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The official fire Chris Finch thread

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Re: The official fire Chris Finch thread 

Post#321 » by Loaf_of_bread » Fri May 2, 2025 12:24 am

Well, his lineup game 5 was pretty much forced based on foul trouble, but it was pretty straightforward rudy was playing out of his mind. Wouldn't necessarily consider Finch did anything strategic..

A first round victory isn't enough for me personally. Celebration ends tonight. Reset, and get back to business.
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Re: The official fire Chris Finch thread 

Post#322 » by Rookie-Mistake » Fri May 2, 2025 12:28 am

winforlose wrote:
FrenchMinnyFan wrote:Surprised no one post it after the series. Finch did an amazing job in coaching and outplayed Reddick by far. He end most of the game with efficiency with ANT-NAZ-JU-Jaden-DDV and tonight he change and put Rudy and Mike almost all 4th. Rudy dominated the entire 4th and Mike hit the clutch 3 at the end. Great job!


I find posts like this confusing. In a game where everything went wrong, (in some ways historically,) you seek to give Finch credit for Rudy’s game. If anything you need to ask why Rudy had 14 points and 25 rebounds in games 1-4 before finally going off in game 5. Nothing that happened last night was outside of Rudy’s basic skill set. Our coach simply didn’t find a way to maximize the biggest mismatch for 80% of the series. I don’t know why Ant and crew sucked so much last night (Rudy and Randle were the only Wolves to play well,) but this is not a game where you say the coach did a great job getting them ready to play and execute. Again we shot 14.9% from deep and should have won by 25-30 instead of 7.
Bro just be happy we beat the lakers in 5.
Without the coach, we're not through in 5 end of story.

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Re: The official fire Chris Finch thread 

Post#323 » by Baseline81 » Fri May 2, 2025 12:48 am

For the majority of Finch's tenure, he's gotten the team to play up when the Wolves are considered the underdog. However, the next round may have them as the favorites should Golden State advance. We shall see what happens. Hopefully, it's not similar to last year against Dallas.
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Re: The official fire Chris Finch thread 

Post#324 » by FrenchMinnyFan » Fri May 2, 2025 3:20 am

winforlose wrote:
FrenchMinnyFan wrote:Surprised no one post it after the series. Finch did an amazing job in coaching and outplayed Reddick by far. He end most of the game with efficiency with ANT-NAZ-JU-Jaden-DDV and tonight he change and put Rudy and Mike almost all 4th. Rudy dominated the entire 4th and Mike hit the clutch 3 at the end. Great job!


I find posts like this confusing. In a game where everything went wrong, (in some ways historically,) you seek to give Finch credit for Rudy’s game. If anything you need to ask why Rudy had 14 points and 25 rebounds in games 1-4 before finally going off in game 5. Nothing that happened last night was outside of Rudy’s basic skill set. Our coach simply didn’t find a way to maximize the biggest mismatch for 80% of the series. I don’t know why Ant and crew sucked so much last night (Rudy and Randle were the only Wolves to play well,) but this is not a game where you say the coach did a great job getting them ready to play and execute. Again we shot 14.9% from deep and should have won by 25-30 instead of 7.


I disagree. I think Rudy got a great game because Lakers just couldn't put as much energy as they put in 4 games to contain him. No coaching issues for me. Finch did a great job this series, but i understand you can have a different point of view. I also don't think Finch have anything to do with the poor shooting from last night. More than 60% of the shoot we miss were wide open.
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Re: The official fire Chris Finch thread 

Post#325 » by winforlose » Fri May 2, 2025 3:30 am

FrenchMinnyFan wrote:
winforlose wrote:
FrenchMinnyFan wrote:Surprised no one post it after the series. Finch did an amazing job in coaching and outplayed Reddick by far. He end most of the game with efficiency with ANT-NAZ-JU-Jaden-DDV and tonight he change and put Rudy and Mike almost all 4th. Rudy dominated the entire 4th and Mike hit the clutch 3 at the end. Great job!


I find posts like this confusing. In a game where everything went wrong, (in some ways historically,) you seek to give Finch credit for Rudy’s game. If anything you need to ask why Rudy had 14 points and 25 rebounds in games 1-4 before finally going off in game 5. Nothing that happened last night was outside of Rudy’s basic skill set. Our coach simply didn’t find a way to maximize the biggest mismatch for 80% of the series. I don’t know why Ant and crew sucked so much last night (Rudy and Randle were the only Wolves to play well,) but this is not a game where you say the coach did a great job getting them ready to play and execute. Again we shot 14.9% from deep and should have won by 25-30 instead of 7.


I disagree. I think Rudy got a great game because Lakers just couldn't put as much energy as they put in 4 games to contain him. No coaching issues for me. Finch did a great job this series, but i understand you can have a different point of view. I also don't think Finch have anything to do with the poor shooting from last night. More than 60% of the shoot we miss were wide open.


Rudy had 14 points and 27 rebounds in games 1-4 when the opponent Lakers had no answer for him. Any championship winning coach is going to focus on getting Rudy and Jaden going to capitalize on the mismatches. Good for Ru to unlock his potential in game 5, but it cannot be one game per series if we are gonna win a chip.

We did miss a lot of wide open shots. We also missed them in game 2. Games 2 and 5 felt low energy and lack of intensity from our guys. The difference is the Lakers also had that low energy and low intensity in game 5, unlike game 2. That is where I am saying Finch’s lack of getting the guys to hold the rope comes into play. We always let the rope go when we have the advantage, and it usually bites us. I can understand the argument that Finch is not responsible for shooting woes in game 5, but nor does he get credit for having the team ready to play and play at a high level. Only 2 guys showed up, Randle and Rudy.
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Re: The official fire Chris Finch thread 

Post#326 » by BlacJacMac » Fri May 2, 2025 5:56 am

Lakers played Rudy totally differently in Game 5.

First four games they doubled him constantly. Especially after any shot would go up. JJ was determined not to let Rudy beat his undersized team.

Since it wasn’t helping them win games, he shook it up in Game 5. He doubled Ant constantly. That gave Rudy single coverage and he ate them alive.
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Re: The official fire Chris Finch thread 

Post#327 » by FrenchMinnyFan » Fri May 2, 2025 9:06 am

BlacJacMac wrote:Lakers played Rudy totally differently in Game 5.

First four games they doubled him constantly. Especially after any shot would go up. JJ was determined not to let Rudy beat his undersized team.

Since it wasn’t helping them win games, he shook it up in Game 5. He doubled Ant constantly. That gave Rudy single coverage and he ate them alive.


I agree ! For me Rudy did not play badly game 1 to 4 just JJR make sure he was harassed by 2 peoples . As long as he stop it, Rudy dominate the game as we expect. Also saying that Rudy was bad the 4 games in a nonsense. All data show that Rudy was still the best defender during the entire serie.
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Re: The official fire Chris Finch thread 

Post#328 » by younggunsmn » Fri May 2, 2025 11:37 pm

Just want to give a shout out to Finchy and the staff for an A+ job during the Lakers series.

1. Had the players highly motivated and composed.
Very little ref whining or agitation from the players even when the calls were biased towards Luka and Lebron all series as expected.

2. Very low turnovers and won all the hustle stats.

3. effective defensive scheme

4. Good adjustments to everything the defense was throwing at Ant, and had Ant prepared and ready for all the extra attention.

5. Good in game lineup adjustments when something wasn't working and closed with the best unit for that particular game.
Finding a way to tread water in game 5 in the 2nd quarter with Julius and Jaden sitting the whole quarter with foul trouble was particularly impressive.

The silence in this thread when it comes to complaints about the series speaks volumes.
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Re: The official fire Chris Finch thread 

Post#329 » by Klomp » Sat May 3, 2025 3:29 am

Our next win in the playoffs puts Finch into a tie with Flip Saunders for most postseason wins in franchise history.

Saunders was 17-30; Finch is 16-16.
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Re: The official fire Chris Finch thread 

Post#330 » by TimberKat » Sat May 3, 2025 4:09 am

Let's give Connelly and Finch credit for bring big ball back to NBA. Now everyone is copying :D
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Re: The official fire Chris Finch thread 

Post#331 » by Klomp » Fri May 9, 2025 5:01 pm

One thing I have appreciated about the current collective group is that they seem to respond well to hard coaching and pointed criticism. That hasn't always been the case for our best players. I remember years past where coaches would go out of their way to not say something negative about a player so as to not bruise egos, and that's just not how Chris Finch operates.

I think criticisms of how long it takes Finch to adjust or to correct players is valid, but in the grand scheme of things, it shouldn't be lost that he does coach this group hard, an it's a group that is resilient and responds well to it.

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Re: The official fire Chris Finch thread 

Post#332 » by KGdaBom » Sun May 11, 2025 10:55 am

As a fantasy basketball player I know all too well that Julius Randle's career has been a feast of fantasy stats and a famine of winning. Finch has Randle playing the best ball of his career as it impacts winning. That's just one reason I want Finch coaching our team. We make another WCF Finch won't be going anywhere for a while and that's the way it should be.
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Re: The official fire Chris Finch thread 

Post#333 » by TimberKat » Sun May 11, 2025 4:36 pm

Does Finch really have a drinking problem or just making a few shots when they aren't playing well on offense?
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Re: The official fire Chris Finch thread 

Post#334 » by Loaf_of_bread » Sun May 11, 2025 5:56 pm

TimberKat wrote:Does Finch really have a drinking problem or just making a few shots when they aren't playing well on offense?

Who knows. Just look at his face and often times polarizing statements in interviews. Seems like he can age 10 years for the better or worse within a day.
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Re: The official fire Chris Finch thread 

Post#335 » by shrink » Sun May 11, 2025 7:20 pm

Jim Pete has proclaimed Finch the “greatest Wolves coach in franchise history,” and had all sorts of compliments for him as a guest in the latest Dane Moore podcast.
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Re: The official fire Chris Finch thread 

Post#336 » by BlacJacMac » Sun May 11, 2025 7:23 pm

shrink wrote:Jim Pete has proclaimed Finch the “greatest Wolves coach in franchise history,” and had all sorts of compliments for him as a guest in the latest Dane Moore podcast.


He clearly is.
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Re: The official fire Chris Finch thread 

Post#337 » by life_saver » Sun May 11, 2025 7:32 pm

I have some issues with Finch but atleast one positive thing is that the team has mostly overperformed in post-season with Finch. They have won like 3 series as underdog against some ATG players, something which is not an easy task to do.
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Re: The official fire Chris Finch thread 

Post#338 » by Baseline81 » Sun May 11, 2025 9:02 pm

shrink wrote:Jim Pete has proclaimed Finch the “greatest Wolves coach in franchise history,” and had all sorts of compliments for him as a guest in the latest Dane Moore podcast.

Because the franchise is littered with great coaches...

Honestly, I'm not not a fan, but it's hard to argue against him holding such a title. With that said, outside of Saunders having Cassell, Spree and Garnett, I'm not sure you'll find a more talented bunch than what Finch has had to work with.
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Re: The official fire Chris Finch thread 

Post#339 » by TimberKat » Sat May 24, 2025 5:05 pm

If we make it pass OKC, obviously Finch is coming back (unless the GM is Nico and we do have a #1 pick next year, assuming Jazz is going to be worse). If we don't, that will be a very interesting decision. Yes, I just want to give Finch something to think about before tonight's game :D
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Re: The official fire Chris Finch thread 

Post#340 » by shrink » Mon May 26, 2025 1:10 pm

I was so impressed with Finch last game!

Throughout the season, he never lost faith in Julius Randle, despite overwhelming media and fan pressure when JR started the season mediocre while Towns flourished offensively. Finch trusted himself, and he was right.

He had that same sense of self-confidence in this series. After two second half losses, he could have abandoned his strategy, and there was great pressure to do so. However, he believed in what he was doing, he just felt the players needed to play harder and make those open shots. He didn’t change, and it led to one of the biggest wins in Wolves history! I think a lesser coach would have caved to the pressure.

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