Wolves back! ***Pre-Season Game 1 Thread Wolves vs Mavs Thursday 11CST***

[thinktank]

Looks like Naz and Milton are great off the bench scorers. The bigger question is what can Brown do for you?

I liked Brown's (hockey) passes and rebounding today. His D, not so much.

[Calinks]

Could clearly tell Towns and NAw looked like they were in good form. FIBA really knocked off a lot of rust.

[minimus]

I liked Brown's (hockey) passes and rebounding today. His D, not so much.

We need to stop gambling in defense.

[TimberKat]

Looks like Naz and Milton are great off the bench scorers. The bigger question is what can Brown do for you?

I liked Brown's (hockey) passes and rebounding today. His D, not so much.

Yes, can't tell from box scores. Hopefully I will have a chance to catch the game tonight. I like how that question came out anyway

[wolves_89]

I thought the starting 5 plus Naz and Brown looked pretty good. Shake was ok, but it was clear he's still trying to figure things out. Anderson was the only regular who was not good. One of my biggest concerns for the rotation is how well Kyle will play as a SF and today wasn't a great start.

I'm also not thrilled about the team losing focus in the 3rd and falling into a repeating pattern of missed 3s and turnovers. That pattern happened way to frequently last year and the team is going to need to figure out how to break out of those types of death spirals before they turn into 10+ point swings on the scoreboard.

[thinktank]

I liked Brown's (hockey) passes and rebounding today. His D, not so much.

We need to stop gambling in defense.

That will be interesting because I view playing Up more instead of Drop as kind of a gamble.

[jpatrick]

I think Towns has a chance to have a huge season. He was never quite right last year. My only real concern, if you can call it a concern after an exhibition game, is backup PG. I thought we lost movement/organization when Conley went out. And that’s backed up by the stats with Anderson/Shake (who each fill in some of the second unit ball handling duties) being two of the only guys prior to end of rotation guys that had negative plus/minus.

[twolves31]

Solid rebounding game for the Wolves, granted Dallas isn't the biggest team. It's good to see Jaden with 5, Walker with 5, Brown with 7, Milton with 4, and Reid with 7 all in limited minutes.

[shangrila]

I hate reading into preseason games after we went 8-0 behind Mike Miller, Randy Foye and Al Jefferson.

That said it's nice to see them win the rebounding battle. I'll need to see it more consistently and against other teams, since I'm not sold on this Dallas team, but this was a huge issue last season that needed to be addressed.

The foot off the pedal in the 3rd also wasn't encouraging but given most (all?) of the starters didn't play 2 full quarters I'm not concerned yet.

The most encouraging aspect was that the offence looked significantly more structured. That was one of my biggest complaints last season but it made sense that it wasn't something they could fix much during the season. My fear was that Finch would stick to his ideal of a free flowing offence but it looks like he's largely ditched it and the team looked so much better for it.

[shrink]

Looks like it’s going to be the same biased coverage from ESPN

The teaser at commercial break for NBA Today was, “Luka dominates the Timberwolves, but did they win?” They come back and show four clips from the game, two with Luka, one Towns lay up, and a three pointer from Grant Williams, then mention in passing that the Wolves won. But that wasn’t enough - they went and broke down how Doncic scored on three of his buckets.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I just wish the national media would give Minnesota a fair shake.

[Dewey]

Looks like it’s going to be the same biased coverage from ESPN

The teaser at commercial break for NBA Today was, “Luka dominates the Timberwolves, but did they win?” They come back and show four clips from the game, two with Luka, one Towns lay up, and a three pointer from Grant Williams, then mention in passing that the Wolves won. But that wasn’t enough - they went and broke down how Doncic scored on three of his buckets.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I just wish the national media would give Minnesota a fair shake.

Ya Cuban would come unglued if the Mavs were the little footnote team at the bottom…

[Murphs56]

NAW and Jaden on the wing is an incredible defensive combo and I really loved what Milton gave off the bench. Finch has to make it all work but the pieces are there to be a much better team than last year.

[shrink]

Looks like it’s going to be the same biased coverage from ESPN

The teaser at commercial break for NBA Today was, “Luka dominates the Timberwolves, but did they win?” They come back and show four clips from the game, two with Luka, one Towns lay up, and a three pointer from Grant Williams, then mention in passing that the Wolves won. But that wasn’t enough - they went and broke down how Doncic scored on three of his buckets.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I just wish the national media would give Minnesota a fair shake.

Ya Cuban would come unglued if the Mavs were the little footnote team at the bottom…

I feel lucky that ESPN didn’t spend the majority of the segment on how the MIN-DAL game affected the Lakers.

[Klomp]

Looks like it’s going to be the same biased coverage from ESPN

NBA Twitter feed seemed slanted during the game too.

[Calinks]

Anthony Edwards is our only saving grace with the national media. Tows and Gobert are absolutely despised.

Fun game but I wont be shocked to see Dallas dominate Saturday. They looked really off and shell-shocked in that first half, they will be more prepared this weekend.

[KGdaBom]

Looks like it’s going to be the same biased coverage from ESPN

The teaser at commercial break for NBA Today was, “Luka dominates the Timberwolves, but did they win?” They come back and show four clips from the game, two with Luka, one Towns lay up, and a three pointer from Grant Williams, then mention in passing that the Wolves won. But that wasn’t enough - they went and broke down how Doncic scored on three of his buckets.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I just wish the national media would give Minnesota a fair shake.

Ya Cuban would come unglued if the Mavs were the little footnote team at the bottom…

I feel lucky that ESPN didn’t spend the majority of the segment on how the MIN-DAL game affected the Lakers.

[Mamba4Goat]

Anthony Edwards is our only saving grace with the national media. Tows and Gobert are absolutely despised.

Fun game but I wont be shocked to see Dallas dominate Saturday. They looked really off and shell-shocked in that first half, they will be more prepared this weekend.

They really need another guy to step up and be likeable. KAT will likely always draw hate and if Ant is the only other star I feel like all it’s ever going to be is “Ant was great. Gotta wonder when he’s leaving Minnesota”.

[thinktank]

Anthony Edwards is our only saving grace with the national media. Tows and Gobert are absolutely despised.

Fun game but I wont be shocked to see Dallas dominate Saturday. They looked really off and shell-shocked in that first half, they will be more prepared this weekend.

They really need another guy to step up and be likeable. KAT will likely always draw hate and if Ant is the only other star I feel like all it’s ever going to be is “Ant was great. Gotta wonder when he’s leaving Minnesota”.

“Likability” doesn’t win games.

[FrenchMinnyFan]

Pre season does not have much sense. Just put the guys in conditions, work the systems....was pretty good effort from the team today. I do think we will be very solid this year.

[minimus]

I liked Brown's (hockey) passes and rebounding today. His D, not so much.

We need to stop gambling in defense.

That will be interesting because I view playing Up more instead of Drop as kind of a gamble.

Last season we were one of the best team in generating TOs. I think it historically comes from 2021-22 season when we were super aggressive with high wall pnr coverage.

Read on Twitter

However, after Gobert trade our players were asked to completely change pnr coverage to drop scheme. But we still maintained level of aggressiveness in patrolling passing lanes and pick pocketing. IMO the key here is reducing fouls and TOs. Yesterday MCD had 3 fouls, Milton had 4 fouls, Anderson had 3 fouls, Brown had 3 fouls. We need to cut down these weak fouls.