Game 76: Minnesota @ Sacramento

[younggunsmn]

We have put some serious heat on the teams 5-10. They all have to hate our guts right now, they can't afford to drop any games. This give us some tiny bit of breathing room. We can actually afford to drop a couple of games. We got to be close to clinching a play in berth. Maybe another 2 wins.

Portland has thrown in the towel and we have the Spurs. If we can win those 2 games plus 2 of the other remaining 4, I think it puts us in the 7-8 seed at minimum. Other 4 are at home vs Lakers and Pels, those games will be huge, and on the road against the Suns and Nets. 5-1 is not out of the question, at minimum hopefully 3-3 which should get us into the play-in with our rivals playing a lot of games against each other.

Not ashamed to admit I did not see this turnaround coming when Ant got hurt, very happy to be wrong!

[Nick K]

Get this....Mn had just 1 turn over in the 1st half and only 6 for the game. That is team maturity and veteran leadership. It's a far cry from earlier this year.

Hopefully we're peaking at the right time.

AAAARRROOOOO!

[shrink]

Saw this on the Kings thread

Upper level seats for this game are going for $185 at the cheapest the last time I checked which is just crazy lol. Lots of people clearly want to be in the building if we clinch.

Is this what the kids mean by “sorry, not sorry?”

[younggunsmn]

We've never seen the maturity of our team like we're seeing right now.

The leadership of Mike Conley and Kyle Anderson is really something.

Dlo for Conley ad 3 2nds is the steal of the century for our team.

Amazing we got the 3 2nds! Moving D-Lo has been addition by subtraction, but Conley's defense and vet leadership has been absolutely huge, we've gone from the team constantly making dumb turnovers pre-trade to the team causing turnover problems for the other team.

Since joining the team Conley is averaging more steals (1.3) than turnovers (1.2) with a 4/1 A/T.
That's amazing.

I really want us to beat the Lakers, that game will have huge ramifications for where we finish in the standings, I don't want to go into game 82 vs the Pels having to win to get into the top 8.

[younggunsmn]

We can hide KAT on Okogie or Torrey Craig on Wednesday.
jaden is going to have to stay out of foul trouble to guard Durant, and Ant/Conley will have to guard Booker/CP3.
Matchups are so much easier when you don't have to hide D-Lo on defense, very underrated part of that trade.

[theGreatRC]

We can hide KAT on Okogie or Torrey Craig on Wednesday.
jaden is going to have to stay out of foul trouble to guard Durant, and Ant/Conley will have to guard Booker/CP3.
Matchups are so much easier when you don't have to hide D-Lo on defense, very underrated part of that trade.

Good idea to have KAT on Josh or Craig. They've been using Josh as a corner spot up guy. Craig is similar, but they both like to crash the boards.

Jaden on KD, Ant on Book, Conley on CP3. Gobert on Ayton

It's must see TV matchup for matchup on wednesday

[Domejandro]

Minnesota really needs Taurean Prince healthy for the Phoenix matchup.

[Note30]

We can hide KAT on Okogie or Torrey Craig on Wednesday.
jaden is going to have to stay out of foul trouble to guard Durant, and Ant/Conley will have to guard Booker/CP3.
Matchups are so much easier when you don't have to hide D-Lo on defense, very underrated part of that trade.

Good idea to have KAT on Josh or Craig. They've been using Josh as a corner spot up guy. Craig is similar, but they both like to crash the boards.

Jaden on KD, Ant on Book, Conley on CP3. Gobert on Ayton

It's must see TV matchup for matchup on wednesday

Jaden is definitely the X Factor against the Suns

[Note30]

Minnesota really needs Taurean Prince healthy for the Phoenix matchup.

Yeah not sure who else can guard KD if Jaden gets into foul trouble early.

NAW? SloMo, but we rely on him so much for offense.

[TimberKat]

The only professional sport with worst officiating than the NBA is professional wrestling.

Those wrestling refs know their place in the show and knows exactly what they are doing

[TimberKat]

SlowMo to Ant1 = Checkmate!

Who is DLo?

[TwolvesFanRome]

ARRROOOOOO!!!

Recorded with SkyItalia...I am late at work but...I feel great!!!!!!!!!!!!

[GopherIt!]

I was happy with the “DLo for Conley plus” trade when it happened, but I have to admit, I did not think Conley would be THIS good, or have this great an effect on the whole team. I love the reduction in turnovers too!

Mike was killing it this season in Utah. Ainge cleared out Rudy, Joe & DM for the tank and assembled a bunch of random pieces yet Mike figured out a way to make things work. Comes here and does something similar.

The Lakers were blinded by DNo’s 50/40/90 stat line. Its like going to a used car dealer & buying a car w a fresh paint job. It looks great for a month and then the paint starts to crack & bubble and u realize you’ve been had.

[urinesane]

I was happy with the “DLo for Conley plus” trade when it happened, but I have to admit, I did not think Conley would be THIS good, or have this great an effect on the whole team. I love the reduction in turnovers too!

Mike was killing it this season in Utah. Ainge cleared out Rudy, Joe & DM for the tank and assembled a bunch of random pieces yet Mike figured out a way to make things work. Comes here and does something similar.

The Lakers were blinded by DNo’s 50/40/90 stat line. Its like going to a used car dealer & buying a car w a fresh paint job. It looks great for a month and then the paint starts to crack & bubble and u realize you’ve been had.

Lakers fans are going to be so disappointed when they pay DLo 25 million a year to have a play-in team.

The Wolves were massive winners in that deal and passed on the "he's good enough to have on the team, but not for what he thinks he should be paid and if you don't pay him you get nothing for him" problem the Wolves were facing had they not traded DLO.

Brilliant move by the front office, and now with the team starting to click that Gobert trade isn't looking as bad as the Chicken Little types made it out to be.

[Note30]

I was happy with the “DLo for Conley plus” trade when it happened, but I have to admit, I did not think Conley would be THIS good, or have this great an effect on the whole team. I love the reduction in turnovers too!

Mike was killing it this season in Utah. Ainge cleared out Rudy, Joe & DM for the tank and assembled a bunch of random pieces yet Mike figured out a way to make things work. Comes here and does something similar.

The Lakers were blinded by DNo’s 50/40/90 stat line. Its like going to a used car dealer & buying a car w a fresh paint job. It looks great for a month and then the paint starts to crack & bubble and u realize you’ve been had.

Lakers fans are going to be so disappointed when they pay DLo 25 million a year to have a play-in team.

The Wolves were massive winners in that deal and passed on the "he's good enough to have on the team, but not for what he thinks he should be paid and if you don't pay him you get nothing for him" problem the Wolves were facing had they not traded DLO.

Brilliant move by the front office, and now with the team starting to click that Gobert trade isn't looking as bad as the Chicken Little types made it out to be.

Cool your jets.

If Conley can keep playing like this I'll be honest I was wrong about the Conley trade.

We don't know about Gobert yet.

[urinesane]

Mike was killing it this season in Utah. Ainge cleared out Rudy, Joe & DM for the tank and assembled a bunch of random pieces yet Mike figured out a way to make things work. Comes here and does something similar.

The Lakers were blinded by DNo’s 50/40/90 stat line. Its like going to a used car dealer & buying a car w a fresh paint job. It looks great for a month and then the paint starts to crack & bubble and u realize you’ve been had.

Lakers fans are going to be so disappointed when they pay DLo 25 million a year to have a play-in team.

The Wolves were massive winners in that deal and passed on the "he's good enough to have on the team, but not for what he thinks he should be paid and if you don't pay him you get nothing for him" problem the Wolves were facing had they not traded DLO.

Brilliant move by the front office, and now with the team starting to click that Gobert trade isn't looking as bad as the Chicken Little types made it out to be.

Cool your jets.

If Conley can keep playing like this I'll be honest I was wrong about the Conley trade.

We don't know about Gobert yet.

That's weird, there were plenty of people immediately willing to call it the worst trade in sports history and demand to trade him (or KAT which is some of the dumbest kneejerk sh*t I've seen) multiple times throughout the season... but when it starts clicking and I simply mention that it's NOT LOOKING AS BAD as it did we should tap the breaks?

ok.

[Battletrigger]

Can you avoid the capitals, bold or underline letters?

Two post in a row with that ****.

[Note30]

Lakers fans are going to be so disappointed when they pay DLo 25 million a year to have a play-in team.

The Wolves were massive winners in that deal and passed on the "he's good enough to have on the team, but not for what he thinks he should be paid and if you don't pay him you get nothing for him" problem the Wolves were facing had they not traded DLO.

Brilliant move by the front office, and now with the team starting to click that Gobert trade isn't looking as bad as the Chicken Little types made it out to be.

Cool your jets.

If Conley can keep playing like this I'll be honest I was wrong about the Conley trade.

We don't know about Gobert yet.

That's weird, there were plenty of people immediately willing to call it the worst trade in sports history and demand to trade him (or KAT which is some of the dumbest kneejerk sh*t I've seen) multiple times throughout the season... but when it starts clicking and I simply mention that it's NOT LOOKING AS BAD as it did we should tap the breaks?

ok.

Cause it's worked for like 2 games. And we still don't know how it'll look in the playoffs

[Guest84]

Rare to hear Jim Peterson this frustrated with the refs.

I don’t blame him. It feels like these refs are really inconsistent. Something that’s a foul at one time, isn’t a foul later. Refs that are out of position are over-ruling the ref in position. Weird.

If we speak from an objective standpoint, I previously read that there’s been an influx of newer refs. With a lot of the veteran refs leaving, this could be the main cause of inconsistency.

Less seasoned refs means they’re still learning and unfortunately it means more poorly officiated games. Although it tends to seem like the wolves get the short end of it most nights.

[urinesane]

Cool your jets.

If Conley can keep playing like this I'll be honest I was wrong about the Conley trade.

We don't know about Gobert yet.

That's weird, there were plenty of people immediately willing to call it the worst trade in sports history and demand to trade him (or KAT which is some of the dumbest kneejerk sh*t I've seen) multiple times throughout the season... but when it starts clicking and I simply mention that it's NOT LOOKING AS BAD as it did we should tap the breaks?

ok.

Cause it's worked for like 2 games. And we still don't know how it'll look in the playoffs

It's worked for 2 games because KAT has only played in 2 games since early in the season. Yes, it's a small sample size, but it has at least given proof of concept in a pretty big way. Beating GSW on their home floor while not playing well on offense is quite an achievement for someone just getting back into things and at least is incredibly encouraging for what could be (rather than having to hypothesize on paper).

In the playoffs I think it'll work even better, because that's when you tend to get more grind it out defensive battles which this team is better built for than they've ever been (their biggest weaknesses last year being transition defense and rebounding). I mean sh*t just McDaniels getting the benefit of playoff officiating vs regular season will be big, but showing the ability that they are balanced and deep enough to find ways to win even when their top guys are having off nights is MASSIVE! With enough defensive cohesion to keep them in games is pretty damn impressive, especially compared to the awkward ass getting to know you phase from earlier in the year.

The identity of this team is one that is built around "optionality" where they don't have a single point of failure that can do them in. Another team takes something away? No problem, there's so many ways they can play this roster that they have a better chance than ever to make a splash come playoff time (health willing, praise baby jebus).

I can't think of many teams that are built in a way that provides so many ways to win and it's why if not this year, if healthy next year they should be competing for the top spot in the West and a WCF run.