GT: Season Opener: Timberwolves vs. Spurs

Post #1 » by **Nolan** » Mon Oct 16, 2017 4:35 pm

When: Oct 18th, 2017
Where: AT&T Center, San Antonio TX

Season starts on Wednesday peoples!!

This is going to be a tough for us with Kawhi out with that quad injury. The T-Wolves made some serious changes in the offseason and they are poised to be one of the better teams in the west this year.

Our best path to victory is not treating this like the first game of the season. We have to come out with intensity and play like a team on both ends. The T-Wolves are still going to be figuring things out and we need to capitalize on that. No bad turnovers, no missed open shots and no silly mistakes on the defensive end!

Go Spurs!!

duncan21 · Post #2 » by **duncan21** » Tue Oct 17, 2017 2:13 pm

Trolling

Nolan

Post #3 » by **Nolan** » Wed Oct 18, 2017 5:03 pm

Read on Twitter

Joao Saraiva · Post #4 » by **Joao Saraiva** » Wed Oct 18, 2017 8:51 pm

Is Kawih gonna play?

Post #5 » by **Nolan** » Wed Oct 18, 2017 9:07 pm

Joao Saraiva wrote:Is Kawih gonna play?

Nope.

Joao Saraiva · Post #6 » by **Joao Saraiva** » Wed Oct 18, 2017 10:17 pm

Nolan wrote:
Joao Saraiva wrote:Is Kawih gonna play?

Nope.

Thanks. Good luck for the game!

ducler · Post #7 » by **ducler** » Wed Oct 18, 2017 10:57 pm

alexb618 · Post #8 » by **alexb618** » Thu Oct 19, 2017 1:52 am

its only early but its good to see LMA actually being aggressive in the post. this is going to be a good game to watch, wolves have a pretty impressive team. i wouldnt be surprised to see them (MIN) take the win here by 15+.

Milenkovic · Post #9 » by **Milenkovic** » Thu Oct 19, 2017 2:19 am

LMA, Gasol looking good, the whole team is looking good.

Refs have been poor so far

Post #10 » by **-Sammy-** » Thu Oct 19, 2017 3:23 am

I got to listen to a little; home now in time for the 4th.

LMA's box score looks good!

Post #11 » by **Nolan** » Thu Oct 19, 2017 12:45 pm

Great way to start the season. It got a little iffy in the 4th but for the most part we were in control for the entire game. The offense flowed great and the interior defense was outstanding.

Things I liked:

LMA - Looked amazing on both ends. I didn't watch much preseason but he really slimmed down this summer and it seems to be helping him. He made some great plays with ball, not only scoring but making some great passes. His touch around the rim looked better and his timing on the boards was excellent. Defensively he was our best player, altered a ton of shots at the rim, protected the rim well, did good when he had to play outside of the paint and overall he really made life difficult for Towns.

Gay - Looked really good in his first game, definitely didn't looked like a guy coming off a achillies injury. His first two buckets were explosive dunks and he was really effective when he had the ball. Played a bit at the 4 next to LMA and the combo looked really good. Also loved those iso post ups he got late in the game. He really is going to add an extra dimension to this team.

Murray - Bit of a rough start to the game but he came out confident in the 2nd half and really played well. He looks bigger and stronger and I loved his work on the glass and the defensive end. Got a couple Kawhi like steals and really used his length effectively.

Green - Looked much more confident handling the ball and making moves towards the rim, still had a couple face palm offensive moments but scored a very quite and effective 17 points. Excellent work on the defensive end as always.

Manu - Didn't look his age. Same old Manu and I love it.

Things I didn't like:

No real big complaints about this one just a few little picky things.

Didn't like how quickly Pops pulled Murray in the 4th, kid should of finished the game but I'm sure Pops had his reasons and Mills did hold his own.

The offense in the 4th, it took us way too long to give up on feeding LMA and Rudy some chances to open things up. But at the same time I get it, he was killing it all night and you have to feed the hot hand and in the end it all worked out.

The lack of Bertans, wanted to see a bit more of him.

imagump1313 · Post #12 » by **imagump1313** » Thu Oct 19, 2017 12:49 pm

It was a good first showing. We still have that same Spurs problem of not being able to score in long stretches for some reason but its nice to see that with Rudy Gay and an engaged LMA that we have a couple of options to go to beside Kawhi for people who can get their own shot.
Gay seemed to be a man on a mission but its only game one. I'm concerned he isnt going to last the entire season.

imagump1313 · Post #13 » by **imagump1313** » Thu Oct 19, 2017 12:51 pm

I agree on Bertans, but Anderson actually played pretty well for a change.

Post #14 » by **Nolan** » Thu Oct 19, 2017 12:55 pm

imagump1313 wrote:I agree on Bertans, but Anderson actually played pretty well for a change.

Yeah he was very solid on both ends. Still has his limits but was great.

Post #15 » by **Nolan** » Thu Oct 19, 2017 12:56 pm

imagump1313 wrote:It was a good first showing. We still have that same Spurs problem of not being able to score in long stretches for some reason but its nice to see that with Rudy Gay and an engaged LMA that we have a couple of options to go to beside Kawhi for people who can get their own shot.
Gay seemed to be a man on a mission but its only game one. I'm concerned he isnt going to last the entire season.

Very true. Hopefully he keeps it up and I think coming off the bench may help his durability. But if he does keep playing like this he can be a real game changer for us.

UDRIH14 · Post #16 » by **UDRIH14** » Thu Oct 19, 2017 2:13 pm

this game has shown me patty mills aint a pg, his slow on defense chasing the player around, his not taking charges as he use to....could it be the haircut his still sporting from last season? he not over himself? why doesnt pop bench him...instead he benches murray for that circus layup when the spurs needed a basket...

built 10pt leads only to put over the hill players into the game to put lead down to 2-5pts, then chucking starters back into the game to push lead up 10 again....

anderson set the tone playing aggressive pushing the ball and looking for his own offense, crashing the boards also... if he continues he could be looking at a payday contract year...give him more minutes pop and lets see what he can do....

Post #17 » by **-Sammy-** » Thu Oct 19, 2017 7:47 pm

UDRIH14 wrote:this game has shown me patty mills aint a pg, his slow on defense chasing the player around, his not taking charges as he use to....could it be the haircut his still sporting from last season? he not over himself? why doesnt pop bench him...instead he benches murray for that circus layup when the spurs needed a basket...

built 10pt leads only to put over the hill players into the game to put lead down to 2-5pts, then chucking starters back into the game to push lead up 10 again....

anderson set the tone playing aggressive pushing the ball and looking for his own offense, crashing the boards also... if he continues he could be looking at a payday contract year...give him more minutes pop and lets see what he can do....

Well, Mills has a specific skill-set. He's never been a 'PG's PG', so to speak; we pretty much know what we're going to get from him. That said, he's been here for five years and he knows the playbook, and that's going to be important as Pop uses him to ballast the backcourt rotation while waiting for Parker to heal up.

It's no surprise that our rotation features a lot of 'over the hill players', but let's not forget that we're down two starters. The dynamic you described is likely to continue until Leonard comes back.