Anyone else paying attention?
The 6 straight losses had me ready to give up, then they started playing (mostly) really well and sucked me back in again.
After the great win in MIL and the close loss vs DEN, they reverted back to being the old Wolves for several games. Great blowout win vs LAL, followed by laying another turd vs LAC. Then something happened.
Very close loss to PHO, who is now in the midst of a 16 game win streak I think. Wolves should have won that game. Then we win two games vs bad teams by > 10 points - ok, that's what a playoff team is supposed to do.
Then the 43 point blowout of MEM got me interested again. Close W over NO was kind of a let down, but at least it was a W, then the 12 point win at MIA and General Soreness was a signature win imo. Bad letdown getting blown out at CHA - yeah, it was a good team on their home court, but our effort was piss-poor. Then the next night at PHI we win in double OT after KAT fouled out - nice!
The win last night vs IND wasn't all that impressive because we played bad in the first half, but looking back on it, we didn't have three important players (Beverly, Vanderbilt & McDaniels) and KAT fouled out again. Nice job by the rest of the team eeking out that W.
This team has holes, but they can compete with any team in the league. We need at least one decent big, preferably a C imo. Without Vanderbilt, we suck at rebounding.
D Blo has turned himself into good D Lo. Some eye opening stats:
Quote:
from the http://nba.com power rankings this week: Russell is one of 19 players who’ve attempted at least 200 clutch shots over the last four seasons (since 2018-19, regular season only), and he has the best clutch effective field goal percentage (54.3%) among those 19 guys."
Quote:
"According to Cleaning the Glass (they take out garbage time stats and full-court heaves), the Timberwolves’ net rating is 23.5 points per 100 possessions better with Russell on the floor than off. That differential ranks in the 98th percentile of point guards. Their offensive rating on/off differential is +5.2 (72nd percentile), and their defensive rating on/off differential is -18.3 (99th percentile). Some of those numbers are buoyed by Russell missing the Los Angeles Clippers’ blow outs and there are some line-up shenanigans going on, but those numbers aren’t a complete fluke. Russell has now logged 563 minutes (per Cleaning the Glass) which is an ample sample size."
and from a few days ago:
Quote:
During the 4-game win streak MIN has outscored opponents by 95 points in the 124 minutes D'Angelo Russell has been on the floor.
NBA, +/- Leaders
+224 Stephen Curry, GSW
+142 Giannis Antetokounmpo, MIL
+136 D'Angelo Russell, MIN
https://twitter.com/WolvesRadio/stat...h4L6fDtB2nYVhk
Also, I read something the other day that I can't find and I can't reproduce exactly, but by basketballreference five man lineups,
Beverly, Edwards, Russell, Towns & Vanderbilt have a net rating of +45.3 per 100 possessions, which is the highest of any five man combination in the NBA with over 90 minutes played together by a wide margin. I think the second best 5 man lineup was ~+29. And Beasley, Edwards, Russell, Towns & Vanderbilt are +27.3, albeit in only about 27 minutes.
We need Beasley to shoot well. He's a useful player when he does, but he is completely useless if he's shooting the way he did for most of the games so far this season.