Wolves @ Lakers - Game 3 - 10PM ET / 8CT / 7PST

[Norseman79]

Looks Like Edwards will get up over the rim when no one is around. Not impressed with that part of him right now.

This. I am still waiting to see him dunk on....anyone. where is the explosion that he reportedly has? I am not worried about the shooting night...but I am starting to worry about an apparently lacking sense of physical aggression. It's almost the same thing that plagues Culver, who actually has an impressive vertical, but when it comes to going up and wrecking the rim, he almost looks like he would rather just set it in.

When Edwards outside shot isn't dropping, why not call some post ups for him? We keep hearing about his size and length, why are we not trying to take advantage of it?

There was a point in the game where I was getting frustrated watching Edwards and a couple others just standing around and watching on offense, until I realized, that's what they are supposed to be doing and waiting for kickouts or the ball to be swung.

Finally, say what you want about McDaniels and Vanderbilt, but they need to actually get some run with better players. Vanderbilt may not offer a lick of scoring other than putbacks or leakouts, but he finished with 7 rebs, 6 asts, 3 stls, and a block in 15 minutes. Because he hustles and plays with a chip on his shoulder. I also get McDaniels is skinny,so is Jonathan Isaac and was Corey Brewer, watching him drill those spot up threes and his length impact on defense, again, he has earned some more time.

[Mattya]

Looks Like Edwards will get up over the rim when no one is around. Not impressed with that part of him right now.

This. I am still waiting to see him dunk on....anyone. where is the explosion that he reportedly has? I am not worried about the shooting night...but I am starting to worry about an apparently lacking sense of physical aggression. It's almost the same thing that plagues Culver, who actually has an impressive vertical, but when it comes to going up and wrecking the rim, he almost looks like he would rather just set it in.

When Edwards outside shot isn't dropping, why not call some post ups for him? We keep hearing about his size and length, why are we not trying to take advantage of it?

There was a point in the game where I was getting frustrated watching Edwards and a couple others just standing around and watching on offense, until I realized, that's what they are supposed to be doing and waiting for kickouts or the ball to be swung.

Finally, say what you want about McDaniels and Vanderbilt, but they need to actually get some run with better players. Vanderbilt may not offer a lick of scoring other than putbacks or leakouts, but he finished with 7 rebs, 6 asts, 3 stls, and a block in 15 minutes. Because he hustles and plays with a chip on his shoulder. I also get McDaniels is skinny,so is Jonathan Isaac and was Corey Brewer, watching him drill those spot up threes and his length impact on defense, again, he has earned some more time.

Hard to get momentum going to the rim when your team shoots like this. Look at how he attacked Gilbert and Utah last night when he got screens from Towns.

[Jedzz]

Looks Like Edwards will get up over the rim when no one is around. Not impressed with that part of him right now.

This. I am still waiting to see him dunk on....anyone. where is the explosion that he reportedly has? I am not worried about the shooting night...but I am starting to worry about an apparently lacking sense of physical aggression. It's almost the same thing that plagues Culver, who actually has an impressive vertical, but when it comes to going up and wrecking the rim, he almost looks like he would rather just set it in.

When Edwards outside shot isn't dropping, why not call some post ups for him? We keep hearing about his size and length, why are we not trying to take advantage of it?

There was a point in the game where I was getting frustrated watching Edwards and a couple others just standing around and watching on offense, until I realized, that's what they are supposed to be doing and waiting for kickouts or the ball to be swung.

Finally, say what you want about McDaniels and Vanderbilt, but they need to actually get some run with better players. Vanderbilt may not offer a lick of scoring other than putbacks or leakouts, but he finished with 7 rebs, 6 asts, 3 stls, and a block in 15 minutes. Because he hustles and plays with a chip on his shoulder. I also get McDaniels is skinny,so is Jonathan Isaac and was Corey Brewer, watching him drill those spot up threes and his length impact on defense, again, he has earned some more time.

Agree with almost all here. My concern on Vandrbilt is he just doesn't play team ball. He's all about him and sorry he's not showing any brains on offense yet but keeps the ball and walks it up. That's not helpful. Maybe he figures it out in time, idk. I do think he could help get some stops and ball control back in a game getting away from Wolves like tonight. So...like 5 minutes into this one against lakers. Send him out there to put the smack down on this. Just don't load him up with too many minutes it will wreck things.

Jaden, play him.

On Edwards not going up over any defenders at the rim, not going strong at the rim and finishing above, I'm going to keep pointing to Ryan and the coaches here. This was one of Wiggin's big failures to not take advantage of that ability. I'm concerned this is coached. How is it even possible two athletic freaks #1 overalls are going to avoid this? Where is this vertical explosion people talked about. Ask him to show it or gtfo. Like you said, if their shot isn't falling this is one way to assure points per possession are happening.

[Jedzz]

Looks Like Edwards will get up over the rim when no one is around. Not impressed with that part of him right now.

This. I am still waiting to see him dunk on....anyone. where is the explosion that he reportedly has? I am not worried about the shooting night...but I am starting to worry about an apparently lacking sense of physical aggression. It's almost the same thing that plagues Culver, who actually has an impressive vertical, but when it comes to going up and wrecking the rim, he almost looks like he would rather just set it in.

When Edwards outside shot isn't dropping, why not call some post ups for him? We keep hearing about his size and length, why are we not trying to take advantage of it?

There was a point in the game where I was getting frustrated watching Edwards and a couple others just standing around and watching on offense, until I realized, that's what they are supposed to be doing and waiting for kickouts or the ball to be swung.

Finally, say what you want about McDaniels and Vanderbilt, but they need to actually get some run with better players. Vanderbilt may not offer a lick of scoring other than putbacks or leakouts, but he finished with 7 rebs, 6 asts, 3 stls, and a block in 15 minutes. Because he hustles and plays with a chip on his shoulder. I also get McDaniels is skinny,so is Jonathan Isaac and was Corey Brewer, watching him drill those spot up threes and his length impact on defense, again, he has earned some more time.

Hard to get momentum going to the rim when your team shoots like this. Look at how he attacked Gilbert and Utah last night when he got screens from Towns.

He's just been talking big until he proves otherwise. Get up and show us that fastest burst claimed by others and high vertical explosion claimed. He's shying from it with defenders around. Just getting high enough to roll it in or flip it up and in. Culver has done this as well. Until we get some of these guys powering in no one is collapsing the defense in and making them flinch. Teams not shooting well? This is the answer. Go in strong and finish strong or become Wiggins. Might as well send JMac in every time instead until these guys will.

[Nick K]

Jared Vanderbilt is trash, I don’t know why some of you are so in love with him.

He needs to be cut and bring back RHJ

Yeah, he got so talked-up all offseason then I saw him on the floor the first preseason game and was like

Go easy on Vandy. He's a baby and needs to play his way through some mistakes. He's easily the best defensive and rebounding PF we have. Did you see him take on LeBron? You can't look at just scoring.

In 15 minutes he had 7 rebs, 6 asts, 3 stls, and 1 block. He was a +1 for the game. Not too shabby. He just needs to mature.

McDaniels looks good too. He's another guy who needs to work on his slight body and needs minutes.

[Mattya]

There was so much wrong in this game and the offense in general.

Without KAT on the floor you lose so much of the rotations and gravity he draw from the defense. It’s compounded by Juancho playing like a turd. The roster doesn’t have a forward or center who is great at rolling or catching lobs so that allows the bigs to stick to the ball handlers. Add all these things up and now you are asking Rubio to pass people onto spots without defense rotating. So now we only have DLo and Ant to create rotations with limited offense around them. I don’t think I saw any hand offs or action between those two that wasn’t dribble dribble dribble swing. No hand offs. No post ups. No screens, now with no rotations Culver is forced into taking shots he isn’t comfortable with. Now everyone is taking bad shots leading to fast breaks and then they showed none of the effort we saw last night.

[Heimdal]

D'Lo should be mostly or exclusively a SG. At PG he's just a chucker with tunnel vision who loves the least efficient shots in basketball.

[Coxy]

D'Lo should be mostly or exclusively a SG. At PG he's just a chucker with tunnel vision who loves the least efficient shots in basketball.

I think Dlo’s best role is an off ball microwave bench scorer, in the Lou Williams role.

[LesGrossman]

I think the coaching and shot selection is going to be a problem going forward. Cant beat the numbers or get caught in recency bias (in this case, a few terrible shots falling). A bad shot is a bad shot and if it falls it makes things worse by establishing bad habits and encouraging the kids to repeat them. Neither DLo nor Edwards seem particulary humble or self critical, i believe we've seen the situation with overconfident, uncoached youngsters with overbloated egos before.

[PharmD]

I think the coaching and shot selection is going to be a problem going forward. Cant beat the numbers or get caught in recency bias (in this case, a few terrible shots falling). A bad shot is a bad shot and if it falls it makes things worse by establishing bad habits and encouraging the kids to repeat them. Neither DLo nor Edwards seem particulary humble or self critical, i believe we've seen the situation with overconfident, uncoached youngsters with overbloated egos before.

Yeah, i agree with you and Jedzz on this one. In the Utah game I was watching Ant saying "Move the ball. Move the ball. Bad shot. Oh wow HE MADE IT!" and getting caught up in the excitement. Being able to hit bad shots in dudes' grills is the stuff of all-stars. Taking bad shots in dudes' grills and not converting at a high rate is the stuff of Dion Waters and Michael Beasley.

Jeddz has a good point that his "It's just like college to me" talk is discouraging because he needs to play completely differently than he did in college.

[UnFadeable21]

McDaniels has some tools but he’s way too skinny to play any real minutes right now

that doesn’t stop skinny runts like Trae Young and Ja Morant:/

Those guys don’t play power forward

[Jedzz]

McDaniels has some tools but he’s way too skinny to play any real minutes right now

that doesn’t stop skinny runts like Trae Young and Ja Morant:/

Those guys don’t play power forward

He'll be able to pass, score some points, get a block or two. What else do you want when you look at the alternative we are seeing. Smart player can play.

[LesGrossman]

What also irriates me is that i believe its no coincidence they showed this effort in this particular game. Those young guys sometimes have irrational respect for superstars and LeBron and the Lakers have been hyped up beyond reason. I've seen the exact same reaction from boys aged 15-17 in competetive leagues. If they believe they cant win they want to appear as if they werent really trying rather than playing hard and still losing. Also, for Edwards i felt like it was more important to him to show up as a great iso / shot maker than to contribute to the team. I mean, you can take one, maybe two heat checks, even though its a really bad idea if your team is already massively behind. But i felt like at some point he didnt give a damn about the result of the game and rather hoped for one make. So to see wether they learned anything, its not neccessarily the next game to look for (even though Clips might be the #2 team this year).

Overall really worried about poor mindset and lack of coaching. I dont see this happen to Pop or any of the new generation elite coaches. Cant care too much abotu the players liking you if they show this attitude.

[Jedzz]

People really believe that Ryan is the one who decides who plays or not and in what system we play.

I even saw someone blaming Ryan for letting RHJ go.

Come on!

you are probably right.

So who is making the playcalls and substitutions?

Well, Rosas probably sets up parameters and Saunders has to work within them. System, and maybe who plays and who doesn't. Can't know to what extent that's true or false tho. Playcalls and subs, that's obviously got to be Ryan and sure there are problems there.

Who is there to use is on Rosas.