Game 29 Wolves at Thunder 12-26-23 Record 22-6

[_AIJ_]

I cannot believe that Slomo has become a major liability on offense. Maybe that eye injury ruined his confidence?

[gandlogo]

The pattern of our losses seems to be we can't contain the other team's star players big or small: Murray, Booker, Fox, Zion, Embiid, and SGA. We need to figure out the double team rotation in addition to improving offensive flow.

Mobile bigs hurt the Wolves because they don't have the foot speed to chase on the perimeter and they draw Gobert away from the basket. Even Valanciuanas can shoot it well enough from three to force Gobert to come out, but then he can also be physical enough on the block to draw fouls like Embid. I think the reason the Wolves are okay against Denver is KAT on Jokic is an okay match up for the Wolves defensively, but Aaron Gordon isn't a huge threat from deep so Gobert can help more. I can't imagine Finch was surprised by the OKC adjustment of having Chet play way more on the perimeter - where he was way more effective. As good of a win as the Kings game was, this was equally bad. The league is a perimeter and guard-driven league, so you need to be able to guard out there first. If you don't, threes rain down or easy penetration occurs.

[winforlose]

The pattern of our losses seems to be we can't contain the other team's star players big or small: Murray, Booker, Fox, Zion, Embiid, and SGA. We need to figure out the double team rotation in addition to improving offensive flow.

Mobile bigs hurt the Wolves because they don't have the foot speed to chase on the perimeter and they draw Gobert away from the basket. Even Valanciuanas can shoot it well enough from three to force Gobert to come out, but then he can also be physical enough on the block to draw fouls like Embid. I think the reason the Wolves are okay against Denver is KAT on Jokic is an okay match up for the Wolves defensively, but Aaron Gordon isn't a huge threat from deep so Gobert can help more. I can't imagine Finch was surprised by the OKC adjustment of having Chet play way more on the perimeter - where he was way more effective. As good of a win as the Kings game was, this was equally bad. The league is a perimeter and guard-driven league, so you need to be able to guard out there first. If you don't, threes rain down or easy penetration occurs.

In principle this is true, in practice we are fine against mobile bigs. Some examples include the first game against Chet, the second game against Wemby, the second game against Sabonis, and the wins over the Pels.

Timberkat hit the nail on the head that a major issue for us has been failing to contain the other teams stars. But, that wasn’t the real problem last night. The truth is SGA can drop 50 and we still easily win that game. Our double team was forcing the ball out of SGA’s hands, right into Dorts hands, and they were red hot. Then it was Jalen Williams hands, and they were red hot. Then it was Isiah Joe’s hands and they were red hot. Then it Chet’s hands, they caught fire in the second half. We beat teams by making them take low percentage shots, but they hit them all, and then some.

The real reason we lost had nothing to do with defense. 19 turnovers in competitive minutes are beyond unacceptable. Multiple of them being live ball turnovers leading to transition baskets for the Thunder. Only winning the rebound battle by 5 including garbage time and only winning second chance by 3 including garbage time. We had a ton of size and didn’t use it. Finally, the floor spacing and decision making was the killer in this one. So many guys drove into crowds instead of shooting open 3s. Especially Mike who passed up at least 5 good looks. Only shooting 27 is not acceptable with the level of shooting talent. Needs to be 37-47 to loosen up the paint and reestablish the inside outside game.

[Clav]

As a fan of both teams it pains me to see AIJ calling them losers, but I understand, all in good sport i hope. The Wolves are not an easy team to play against but tonight the Thunder were obviously taking out the frustrations of losing to the Lakers on MN tonight.

My view of the game... Minnesota is struggling to generate clean looks sometimes, I felt the team was pushing to keep up with OKC, and it ended up leaving to some erratic play, especially turnovers.

One thing OKC does very well is convert off of TOs, that pace leads to good things with the springy young thunder team - MN had some real sloppy passes leading to touching the sideline orbreakaways... I think the defense also was trying to funnel SGA into they paint but in general he wasn't really bothered that much, leading to wide open shots.

Anderson was very poor this game offensively and Anthony Edwards was forcing the issue to go shot for shot. In the 120PPG shootouts, the Wolves need a hot hand to lean on, and no one was that hot tonight (its ok..losses happen...).

As a fan of both teams I have to say that Minnesota's cast is way better than the Thunder commentary team. (Michael Cage, the sidekick to Chris Fisher's pbp, is pretty much terrible.) I watched the game on mute even though since my feed was OKC

And the officiating was poor tonight. Obviously some bad calls and I would guess that overall the wolves had about 5 critical fouls difference in the first 3 quarters. Some were a bit tough to judge, and both teams won a challenge off what the refs called on the floor. I think this crew was too light with contact on wolves players but also the wolves did play pretty loose, it comes down to playing better in a big loss like this

I believe that the charging call on the floor (on holmgren 4th foul) was the correct call, the one OKC challenged and it was overturned into a blocking call).

[Calinks]

I saw someone say our offense is ranked 17th. I've been telling you, if you want to win a title, we have to get better there. 17 is just too low. We need to improve the offense by a fair margin.

[life_saver]

I saw someone say our offense is ranked 17th. I've been telling you, if you want to win a title, we have to get better there. 17 is just too low. We need to improve the offense by a fair margin.

I posted this in another thread few days back...turnovers are the biggest problem -

So far this season, Wolves offensive rating is 114 which is roughly around league average this season (17th out of 30 teams). Thing is Wolves are top 10 in both EFG% (9th best) and TS% (7th best). It's the turnovers which is dragging down Wolves offensive rating..Wolves current Turnover% is 7th worst in the league...if we can cut that down to atleast league average, then we can have a good offense. There are atleast 2-3 extremely stupid and avoidable turnovers we make every game...I wish Gobert can just keep things simple on offense instead of trying to do too much stuff which he isn't good at which leads to atleast 1-2 turnovers every game. KAT has definitely cut down some dumb turnovers that he used to commit in the past...still needs to improve. Same thing with Ant

[shangrila]

I saw someone say our offense is ranked 17th. I've been telling you, if you want to win a title, we have to get better there. 17 is just too low. We need to improve the offense by a fair margin.

The problem is how?

Can't expect more offence from Gobert or Anderson. Shake was meant to contribute in that respect but hasn't. McDaniels hasn't made the strides on that end that we'd like to see so while he's capable of 20pt nights it's not reliable. Reid is more of a finisher than a creator and he's arguably not as good in the Twin Towers as he is offensively when he's the only big in the lineup. Anderson isn't a scorer even if his efficiency improves, neither is NAW. TBJ is, like Reid, a finisher not a creator.

We don't have much to work with in trades either, especially if we can't go into the lux.

So where is this extra offence coming from?

[Worm Guts]

I saw someone say our offense is ranked 17th. I've been telling you, if you want to win a title, we have to get better there. 17 is just too low. We need to improve the offense by a fair margin.

The defense was the problem yesterday. They scored 130+ points. We couldn’t stop them. They shot 60 percent from the field and 45% from 3.

[Klomp]

A reminder that in the last 10 days, the team has traveled from Minnesota to Miami to Philadelphia to Minnesota to Sacramento to Minnesota to Oklahoma City. On top of the level of talent we've seen, that's an insane amount of travel plus throwing in a possible holiday hangover effect.

[Klomp]

Read on Twitter

[Biff Cooper]

I'm fine with a 3-2 stretch over a 9 day span with all 5 games against winning teams, and four of the games on the road, and Christmas mixed in the middle.

[winforlose]

Read on Twitter

The Jaden one I knew would stick (cannot hit the backboard,) but the Karl one I was wondering if they strike it. He just didn’t seem to do or say anything.

[younggunsmn]

I didn't watch the game. Seeing SGA 14 of 19 is telling me we didn't double team him? The pattern of our losses seems to be we can't contain the other team's star players big or small: Murray, Booker, Fox, Zion, Embiid, and SGA. We need to figure out the double team rotation in addition to improving offensive flow.

Finch refuses to double team or trap, game after game after game.

Not only is this bad on a per game basis, the team is not learning how to do it either.
It's going to be necessary in the playoffs at times and there are certain players who are so talented it is going to be the only way to slow them down some nights, especially with the way the game is called in 2023.

How much of this is on Finch's own personal philosophy and how much deferring to Rudy, no one knows.
But we have tremendous length and athleticism and you think trapping would be something we could excel at.

[winforlose]

I saw someone say our offense is ranked 17th. I've been telling you, if you want to win a title, we have to get better there. 17 is just too low. We need to improve the offense by a fair margin.

The defense was the problem yesterday. They scored 130+ points. We couldn’t stop them. They shot 60 percent from the field and 45% from 3.

Disagree. The problem is that we didn’t rebound well, or control the ball well. If you give them extra shots they will score more. Also live ball turnovers speed things up, and we win by slowing teams down. We lost the game on the offensive end, it just showed up on the OKC side of the scoreboard.

[winforlose]

I didn't watch the game. Seeing SGA 14 of 19 is telling me we didn't double team him? The pattern of our losses seems to be we can't contain the other team's star players big or small: Murray, Booker, Fox, Zion, Embiid, and SGA. We need to figure out the double team rotation in addition to improving offensive flow.

Finch refuses to double team or trap, game after game after game.

Not only is this bad on a per game basis, the team is not learning how to do it either.
It's going to be necessary in the playoffs at times and there are certain players who are so talented it is going to be the only way to slow them down some nights, especially with the way the game is called in 2023.

How much of this is on Finch's own personal philosophy and how much deferring to Rudy, no one knows.
But we have tremendous length and athleticism and you think trapping would be something we could excel at.

Locked on Wolves talks about a lot of SGA shots being at thhe 10-15 foot range (depending on who was in the game.) Our offense is designed to force contested mid range shots. He hit 14 of 16 on those. When we tried trapping they were swinging, getting us in the spin cycle, and raining 3s. Sometimes the offense is just better than your defense. Our problem was we didn’t do well on the offensive glass, didn’t protect the ball, didn’t exploit our size difference enough with inside outside game, didn’t shoot enough 3s (12/27 is too low on both makes and takes,) and we didn’t run an offense (way too much standing around.) We lost that game on the offensive end, it just made our defense look worse than it was. In the NBA you cannot take away everything, you just gotta hope they miss the shots you want them taking.

[younggunsmn]

I didn't watch the game. Seeing SGA 14 of 19 is telling me we didn't double team him? The pattern of our losses seems to be we can't contain the other team's star players big or small: Murray, Booker, Fox, Zion, Embiid, and SGA. We need to figure out the double team rotation in addition to improving offensive flow.

Finch refuses to double team or trap, game after game after game.

Not only is this bad on a per game basis, the team is not learning how to do it either.
It's going to be necessary in the playoffs at times and there are certain players who are so talented it is going to be the only way to slow them down some nights, especially with the way the game is called in 2023.

How much of this is on Finch's own personal philosophy and how much deferring to Rudy, no one knows.
But we have tremendous length and athleticism and you think trapping would be something we could excel at.

Locked on Wolves talks about a lot of SGA shots being at thhe 10-15 foot range (depending on who was in the game.) Our offense is designed to force contested mid range shots. He hit 14 of 16 on those. When we tried trapping they were swinging, getting us in the spin cycle, and raining 3s. Sometimes the offense is just better than your defense. Our problem was we didn’t do well on the offensive glass, didn’t protect the ball, didn’t exploit our size difference enough with inside outside game, didn’t shoot enough 3s (12/27 is too low on both makes and takes,) and we didn’t run an offense (way too much standing around.) We lost that game on the offensive end, it just made our defense look worse than it was. In the NBA you cannot take away everything, you just gotta hope they miss the shots you want them taking.

We did not trap the point of attack, we helped in the lane. There is a huge difference.
One is proactive and one is reactive.
In one you aim to make the biggest threat give up the ball, in the other you wait until he's already in your paint.
The high wall scheme we ran pre-Rudy was a proactive system that had our big playing high up the floor.
That scheme is collecting dust now because Rudy doesn't want to play it.

None of the paint shot SGA took last night were at all difficult.


We were the ones who failed to react to what they were doing.
They were taking away the slots and skip passes with their 1-3-1 zone scheme.
They had us scouted to a T. Philly did a lot of the same.
The players didn't execute, but we were badly outcoached too..

[Worm Guts]

I saw someone say our offense is ranked 17th. I've been telling you, if you want to win a title, we have to get better there. 17 is just too low. We need to improve the offense by a fair margin.

The defense was the problem yesterday. They scored 130+ points. We couldn’t stop them. They shot 60 percent from the field and 45% from 3.

Disagree. The problem is that we didn’t rebound well, or control the ball well. If you give them extra shots they will score more. Also live ball turnovers speed things up, and we win by slowing teams down. We lost the game on the offensive end, it just showed up on the OKC side of the scoreboard.

I don’t agree at all. They shot 60 percent. There weren’t many rebounds to be had. We couldn’t stop them if they were going fast or slow. Aside from the turnovers we played relatively well on offense. We got to the free throw line and shot over 40 percent from three. We just didn’t slow them down at all.

[younggunsmn]

I saw someone say our offense is ranked 17th. I've been telling you, if you want to win a title, we have to get better there. 17 is just too low. We need to improve the offense by a fair margin.

The defense was the problem yesterday. They scored 130+ points. We couldn’t stop them. They shot 60 percent from the field and 45% from 3.

Disagree. The problem is that we didn’t rebound well, or control the ball well. If you give them extra shots they will score more. Also live ball turnovers speed things up, and we win by slowing teams down. We lost the game on the offensive end, it just showed up on the OKC side of the scoreboard.

Don't know where you are getting rebounding was a problem, we had 8 offensive boards to their 3.
The turnovers were the story of the game, they took care of the ball and we were extra sloppy.

The shooting numbers were actually pretty similar until garbage time started.
To be honest the refs kept us somewhat in the game with the free throw disparity.
Both teams were better than usual from deep.

[winforlose]

Finch refuses to double team or trap, game after game after game.

Not only is this bad on a per game basis, the team is not learning how to do it either.
It's going to be necessary in the playoffs at times and there are certain players who are so talented it is going to be the only way to slow them down some nights, especially with the way the game is called in 2023.

How much of this is on Finch's own personal philosophy and how much deferring to Rudy, no one knows.
But we have tremendous length and athleticism and you think trapping would be something we could excel at.

Locked on Wolves talks about a lot of SGA shots being at thhe 10-15 foot range (depending on who was in the game.) Our offense is designed to force contested mid range shots. He hit 14 of 16 on those. When we tried trapping they were swinging, getting us in the spin cycle, and raining 3s. Sometimes the offense is just better than your defense. Our problem was we didn’t do well on the offensive glass, didn’t protect the ball, didn’t exploit our size difference enough with inside outside game, didn’t shoot enough 3s (12/27 is too low on both makes and takes,) and we didn’t run an offense (way too much standing around.) We lost that game on the offensive end, it just made our defense look worse than it was. In the NBA you cannot take away everything, you just gotta hope they miss the shots you want them taking.

We did not trap the point of attack, we helped in the lane. There is a huge difference.
One is proactive and one is reactive.
In one you aim to make the biggest threat give up the ball, in the other you wait until he's already in your paint.
The high wall scheme we ran pre-Rudy was a proactive system that had our big playing high up the floor.
That scheme is collecting dust now because Rudy doesn't want to play it.

None of the paint shot SGA took last night were at all difficult.


We were the ones who failed to react to what they were doing.
They were taking away the slots and skip passes with their 1-3-1 zone scheme.
They had us scouted to a T. Philly did a lot of the same.
The players didn't execute, but we were badly outcoached too..

We did both. Go back and look at the second half, we had two guys trapping even higher than we probably should. The problem with forcing the ball out of SGA’s hands is the other guys were hot too. They won’t always shoot 18-39 from 3, and that is when you can say make Lu Dort, or Jalen Williams, or Isiah Joe beat you.

Also worth noting 10-15 foot contested jumper isn’t a great shot. He made a ton of them, but that is a shot that SGA should not hit 14 out of 16 times. 60% would be a good night from the 10-15 contested range, he hit 87.5%. SGA is elite and can hurt you, but even with those 28 points in the midrange, you can still and probably should win the game. On any given night we can give up 100-110 points and be just fine. If you don’t keep turning the ball over 24 times, there time of possession goes down and so does their shot total. If you offensive rebound even more time comes off the clock, and now your points go up, their points come down, and you give yourself a chance to win.

[younggunsmn]

Locked on Wolves talks about a lot of SGA shots being at thhe 10-15 foot range (depending on who was in the game.) Our offense is designed to force contested mid range shots. He hit 14 of 16 on those. When we tried trapping they were swinging, getting us in the spin cycle, and raining 3s. Sometimes the offense is just better than your defense. Our problem was we didn’t do well on the offensive glass, didn’t protect the ball, didn’t exploit our size difference enough with inside outside game, didn’t shoot enough 3s (12/27 is too low on both makes and takes,) and we didn’t run an offense (way too much standing around.) We lost that game on the offensive end, it just made our defense look worse than it was. In the NBA you cannot take away everything, you just gotta hope they miss the shots you want them taking.

We did not trap the point of attack, we helped in the lane. There is a huge difference.
One is proactive and one is reactive.
In one you aim to make the biggest threat give up the ball, in the other you wait until he's already in your paint.
The high wall scheme we ran pre-Rudy was a proactive system that had our big playing high up the floor.
That scheme is collecting dust now because Rudy doesn't want to play it.

None of the paint shot SGA took last night were at all difficult.


We were the ones who failed to react to what they were doing.
They were taking away the slots and skip passes with their 1-3-1 zone scheme.
They had us scouted to a T. Philly did a lot of the same.
The players didn't execute, but we were badly outcoached too..

We did both. Go back and look at the second half, we had two guys trapping even higher than we probably should. The problem with forcing the ball out of SGA’s hands is the other guys were hot too. They won’t always shoot 18-39 from 3, and that is when you can say make Lu Dort, or Jalen Williams, or Isiah Joe beat you.

Also worth noting 10-15 foot contested jumper isn’t a great shot. He made a ton of them, but that is a shot that SGA should not hit 14 out of 16 times. 60% would be a good night from the 10-15 contested range, he hit 87.5%. SGA is elite and can hurt you, but even with those 28 points in the midrange, you can still and probably should win the game. On any given night we can give up 100-110 points and be just fine. If you don’t keep turning the ball over 24 times, there time of possession goes down and so does their shot total. If you offensive rebound even more time comes off the clock, and now your points go up, their points come down, and you give yourself a chance to win.

I didn't see any trapping at all.

You can't let the other teams best player live in your paint all night long.
Uncontested 8-10 footers and layups. Those are good shots 100/100 times.
That's what we were giving up.
The spots he was getting to mid key are also the best spots on the floor to pass from and find open shooters.
Their defense was predicated on cutting the floor in half and exposing our spacing.
Ours was predicated on two good defenders trying to stop one first team all NBA talent, and we got beat pretty damn badly.

We've had success before with that with NAW slowing down SGA, but their scheme was better last night and Chet is a much better spacing big than they had in the play-in game.

The "Hey Rudy clean this up" defense is a bad defense and always will be.