Crawford isnt always going to be hot. Bjelly is not going to continue to shoot 60%+ from 3.

Aside from that, this bench is a big improvement over last year. Bjelly & Gorgui are the biggest reasons. Bjelly is adjusting to the NBA game and is a better player than he was. Gorgui is a good player who could start for a lot of teams. Tyus has improved. Crawford can do some things (pass & handle the ball and not be completely stupid on D) besides chuck up shots. Bazz sucks, but he probably wont continue to suck as bad as he has so far.

While I would like to see a trade for a good wing, this bench is not bad.

The best thing about this start is that Butler hasn't been great ,so there is still plenty of room for improvement there

I do expect bench improvements and Bjelica i think will be, or should be our starting 4 very soon. Gorgui against bench bigs is pretty damn nice to have.

We had one of the worst benches in the league last year and got torched the first handful of games, so although improved I don't expect them to be good or to outscore the bench opposition often. I would be very happy to be wrong though!

yeah he's been deferring a lot and just really locking down on defense. Leading by example, it's really nice to see. Gonna be a fun next 4 games to see where they're at.

Up to #4 in ESPN power rankings!

Jamal Crawford on Thibs:

[QUOTE=cha59;53075785]It would not surprise me, but they are capable of playing very poorly at times. They get ahead and get lazy. If Thibs can manage to keep Towns and Wiggins motivated on both ends of the floor, we have great things ahead of us.


i think that's the case with a lot of NBA teams especially young teams. I realize that the wolves aren't that "young" anymore but 2 of their 3 best players are. I do think the defense is starting to trend in the right direction.

It's so nice, in any sport, to have a coach that puts players in a position to compete. It will be interesting to see how Thibs evolves with this group, if he evolves at all.

This 1st quarter wiggins, if he played like this all of the time, is a top 10 player in the league. Impacting the game so much on both ends.

Can't beat anyone in this league let alone the Warriors shooting 4 for 20 20% on three pointers. Game is actually closer than it should be. Im gonna chalk it up as a learning lesson.

Rough 3rd quarter.

They played really well in the 1st half and very easily could have been up 10+ if their 3s went in at even a normal clip. Most of them were great looks too.

3rd quarter they missed some shots, forced a lot on offense and when GS went on a small run(up 8 ish iirc) they just started forcing everything. Golden State generated easy turnovers which lead into easy layups and wide open 3s. Golden State is probably the GOAT team so having almost zero equity this early in a season, even without Durant isn't surprising.

The takeaways for me from the game were that they still just revert back to old habits when diversity sets in. The offensive and defensive gameplan in the first half was damn near flawless in my opinion, they forced a ton of turnovers and the offense looked great...but then it just turned into iso ball with just about everyone and they were playing a lot of 1 on 2 situations where GS would trap and there'd be no movement.

Good test game, mixed outcome.

I agree. He has skills that no one else does.

yup. We were not supposed to win that game. If we had hit early 3s at a normal rate and built a big lead, we might have had a chance in the end, but once GS go through that 1st half with the game close and they decided to play lock-down defense in the 2nd half, we had no chance. This gave us a taste of what it would take to beat the best when they are playing their best.

yeah, in order to take the next step and be competitive vs the best playing their best game, we need to step up and move the ball better on offense when they bring defensive heat. With all the talent we have, I think we could be capable of doing that someday, but we werent yesterday.

lol

I will say though that if I were Thibs, I would really harp on the first half. I think they generated 12 turnovers and the 3 point looks they generated were good to great looks. They didn't shoot 1 for 12 because they were contested and GS was playing well, they just didn't make any shots. The game really could have been a blowout from our perspective in the first...MOML.

If they can get a full 4 quarters like that first half every night, they're going to be a tough out vs everyone. If they play like they did in the 3rd quarter, they'll be a .500 team.

I think the Warriors were playing with the Wolves like they have done with a lot of teams in the first half, they are only playing the second half of a lot of games so far this year.

Also funny looking at the numbers and the Wolves are pretty much the same team overall as last year despite all the changes. SRS, ORtg and Drtg ranks are all basically the same

I mostly agree, but I think they're less than a .500 team if they were to always play like they did in the 3rd.

What does MOML mean?

yeah, what GS was doing in the 2nd half had a lot to do with us crumbling.


Small sample size. This is a completely different team than last season.

Oh wow that is pretty amazing. Those last year numbers include the tank finish too. Look at this post from March:

These Wolves might be good, or they might just have run hot in close games.

Awful first half for Butler and Teague.

Butler has been sweet this year, not sure why he has decided that he needs to score more. He's been forcing things.

Probably doesn't want to be traded to Utah if he doesn't

Butler had a bad game despite getting a bunch of whistles. Teague sucked ass and has now sucked in 8 of 12 games.

Towns is now a garbageman/roll man that gets to shoot the occasional 3. Thibs' marginalization of our special young talent continues.

Also, the wolves were missing Gorgui, Aldrich, and Patton--three centers. And still had no problem playing 2 bigs at all times and only got Bjelly (probably our best player) 20 minutes.

17-18 Wolves: 23rd SRS, 12th ORtg, 28th DRtg
16-17 Wolves: 18th SRS, 10th ORtg, 27th DRtg
15-16 Wolves: 24th SRS, 12th ORtg, 28th DRtg

Lol Ricky nice game

Starters played 38-39-39-39-41 minutes in a game the Wolves were up 20 the entire time.

Only reason this would make sense would be for the conditioning aspect. But that's simply my opinion obviously.