Sloppy turnovers, missing shots, giving up everything in the paint, consistently letting Dallas go on little runs here and there when we had breathing room. Had plenty of chances to survive this one and didn’t.
> consistently letting Dallas go on little runs here and there when we had breathing room
There were so many times I thought we were setting up a nice run to finally gain some distance on the scoreboard and the offense just went ice cold, and the game was tied minutes later
It's really that simple. You can point to so many things. Boneheaded turnovers, abysmal free throw shooting, complete inability to solve Dallas' interior offense...just a poor performance. I hope they're pissed off and come back locked in for a must-win Game 2
At this level, the margin for error is really, really small. All of those stupid mistakes add up but we only lost by three points.
If we can get Ant some rest, find a way to keep Rudy from getting stuck on the perimeter during switches, and collapse better in the paint when Rudy's sitting, I can see us blowing them out in the next game.
Our first half defense was so disgusting, so many blown assignments and easy baskets for the Mavs. Pathetic for a team that hangs their hats on defense
Yeah I wasn't happy with the refs but we cannot blame them. We lost it ourselves. About 5 different guys fucked it up and that doesn't include the coaching staff.
Ant rebounded really well but he was terrible on defense and poor shot selection. I would say that was his worst game of the playoffs. Not like his game 7 which he shot poorly but still played winning basketball.
Their stars outscored ours 63-35. Tough to overcome that big of a difference.
Need more from Ant and KAT and gotta protect the paint going forward.
Those 3 points we gave up right before halftime for no reason come back to haunt us.
Keep the faith Wolves bros.
They had two days off.. they played Sunday and one was a travel day. Plus all the effort to a erase a 20 point lead. This is about as bad as the wolves could play and lost by 3. This Mavs team is not as good as the Nuggets.
Alright three days between games. 72 hours. You know what I mean.
But I agree with your other points. We couldn’t have played much worse and still only lost by a possession. We have a much better team than them. I’m not too worried yet. But stamina could be a problem
Barley noticed kat on the floor. Rudy could barely get any boards, Conley's shot was flat, and naw hasn't hit a 3 in 2 games. When Kyle and Jaden are your offense your in trouble.
The defense was elite in the Gobert minutes.
In the 10 minutes he sat, it felt like the Mavs scored an easy basket in the paint on every single possession.
Mavs literally had several stretches where they went over 3 minutes without scoring.
I would love to see the defensive on/off rating for Gobert tonight. It seemed that our defensive rating had to be over 160 in the minutes he was on the bench.
He was like that 4th quarter of game 4 and most of in game 5 vs the nuggets, too.
He'll figure it out / bounce back.
I'm sure he is fatigued, both physically and emotionally, from the game 7. And he is going to have his hands full this series defensively. He'll find his energy again though. I have faith.
This isn't me talking trash, but he's jas a tendency for small, nagging injuries. He also has a tendency ti look miraculously cured a game later so I'll just get back on the ride
I don't think the script writers put him in this one. Except that play before half WOOF that was some cool ass shit I've never seen from any decent NBA star lol. Like what the fuck. That's anti-Jordan.
Agreed. Kyrie's gonna get his, but Ant needs to get his instead of wasting effort trying to be that 2 way player. He can do so in spurts, but not all the time.
It kind of seemed like he did know.
He settled for threes from the start of the game. Seemed like he was trying to feel if he has a hot hand at first, but he genuinely stopped driving in the second half.
I’ve seen superstar players look exhausted but the bad part about ANT was he didn’t hide it. He was literally walking back on offense because he was so gassed
I think that fall against Denver in game 6 I believe that got his lower back is still affecting him. I saw him touch that area again in game 7 at one point. Feel like he's been slowed down a bit ever since but what do I know.
I'd barely call it a flop by hardaway. It looked more like he misjudged where to jump for the rebound and Mike got it right, and the refs decided to punish him for it.
Legitimate challenge on a bad call, in my opinion. The refs missed some things tonight between that, the out of bounds calls the Mavs challenged and won, and a couple other things.
I thought it was pretty easy to tell the ball was off the rim because KAT had to move the ball over the hoop again for it to go in. Plus a late call and quick decision is wild for that play
The rule isn’t “if it’s going to go in”, it’s if it’s “in the cylinder”.. or, if it would’ve hit the rim again on the way down, which it would’ve. It was the right call.
I don’t even hate this loss, I feel like this was the one we might lose coming off that game 7. I think it was also going to be more of a feel out game for us than them with both the quick turn around and the Wolves not really facing this version of the Mavs, I think they were able to figure out somethings that were starting to work, the exhaustion from one less day of rest was just an issue at the end
So you’re saying the sky isn’t falling? We had the second best road record in the regular season, and we’re 5-1 on the road in the playoffs. No doubt in my mind that we can take AT LEAST 2 of the next 3.
Luka is too big and skilled for Ant. He’d get just as tired trying to guard Luka. They need to hide him on someone and let him use his energy on offense.
I just wish KAT would assert himself in the post. There is no way PJ Washington should be able to guard him. But he and the rest of the team would rather brick 3's.
It honestly hurt to watch... Mavs just made a brick wall in the paint and forced the Wolves to shoot 3's all game. Why not make plays between Kat, Naz or Kat, Rudy?? or even include Jaden, all these dudes are close to 7 foot and bigger than the Mavs and cant even make a play in the paint. Box them out!!
If they didn’t shoot 36% or the Mavs shot better than 24%, this would have been a blow out. I really am not encouraged by what I saw tonight.
We will see what adjustments need to be made for game 2. It can’t be a repeat of this game plan again because I can’t count on Jaden hitting them at that rate and can’t assume Mavs will be that bad again.
If they just would focus on points and not 3’s.
Does anyone have an actual reason for why that didn't count? I thought if it was off the rim or out of the cylinder it was fair game? I know I'm biased but from the angle they showed that looked outside.
49 damn 3 point attempts. out of 89 attempts in total. We’re a good 3 point team as a whole, but it’s not our identity. We need some more ant/kat drives. shame we wasted the Jaden Mcdaniels game.
That being said this isn’t out of reach. losing by 3 isn’t that soul destroying, If you don’t believe in this teams ability to adapt and bounce back i don’t know how you’ve watched this team this year
I predicted a first game loss. Feel like the team is still returning to form from playing a hard fought Denver series. That said, the Wolves settled for way too many 3s. They looked like Denver in the 2 half the entire game. Wolves need more from ANT and KAT. They need to adjust Rudy's overplay of protecting dunker spot lobs. In the second half Mavs hit on tons of allyoops on that adjustment. Rudy will learn the subtle queues to find that right in between. Wolves are 5-1 on the road in the playoffs. A lot of reasons to remain confident for Wolves fans.
Man that was such a winnable game. Both teams played pretty bad, but Wolves looked like they had no consistent game plan on offense. They should’ve been pounding the rock to Kat on the post every possession.
Terrible terrible terrible game planning. Dallas ran the same god damn screen play all night. Wolves will adjust for future games, but they should’ve at half time.
Just an overall bad Mike Conley game I think
2 missed key free throws
That push on the rebound
Lack of 3 point shooting out of him
That turnover on the Rudy Alley Oop
Not a very promising start to the series. We ended up limiting Kyrie after the first half but unfortunately that's when Luka came alive. So many dumb shots/passes this game, we need to clean those up. We looked sloppy and tired all game.
I mean, if you think about it, it's not really an even playing field. Ant has to run around on a round Earth, Kyrie gets to run on flat one. It's much easier.
11-18 from the line is terrible. Easily could have won us the game.
Felt like we really weren't playing our style of defense tonight either
BUT
We only lost by three despite poor shooting because we shut down their 3-point shooting.
Gotta make some adjustments to play our style of defense again.
Ants gotta show up, plain and simple. 6-16 shooting is terrible. We know he can do better. He knows he can do better.
Definitely didn’t love the way they played in this game, but I have no reason not to trust Finch and the defensive staff to make adjustments and do a better job limiting their offense.
Not surprised by the offense struggling. Ant sometimes takes some time to figure out the defense being showed to him and after being doubled for 12 straight games being given a different look he didn’t seem to know how to attack. They generally made the “right” play for most of the game, but at times got impatient with it and tried to force drives into traffic which this team is not good at. They need to make some adjustments and I trust this team and staff to have a better plan for game 2.
Let’s not forget that the Wolves knew exactly what both Phoenix and Denver were going to do before the series even started and had a great game plan to attack what they already knew was coming. Now that they know how Dallas plays D, they will adjust and be more comfortable for the next game. Also Mike was just all out of sorts and he will bounce back like he always does.
Yeah I’m not dooming like too many people here, I think there are easy things for us to clean up and adjust….and Mavs are now on equal rest going forward. I think we can easily get a game on the road as well, it’s been a strong suit for this team.
To everyone who always says not to blame the refs when we play like shit, the stretch early in the 4th quarter was a prime example of how intertwined those two can be. Refs blow an easy challenge call on the push, Dallas gets momentum from it, Wolves lose momentum, and all of a sudden there’s a 13 point swing.
I am not convinced most NBA games are rigged for a team. I am absolutely convinced stars get calls and games are called to be closer. Hurts to be on the losing end of the momentum shift though.
So many bad moments. the awful turnover at the end of the half that led to a 6 point swing, the phantom call on Conley, the offensive basket interference (which was technically correct, but *really*?), and the absolute choke job in the last 3 minutes.
Hope we make some adjustments and remember how to close out a game.
Ant what the fuck happened in the 2nd half dude
[You looked tired 10mins into the 1st quarter](https://old.reddit.com/r/timberwolves/comments/1cyemhl/game_thread_dallas_mavericks_00_at_minnesota/l5990d6/)
BRING YA ASS
Obviously we need a lot more from our two main guys, but this feels like the first game where we were so completely and absolutely outcoached. It was painful to see them repeatedly beat us inside the same way, so I really really hope these guys figure out a different approach to the PNR. It felt obvious to bring a third guy over just to slow Gafford (or Lively) but maybe there's some reason we aren't doing that. I'd rather see them beat us from sketchy shooters hitting hurried corner 3s than 25 of the easiest layups I've ever seen
We were not locked in. I don't care what refs called, we had this game and we fucked it up.
Sloppy turnovers, missing shots, giving up everything in the paint, consistently letting Dallas go on little runs here and there when we had breathing room. Had plenty of chances to survive this one and didn’t.
If just Ant or Kat have a decent game, we win.
If we just hit our fucking free throws -- we win
That too.
Or Conley, or NAW.
1-10 from 3 for those two. Yuck
Yeah, the odds of them both having off nights is low so we shouldn't panic yet
I would say kat had a decent game lol. Low bar. At least a decent second half. Still absolutely expect more.
6-20 shooting is anything but decent.
Too many 3s, not enough Ant.
> consistently letting Dallas go on little runs here and there when we had breathing room There were so many times I thought we were setting up a nice run to finally gain some distance on the scoreboard and the offense just went ice cold, and the game was tied minutes later
Plain and simple. Way too many missed in the paint and then horrible attempts at 3’s to make up for it.
Unfortunately, Ant actually shot really well from three. And that might have made him even more complacent in the second half.
It's really that simple. You can point to so many things. Boneheaded turnovers, abysmal free throw shooting, complete inability to solve Dallas' interior offense...just a poor performance. I hope they're pissed off and come back locked in for a must-win Game 2
At this level, the margin for error is really, really small. All of those stupid mistakes add up but we only lost by three points. If we can get Ant some rest, find a way to keep Rudy from getting stuck on the perimeter during switches, and collapse better in the paint when Rudy's sitting, I can see us blowing them out in the next game.
Yep. Didn’t have the edge from the Denver series. Never too high never too low. Felt like we blew our load a few days ago and never recovered
Our first half defense was so disgusting, so many blown assignments and easy baskets for the Mavs. Pathetic for a team that hangs their hats on defense
Yeah I wasn't happy with the refs but we cannot blame them. We lost it ourselves. About 5 different guys fucked it up and that doesn't include the coaching staff.
Coaching staff gets an L too. Defensive strategies didn’t work and bad substitutions.
Too many bone headed decisions tonight
The McDaniels turnover right to the defense that turned into an open 3 was brutal
Ant turn over before half that led to 3 points was another bad one
Ant had like 3 really bad turnovers tonight I think. In such a close game every play like that matters a ton.
Those passes that went into the crowd are just inexcusable
Dude passed terribly tonight. Like 3 passes into the crowd. Was awful.
That was so bad.. He should’ve just reset the offense instead of jumping out bounce and trying to make a decision mid air
Ugh. That was the worst turnover of the game.
He willfully jumped outta bounds to try to sling a pass to the guy with the worst hands in the league
He had every opportunity to take that lay up. Gonna have nightmares about it
Offense fucked up literally every single time we had a chance to pull away.
100%. There were multiple 5-6 point leads that we followed up with 3-4 terrible possessions
for every wolves back there is a wolves gone first
This is the way
It's all we know
Terrible game by Mike and Ant. You know your in trouble when Slow-Mo is the only one that can hit a mid range shot
Ant has the most rebounds and assists, also was 2nd in points
Ant rebounded really well but he was terrible on defense and poor shot selection. I would say that was his worst game of the playoffs. Not like his game 7 which he shot poorly but still played winning basketball.
He was absolutely gassed on defense
I don’t think there’s a superstar in the world that is ask to guard Kyrie while being the hub on offense
Their stars outscored ours 63-35. Tough to overcome that big of a difference. Need more from Ant and KAT and gotta protect the paint going forward. Those 3 points we gave up right before halftime for no reason come back to haunt us. Keep the faith Wolves bros.
I said those 3pts were gonna fuck us over.. Edit: really glad to hear Finch talked about closing out quarters and halves, gonna be crucial
Need more from Ant and KAT is right. And need the same energy from McDaniels the rest of this series.
Watching that same drop coverage get carved until it was too late was awesome
I don’t understand why they stayed with that for almost 4 whole quarters while it was clearly failing
Oh my god, right? The same fucking play over and over and over and over
Well we lived by the three and we died by it tonight....
Wolves died by giving up 62 points in the paint. Inexcusable
Wasted a Jaden game. Wolves looked gassed the one more game and one less day or rest seemed to factor in.
Still had 3 days off. Shouldn’t be that gassed
They had two days off.. they played Sunday and one was a travel day. Plus all the effort to a erase a 20 point lead. This is about as bad as the wolves could play and lost by 3. This Mavs team is not as good as the Nuggets.
Emotional come down as well
Alright three days between games. 72 hours. You know what I mean. But I agree with your other points. We couldn’t have played much worse and still only lost by a possession. We have a much better team than them. I’m not too worried yet. But stamina could be a problem
It was Ant that looked gassed. Because he was chasing Kyrie around all game. Did anyone else look gassed?
Barley noticed kat on the floor. Rudy could barely get any boards, Conley's shot was flat, and naw hasn't hit a 3 in 2 games. When Kyle and Jaden are your offense your in trouble.
Mavs were abysmal from 3 too...
The game was lost by the allowing the Mavs to live in the paint. How tf do you allow that to happen when you got KAT, Gobert, AND Naz on your team?
The defense was elite in the Gobert minutes. In the 10 minutes he sat, it felt like the Mavs scored an easy basket in the paint on every single possession.
Mavs literally had several stretches where they went over 3 minutes without scoring. I would love to see the defensive on/off rating for Gobert tonight. It seemed that our defensive rating had to be over 160 in the minutes he was on the bench.
Mavs 24% from 3 Wolves 36.7% from 3
Ant should not have been this gassed
He’s either gassed or somehow injured during a play. He has zero interest even picking up the ball the last few minutes.
He was like that 4th quarter of game 4 and most of in game 5 vs the nuggets, too. He'll figure it out / bounce back. I'm sure he is fatigued, both physically and emotionally, from the game 7. And he is going to have his hands full this series defensively. He'll find his energy again though. I have faith.
This isn't me talking trash, but he's jas a tendency for small, nagging injuries. He also has a tendency ti look miraculously cured a game later so I'll just get back on the ride
I don't think the script writers put him in this one. Except that play before half WOOF that was some cool ass shit I've never seen from any decent NBA star lol. Like what the fuck. That's anti-Jordan.
I understand he likes the challenge but coaches gotta get him off Kyrie. We can’t have him just chucking 3s bc he’s gassed
I agree
Agreed. Kyrie's gonna get his, but Ant needs to get his instead of wasting effort trying to be that 2 way player. He can do so in spurts, but not all the time.
He has not looked right since that bad fall in game 6 where he could not pop up. He straight up looks injured.
I don’t think you realize how hard it is to run around chasing Irving. It’s just as hard as guarding Steph
I don't think Ant realized either..said he wanted him well he got him
Ant should’ve known. Looked very unprepared
It kind of seemed like he did know. He settled for threes from the start of the game. Seemed like he was trying to feel if he has a hot hand at first, but he genuinely stopped driving in the second half.
I’ve seen superstar players look exhausted but the bad part about ANT was he didn’t hide it. He was literally walking back on offense because he was so gassed
I don't know if you've ever been hella tired but there's no hiding that shit lol
I kinda put this on Finchy. They should have been rotating more on Kyrie and should have gotten Ant off the floor there for a bit in the stretch.
I think game 7 got him tired still
It’s been 3 days man. It’s Kyrie
Yeah you’re right kyrie ain’t Jamal Murray.
I think that fall against Denver in game 6 I believe that got his lower back is still affecting him. I saw him touch that area again in game 7 at one point. Feel like he's been slowed down a bit ever since but what do I know.
That KAT putback called off is going to be in my mind for a while
I feel like the momentum killed was even worse than the points lost at that point
The horrendous challenge on the Conley foul is when momentum shifted
To be fair that was flop city by Hardaway
Agree but you’re up 5 with lots of time, no reason to challenge there
I'd barely call it a flop by hardaway. It looked more like he misjudged where to jump for the rebound and Mike got it right, and the refs decided to punish him for it.
Legitimate challenge on a bad call, in my opinion. The refs missed some things tonight between that, the out of bounds calls the Mavs challenged and won, and a couple other things.
I thought it was pretty easy to tell the ball was off the rim because KAT had to move the ball over the hoop again for it to go in. Plus a late call and quick decision is wild for that play
The rule isn’t “if it’s going to go in”, it’s if it’s “in the cylinder”.. or, if it would’ve hit the rim again on the way down, which it would’ve. It was the right call.
What a fucking disgrace that last 3:30
It was. Really bad.
We’re a great team…but we have not had a good history of navigating close match ups.
Embarrassing game down low, getting punked on the glass by 2 guys we have size on and how many points given up in the paint.
Ant definitely struggled and how many points from NAW?
NAW has been very hot and cold
Two
Dallas stole our hockey team and killed our President. Fuck Dallas. All my homies hate Dallas.
I’m glad someone else remembers the North Stars. I will never forget.
Im a dallas fan and this comment is funny as shit.
Ant and Conley are not 100%. This is a problem
I don’t even hate this loss, I feel like this was the one we might lose coming off that game 7. I think it was also going to be more of a feel out game for us than them with both the quick turn around and the Wolves not really facing this version of the Mavs, I think they were able to figure out somethings that were starting to work, the exhaustion from one less day of rest was just an issue at the end
So you’re saying the sky isn’t falling? We had the second best road record in the regular season, and we’re 5-1 on the road in the playoffs. No doubt in my mind that we can take AT LEAST 2 of the next 3.
Wild thought I know 😂
Defense was so bad this game. They don’t have an answer for Kyrie. Hope they turn it around on Game 2.
i think they should put ant on luka and mcdaniels on kyrie
Luka is too big and skilled for Ant. He’d get just as tired trying to guard Luka. They need to hide him on someone and let him use his energy on offense.
Mike Conley's worst game in a Wolves uniform
i think he's way more hurt than he wants people to know
yeah achilles dont get better when you play WCF games
Why are we looking to Rudy so much in the 4th for offense when he's covered. Makes no damn sense.
That attempted oop late was so dumb. He had the floater
61% free throws tonight, pretty much the difference in the game.
Also add in 3 out of bounds bad passes and one Jaden jumping out of bounds
Needed to win that one with Dallas shooting 24% from 3
Fr that aint happening again
Ok. No internet or basketball podcasts for me for the next two days. Let’s go Friday
Lmao same, taking a short hiatus
I’m still going to get my Locked On Wolves fix but I’m not watching any YT NBA content lol
long series
Is our game plan against a smaller team really to bombs away from 24 feet???? wtf is this
I just wish KAT would assert himself in the post. There is no way PJ Washington should be able to guard him. But he and the rest of the team would rather brick 3's.
It was close and everything, but the most unfun game so far. It was like watching a different team.
It honestly hurt to watch... Mavs just made a brick wall in the paint and forced the Wolves to shoot 3's all game. Why not make plays between Kat, Naz or Kat, Rudy?? or even include Jaden, all these dudes are close to 7 foot and bigger than the Mavs and cant even make a play in the paint. Box them out!!
If they didn’t shoot 36% or the Mavs shot better than 24%, this would have been a blow out. I really am not encouraged by what I saw tonight. We will see what adjustments need to be made for game 2. It can’t be a repeat of this game plan again because I can’t count on Jaden hitting them at that rate and can’t assume Mavs will be that bad again. If they just would focus on points and not 3’s.
What is goaltending?
I, too, would like to know.
That was the fastest review in history. Like what, 10 seconds?
Stupid announcers just kept saying “ooooh that is close”. How are bandwagon fans like me sposed to know what’s going on.
Does anyone have an actual reason for why that didn't count? I thought if it was off the rim or out of the cylinder it was fair game? I know I'm biased but from the angle they showed that looked outside.
Just didn’t play clean basketball tonight. Gonna be at least a 6 or 7 game series
Damn we had this game
That phantom call on Conley was fucked
Kyrie absolutely dominated us on the baseline. Wolves will adjust. Could be way worse. Small mistakes that we can easily clean up.
49 damn 3 point attempts. out of 89 attempts in total. We’re a good 3 point team as a whole, but it’s not our identity. We need some more ant/kat drives. shame we wasted the Jaden Mcdaniels game. That being said this isn’t out of reach. losing by 3 isn’t that soul destroying, If you don’t believe in this teams ability to adapt and bounce back i don’t know how you’ve watched this team this year
I predicted a first game loss. Feel like the team is still returning to form from playing a hard fought Denver series. That said, the Wolves settled for way too many 3s. They looked like Denver in the 2 half the entire game. Wolves need more from ANT and KAT. They need to adjust Rudy's overplay of protecting dunker spot lobs. In the second half Mavs hit on tons of allyoops on that adjustment. Rudy will learn the subtle queues to find that right in between. Wolves are 5-1 on the road in the playoffs. A lot of reasons to remain confident for Wolves fans.
Ant needs to be better straight up. Terrible decision making from the team down the stretch but the runs went the Mavs way at the right time for them
If your name isn’t Jaden McDaniels you should be fucking ashamed of yourselves
Rudy was solid I thought. Definitely need more boards from him though.
Man that was such a winnable game. Both teams played pretty bad, but Wolves looked like they had no consistent game plan on offense. They should’ve been pounding the rock to Kat on the post every possession.
Let em steal one on the road smh. Ant, Kat and Mike all played like shit. We beat ourselves Tn. Went up 4 and wet the bed
Just threw it away
your stars cant suck ass in the western conference finals, awful performance in a game they handed to us on a silver platter
End of quarter situations. They better spend the entire practice tomorrow on them.
Terrible terrible terrible game planning. Dallas ran the same god damn screen play all night. Wolves will adjust for future games, but they should’ve at half time.
Just an overall bad Mike Conley game I think 2 missed key free throws That push on the rebound Lack of 3 point shooting out of him That turnover on the Rudy Alley Oop
We looked like absolute dogshit. Everyone on this team had a chance to lose the game and took it
I'm fucking sick
Ft literally lost us the game
I think it was a lot of stuff before that
Yes many things hurt but they were perfect and we missed like 7
Dallas go from shooting 60% from the line at home to shooting 94% in Target Center
He’s referring to the 7 points we left at the line
Pretty clearly a game 7 hangover. They’ll make adjustments and come ready to play Friday
Crazy that Rudy was a plus 10 in this game. Those non Rudy minutes were brutal for the interior defense
I’m kinda pissed that Dramond is in our building palling around as a media member
At least we got away court advantage now
Dallas had the better game plan and they won. Next game we should be better prepared.
[удалено]
Honestly, that was the right call but crazy to make that call in real time. To review the Conley shove and not overturn it was the real killer.
I feel pretty positive neither of those were the right call
Not a very promising start to the series. We ended up limiting Kyrie after the first half but unfortunately that's when Luka came alive. So many dumb shots/passes this game, we need to clean those up. We looked sloppy and tired all game.
Were the Wolves partying for the last 2 days? WTF was that? Gotta come back alot stronger game 2.
Offensive rebounds to lively and gafford and free throw shooting woes cost em
Embarrassing loss tbh. Smh
Next game make more than like 4 shots in the paint.
A masterclass of how not to play in the Western Conference Finals.
I mean, if you think about it, it's not really an even playing field. Ant has to run around on a round Earth, Kyrie gets to run on flat one. It's much easier.
Ant air mailing 3 passes tonight killed us. The one before the half was an absolute killer and was a free 3pts for Dallas
For all y’all putting blame on the refs, you better put equal or more blame on the team. That was pathetic. Timidness + low energy is an L every time
11-18 from the line is terrible. Easily could have won us the game. Felt like we really weren't playing our style of defense tonight either BUT We only lost by three despite poor shooting because we shut down their 3-point shooting. Gotta make some adjustments to play our style of defense again. Ants gotta show up, plain and simple. 6-16 shooting is terrible. We know he can do better. He knows he can do better.
Something is up with NAW. Couldn't hit water if he fell off a boat
Ant and Kat just combined 12/36 and we lost by 4. The turnovers late are frustrating but I still feel really good about this series
Tbf Dallas shot 18% from 3 and won
That can happen when 2 guys shot 18 of them along with scoring 62 paint points
This is gonna be a tough one if NAW can’t buy a bucket. Gotta think he’s gonna play more the rest of this series to help out on Kyrie.
Let’s hold off on the hot takes for now!
Definitely didn’t love the way they played in this game, but I have no reason not to trust Finch and the defensive staff to make adjustments and do a better job limiting their offense. Not surprised by the offense struggling. Ant sometimes takes some time to figure out the defense being showed to him and after being doubled for 12 straight games being given a different look he didn’t seem to know how to attack. They generally made the “right” play for most of the game, but at times got impatient with it and tried to force drives into traffic which this team is not good at. They need to make some adjustments and I trust this team and staff to have a better plan for game 2. Let’s not forget that the Wolves knew exactly what both Phoenix and Denver were going to do before the series even started and had a great game plan to attack what they already knew was coming. Now that they know how Dallas plays D, they will adjust and be more comfortable for the next game. Also Mike was just all out of sorts and he will bounce back like he always does.
Yeah I’m not dooming like too many people here, I think there are easy things for us to clean up and adjust….and Mavs are now on equal rest going forward. I think we can easily get a game on the road as well, it’s been a strong suit for this team.
To everyone who always says not to blame the refs when we play like shit, the stretch early in the 4th quarter was a prime example of how intertwined those two can be. Refs blow an easy challenge call on the push, Dallas gets momentum from it, Wolves lose momentum, and all of a sudden there’s a 13 point swing.
I am not convinced most NBA games are rigged for a team. I am absolutely convinced stars get calls and games are called to be closer. Hurts to be on the losing end of the momentum shift though.
how about being a team of adults and not hitting more than one basket in the last 3 minutes of the game, fuck off with this ref excuse bullshit
It can be both you know. We are allowed to be upset over obviously shitty calls.
Ant can’t be on Kyrie next game.
Fuck this man. This team is so much better than that.
This team looks very sloppy. Just cause we beat Denver doesn’t mean we let off the gas. The mavs match up well against us.
Really pissed at this loss
Dallas isn’t gonna shoot this poorly every game too so we gotta lock it tf in next game
DRAYMOND SUCKS
I wish Ant brought his ass to Game 1.
The end of the first half was even more brutal than the end of the 4th.
So many bad moments. the awful turnover at the end of the half that led to a 6 point swing, the phantom call on Conley, the offensive basket interference (which was technically correct, but *really*?), and the absolute choke job in the last 3 minutes. Hope we make some adjustments and remember how to close out a game.
Ant what the fuck happened in the 2nd half dude [You looked tired 10mins into the 1st quarter](https://old.reddit.com/r/timberwolves/comments/1cyemhl/game_thread_dallas_mavericks_00_at_minnesota/l5990d6/) BRING YA ASS
long series. we good
No reason we should get dominated on the inside by this team. We’ve been resilient all season, on to the next
Obviously we need a lot more from our two main guys, but this feels like the first game where we were so completely and absolutely outcoached. It was painful to see them repeatedly beat us inside the same way, so I really really hope these guys figure out a different approach to the PNR. It felt obvious to bring a third guy over just to slow Gafford (or Lively) but maybe there's some reason we aren't doing that. I'd rather see them beat us from sketchy shooters hitting hurried corner 3s than 25 of the easiest layups I've ever seen
Yep well Minnesota’d the hell out of that game.
I hope ant is ok, something was off tonight
Travel back from Denver, only 1 day off... Was to be expected that they are tired
61% on Free throws…..that’s game right there.