The Official Wolves vs Grizzlies Game 5 Thread

[Soca]

I will say one thing...it might not be the worst thing to happen for Wolves future if Wolves lose this series and DLo had a stinker of a series.

If dlo continues to suck, it’s simple offer him a lowball offer (what he is really worth) and if he balks let him walk.

Yep. If we max this guy at 35 million a year+ for 5 years, then we just wasted kats prime and ants start.


I pray dlo can live off of 100,000,000 over 5 years. It’ll be tough. I don’t think the market will be there unless some scrub team opens the wallet.

He's really holding this team back particularly on the defensive end. Regardless of the price he needs to be moved.

[m2002brian]

Hope he can learn from this mistake..

Read on Twitter

First step is identifying it, acknowledging it, and taking responsibility for it. Young man is a winner.

[Calinks]

I think to win this series we are going to need ELITE scoring from Ant or Dlo. I am talking 35ish point games. KAt can be guarded too many ways, we need a guard to carry us. One of them goes off and we avoid a power outage, we take it. I have said for years, you are in trouble if your best scorer is a big. This is a guards game, we need one of our guards to really step up in a big way.

[m2002brian]

I think to win this series we are going to need ELITE scoring from Ant or Dlo. I am talking 35ish point games. KAt can be guarded too many ways, we need a guard to carry us. One of them goes off and we avoid a power outage, we take it. I have said for years, you are in trouble if your best scorer is a big. This is a guards game, we need one of our guards to really step up in a big way.

Just take care of the ball and box out.

[Muskies97]

DLO is shooting 30% from the field in this series.....


absolutely useless "Max Player"

[WolfAddict]

I think to win this series we are going to need ELITE scoring from Ant or Dlo. I am talking 35ish point games. KAt can be guarded too many ways, we need a guard to carry us. One of them goes off and we avoid a power outage, we take it. I have said for years, you are in trouble if your best scorer is a big. This is a guards game, we need one of our guards to really step up in a big way.

Just take care of the ball and box out.

Even just one of those things get's addressed, and we have a better chance of winning.

[Nick K]

We should have won this game by 25 points, it should have been a 40 point deficit after 3 quarters with how hot we were shooting and how Memphis was missing everything outside of 10 feet (Brooks 3-18) and from the line. Sad because we finally got some really solid bench contributions.

But I've never seen so many incredibly stupid turnovers. I've never been so incredibly frustrated by a player as a fan as I am by KAT.
So uniquely, extremely talented. So many boneheaded mistakes and turnovers. Tonight he got a traveling call after trying some ridiculus globetrotter crap between the legs, lost an easy rebound trying to steal it from his teammate, dribbled it off his heel with the game on the line, shot a 30+ footer without a single teammate near the basket, and threw several ridiculus passes straight into the crowd. Puts his head down from the perimeter and dribbles into 2 and 3 defenders over and over. Can I get that play deleted from the offense please?

And Russell, my word, we would have won this game by 20 points if he had just missed the plane. He kills us on both ends of the floor, he's just utterly useless defensively. We hide him on a lesser option which means he's gonna be the guy who needs to rotate, and he's just utterly and completely useless at that. He's 6'5 and he plays like he's 5'6. Please upgrade him in the offseason. I'd take Tyus Jones over him I'm that ready to be done with the D-Lo experiment. Did we even run a play the last 6 minutes other than ISO hero ball? Ant getting in foul trouble was a big blow because he was less aggressive going to the basket.

Memphis is just KILLING us at 2 things:
1. Transition defense. Theirs is damn near impenetrable. Ours is trash. They got a layup off a made 3 at one point.
2. BOXING OUT. Clarke had 9 offensive rebounds, he was planting himself within 5-8 feet of the basket, in the middle of the lane, every single time a shot went up and we offered no resistance. Yes we run a scrambling type defense, but these guys do way too much ballwatching when a shot goes up. Put a damn body on someone.

Memphis stole this one. This is a game they should have lost. We would be off to the next round if our team BBIQ wasn't so damn terrible, and with this low of a BBIQ we would be a 20 win team without the overabundance of god given talent.
This would be the year to make a deep run. Even making the playoffs becomes tougher next year with the Clips, Lakers, and Pels getting their superstars healthy. This team needs to grow up. DLO and KAT way too many years in the league to be making this many really stupid mistakes and playing outside the structure of the offense so often.

And the way these games are officiated makes the product about as legitimate as pro wrestling. Ja slips for obvious travel and gets free throws. Shoves Beverly out of bounds no call. They were missing calls left and right tonight, but things didn't get one sided until the 4th quarter. Sometimes I question how much Superstars are created by the referees in this league bailing out their bad plays.

What a line!? I agree with all. Really good stuff.

[Neeva]

DLO is shooting 30% from the field in this series.....


absolutely useless "Max Player"

Useless in the playoffs. He doesn’t do anything elite and is being outplayed by jmac.

[m2002brian]

Ant this year vs Kobe the year before his first ring.

Ant is no JR Chucker, dude is a legit scorer who’s also extremely efficient. Has played above average defense on one of the hardest guys to guard in the league and after making a mistake, owns up to it. We are in good hands with A1.

[SuperCoolBeas8]

Ant this year vs Kobe the year before his first ring.

Ant is no JR Chucker, dude is a legit scorer who’s also extremely efficient. Has played above average defense on one of the hardest guys to guard in the league and after making a mistake, owns up to it. We are in good hands with A1.

Haters can go cheer for Golden State or Boston! Howl!!!!!

[Neeva]

Ant this year vs Kobe the year before his first ring.

Ant is no JR Chucker, dude is a legit scorer who’s also extremely efficient. Has played above average defense on one of the hardest guys to guard in the league and after making a mistake, owns up to it. We are in good hands with A1.

I don’t think anyone here takes the ant hater seriously.

[D1SGRUNTL3D]

Also why are ant and kat calling for the ball 94 ft from the bucket and why is vando stupid enough to pass it to them?

1.0 is enough to pass to a guy in stride or around mid court and have a better shot at whatever that was

[KGdaBom]

Hope he can learn from this mistake..

Read on Twitter

First step is identifying it, acknowledging it, and taking responsibility for it. Young man is a winner.

He messed up, but very impressed by owning it.

[TwolvesFanRome]

Our ability to make disastrous choices at key moments in the game is incredible. Dlo cannot be the PG of a team aiming to make it through the first round of the playoffs. Beyond the myriad of turnovers and offensive rebounds granted to them, in key moments we made senseless choices by forcing unopened shots for no reason. This really low IQ team. It's hard to accept but that's the way it is.

And the fact that we have a low IQ shows in the little things: ANT looking for the steal in the last possession (like the possible foul over Bane in Game-4 last shot). But also Pat Bev who scores a basket at a decisive moment in the game and thinks about making the gesture of "it's too low". **** it, run defense rather than think about teasing!

It's amazing how I had the feeling that we would lose it anyway despite having a large margin. We were lucky enough to have a bad night of theirs off the free throw line, Morant not on his best night and what did we do? We conceded a wagon of rebounds and made mindless choices in the hottest moment of the match. Absurd. ABSURD.

[Torben]

Most of the things that stood out from yesterday's match have already been mentioned by others (one sided refs in Q4, stupid turnovers, etc.) but what frustrates me the most is that this win was thrown away so easily - and it is not blowing up big leads (after the third match I have gotten used to it, as stupid as that may sounds), I partially blame coach Finch for not taking the timeout before the DLo miss. Why not draw up a play in order to get a higher-percentage shot in such a crucial situation? Especially as a Towns 3 and the ANT 3 to tie the game are perfect examples that show the ability to get someone an open look with some ball movement and screens.
As some others pointed out... yes, we are the 7 seed and we have improved a lot from last year, but after watching four of the five matches of this series, it feels like we are the better team. Being down 2-3 is therefore just disappointing at this point.

@TvolvesFanRome: I'll be in Rome in three weeks - are there any options to watch matches in a sportsbar or something similar (asking for a very optimistic version of mine )?

[Dalvin]

As much as I would've wanted to end the series in Minnesota. There's just a more fulfilling feeling if we sent Memphis packing on their home floor in game 7. That would shut them up for good.

[_AIJ_]

Morant talk a lot though. Please shut him up and let him cry. What a **** dude

[minimus]

Correct me if I am wrong: more home games we have, more profit, more games on national TV, more money for local businesses such as hotels, restaurants etc. more sales of Edwards jerseys. I guess it is a good thing?

[moss_is_1]

Extremely frustrating the way the whistles went in the 4th. There was about 3 or 4 blown calls or no calls that went against us. However, we didn't do what we should have to win. Ant had some bad shots, Russell's last shot was pathetic(so is almost everything about him really), can't box out Clarke, not utilizing KAT. I get that Ant or Dlo want to be the guy, but Brooks shouldn't be getting away with guarding KAT.

[shrink]

If I were to play devil's advocate, I'd say that the mistakes are part of the learning process. Even for guys like KAT and DLo, playoffs are relatively new. And in that sense we're more or less where the Grizzlies were last season, so it should be a good thing.

And honestly, I do think we'll improve in that regard. But we do need to address issues too, namely that DLo is not the answer.

This is how I feel. We quite possibly could, or maybe even “should,” have won this series 4-1. We have that level of talent, and for the most part, Finch’s coaching has severely limited JJJ and Morant,

But I think many fans are getting impatient, and simply expect our young players to play like they’ve been here before. They haven’t. We were predicted to win 23 games, and it took a full year to break that losing mindset, and get the team over .500 — against regular season teams. I think that it was misguided to think that our first playoff run wouldn’t be filled with mistakes, particularly against an aggressive team like Memphis and some lopsided officiating.

Relax. Out team is young. KAT got over his nerves, and will continue to improve. Same for the majority of the team. I am anxious to see where Vegas puts our win total next year. It sure isn’t going to be 23.