex abrines is alarming. our bench might very well end up worse than last year if those two don't show up-- especially patterson.

another close one that shouldn't have been. lucky to pull it out in the end; sooner or later we were going to win some of these.

As usual, I have a different take. I thought it was encouraging that they held it together down the stretch and they did do some good things on both ends of the floor. The ball movement at times looked very good.

Now Patterson and Abrines, they are a big concern. Obviously the team was counting on those guys to be contributors off the bench, in fact, I thought they would be the most consistent and provide a big boost. Either they are hurt or Donavan just has no confidence in them. Not sure what is going on there.

If this were game one I would have a different take. They started out playing great but got worse as the game went on and almost lost the lead. It’s the same story as many other games except they won this game. Obviously they aren’t going to shoot sixty percent the entire game but as it wore on they started reverting more and more back to the things they need to avoid.

This game was much better than the Dallas and Orlando games but it’s extremely concerning that they can’t play the right way for four quarters. I don’t mean play lights out for four quarters, I mean continue to try to do the things that got them the lead. If players are moving without the ball and we get good looks but just miss the shot, then so be it. I put a lot of that on Russ but it includes everyone.