[Hine] Ayo Dosunmu is back tonight after missing the last 2 games, the team announces
Going straight to the rack in those non Wemby minutes.
Tbf, the Timberwolves were going straight to the rack when Wemby was in the game.
Yeah I like how they went about it. If he blocks it, there’s a decent chance we can still retain possession too. Happened a few times last game.
I also think its a big reason he looked so gassed late in the game. He’s going to get a lot of blocks but that takes a lot of energy to be constantly having to defend the rim
Tire him out and having him have to try and drive on Rudy or deal with physicality from Randle and Reid and he won’t have the energy to score as well. Fox gotta step up as a contributor because him having an average scoring game leads to a W for the Spurs
Yeah it’s a great strategy. Our best gameplan might be to let Wemby focus on defense and be a decoy on offense. But we need our guards to step up. Those Fox turnovers were sooooo bad.
He doesn’t have the stamina to go so hard on defense and still be as effective on offense.
And you’re right, a certain percentage on those blocks will go right back to the Timberwolves anyway, so you might as well make him tired in the process.
Yeah, he referenced that directly in his post-game comments. I imagine at some point he’ll just start staying vertical and moving his feet more. He really doesn’t need to be swatting and jumping all over the place to be effective.
His post-game comments actually said he wasted energy on offense doing things that didnt end up helping the team.
He wasnt talking about defense at all.
Know how to use my energy. I used a lot of it on one side of the court, and on the other side offensively I used too much energy on things that really didn’t help our team.
My read is that, yes he’s most concerned with not wasting possessions, but that generally he wants to use his energy more efficiently.
Imo you’re overcomplicating his answer a bit. I dont think he’s addressing that at all here. He’s a very literal speaker and if he thought, he wasted energy on defense he’d say that. Instead he specifically highlights where he wasted the energy.
I don’t think he’s gunna change his defense approach at all. I do think they’ll change his offensive approach pretty significantly. Less wrestling matches. More misdirection. Etc.
He used a lot of energy fighting for position that he ultimately still lost a lot of the time.
At the end of the day, we just see this answer differently because we see this problem a little differently and our responses are colored by that.
I do see what you’re saying. I think we just disagree on the margins.
He looked gassed cause he played 40 minutes. At his size and how he plays on both ends that’s just a ton.
Yeah, but with him off they were getting destroyed so they can’t really do normal minutes. Obviously small sample size (with only 8 minutes off), but Spurs were a net +8.9 rating when on the court and a horrible -65.5 when off.
-65.5 holy shit lol. Wemby’s gonna have to get used to playing more than his usual 28-30 minutes without getting tired if they want to have a chance cause that’s brutal.
Timberwolves always use their size and athleticism to wear teams the fuck out in the playoffs. Superstar bigs get to deal with heavy pressure from a rotation of Gobert, Randal, and Naz.
Superstar guards get to enjoy the experience of having 6’10 Jaden McDaniels draped over them for 94 feet and 40+ minutes per game like some sort of wet blanket of sadness.
Yeah I went back and counted. In 5⁄12 of the blocks, Wolves retained possession. Conley scored a 3 off one of those blocks.
This is why Rudy prioritizes getting possession over blocking. In almost half of his blocks, Wemby just exerted extra energy and his team didn’t even get the ball.
Which is also due to the fact other spurs were rebounding badly
Wemby has been pretty good at stripping the balls while blocking all season, something like 75% of his blocks led to a possession.
Wemby next to a rebounding big would be game over for the league. Get him a tall beefy 4
Yea, sadly our only other proper big Kornet is way too slow we can’t play them both right now.
In a weird way I feel like Sabonis would be perfect next to him
Yeah I was noticing that too, he’d get a block but he’d be sprawled out on the floor afterwards and no other big on the floor for the Spurs while the Wolves got like 3 6’10 guys out there so they can just clean the rebound easily.
We scored 6 points on offensive rebounds right after a Wemby block, literally decided the game in the end
Exactly. He’ll either block it, goaltend, or foul.
And last game that all resulted in spurs ball. Maybe this game we’ll get a little more benefit there
It’s a good strategy too they could get the o rebound and defense is out of position then and also it wears wemby down from constantly protecting the paint
“Just play like he’s not there”
The dude is frail, launching your body into him at top speed repeatedly will have an impact at some point
Randle did so well on screening/voxing Wemby out
not successfully unless they set an off ball illegal screen on him. they shot like 40% with him on the floor while they shot like 70% with kornet in the game
The person just said we were going straight to the rack regardless of wemby being out there or not. Said nothing about the efficiency of it.
to go to the rack you have to get him out of there first, so the post youre replying to is correct
i mean no, not really.
we attacked the rim plenty while wemby was right there
wait.. wait. im so messed up im thinking about lakers playing spurs.. yeah yeah we did. i remember cause i saw the blocks and went “jfc what are we gonna do”. but tbh i remember a lot more Randle Isos?
It was successful because he was a complete ghost and detriment to his team in the 4th quarter. Several of his blocks also led directly to wolves open shots where he was completely out of position.
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He was getting pushed around like a tooth pick on defense in the 4th and had little to no defensive impact. Died on screens, out of position, and slow to the play.
Youre correct that he was bad offensively all game.
None of that held true in the 4th quarter. He was a traffic cone in the wrong spots and the wolves had free access to the rim.
Blocked shots counts as FGA hence why the percentage was low after 12 blocked shots
I’d expect to see more of those Gortat screens tonight from Randle.
He also got away with some goaltends. Refs aren’t gonna call everything especially in the playoffs
i mean he got away with 1 on terrance shannon jr. make it above 40% then
Scott Foster is the crew chief tonight - which way will he call Wemby - blocks or goal tends?
My guess is he calls goaltends on both teams tonight. I think he thrives on pissing off everybody lol.
this
Depends on what you’re using to measure success. They definitely succeeded in throwing him off his game and tiring him out.
ayo doesn’t have a left hand, as someone who watched a lot of bulls games, it is very noticeable he only drives right
i’m sure the spurs film crew would be all over it & wemby would probably have a field day with it ngl
Let them know about TSJ’s right hand as well lol
Just slot em in on opposing sides of the court like wingers in football and call it a day
i love ayo and genuinely hope the wolves go all the way for him, but i dare you to even go back to the highlights where he scored 43, all jumpers or right hand drives. the 2 points he scored going left, he settled for an odd looking floater.
it’s a very big flaw in his game that many don’t really see
You misunderstand. TJ legit doesn’t have a right hand and was able to produce. Ayo not having a left isn’t that big a problem.
TJ is the opposite and it worked out in game 1, so well see
The point they were trying to make is that TJ Shannon cannot use his right hand at all. Like left handed finishing exclusively.
And we made that work.
So at the moment there isn’t a lot of concern about Ayo only using his right
Because even when TJ drives right he finishes left. So it’s no different, he can still drive both sides but I’m unsure Ayo can.
I mean TSJ doesn’t have a right hand and he blew by them all night in game 1
And knocking down 3s during the Wemby minutes
All 4 of them
Basically all they needed game 1
👀 is he?
Sad perk of being a Kings fan that has been given a single decent team in the last 20 years is I’ve learned to fully embrace a bandwagon
AWOOOOOOO
Lmao if you told a 20 year old me other fan bases will be bandwagoning on the T-Wolves I would’ve smacked you.
frankly, it’s hard not to root for you guys after watching your team eat one piece of shitty luck after another but somehow still come out swinging every time
obviously if my team were still relevant i’d be rooting for them but, you know, we never are these days 🥀
so out of everyone else, you guys have easily the best narrative for neutrals to root for. multiple injuries to key players and still taking out the nuggets as the nominal underdog in that matchup, then coming into another matchup where you were largely written off and, still limping, drawing first blood against a very good, almost completely healthy team (carter bryant is a fine player, but if a single bench role player being questionable is the extent of the injuries, you’re doing ok). especially notable since this is like the 3rd year in a row of you guys doing stuff like this
I just want 1 of my teams to win a championship before I die. The only one I was alive for were the ‘91 Twins and I was only 3 years old. No memory of it. Minnesota needs 1. Just 1. We’re not asking for a lot. lol…but seriously.
lol the worst part for me is that I don’t give a shit about the other major NA sports, it’s just basketball and tennis for me. so when we embarrass ourselves, most of my fellow Rockets fans at least get to be like ‘ugh, but hey at least the astros won a couple’ (and i think they’re good rn?? idk) and i’m just stuck here like ‘THAT IS ZERO CONSOLATION TO ME UNFORTUNATELY’
haha. I care about them all but the Wolves are where my hope and belief really lies at the moment.
Wild: About to break our hearts again.
Twins: Have…issues
Vikings: Are like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.
I was born 8 months after the 91 twins. It’s been rough.
We deserve nice things too.
this lol.. so much this
Ah, to be 24 again….
Y’all are America’s Team this year fr
I was on the light the beam bandwagon, fanbases like ours have to stay together!
Yeah I’ve always had a soft spot for the Wolves. We were like the dysfunctional dumbasses in the West repeatedly doing the wrong thing for most of the 2010s.
Yall have firmly left us behind these last few years but its ok!
Yeah we were through the trenches together for quite awhile, not many had it worse than us. The Kings time will come too, crossing my fingers the lottery gods finally reward you like they did with us getting Ant
Lottery gods + new ownership
I never thought I would like Alex Rodriguez. It still feels wrong sometimes.
Wolves fans know the struggle so welcome aboard!
lets goooooooo
Daddy’s home
They get a good defender and if he scores that is a bonus. This means they could slow Harper down a bit since Fox has McDaniels on him.
Yeah, a lot of people here are talking about his offense, but his speed on defense will really help
Great call.
Also, it’s tough to depend solely on Mike and Bones (who needs to stop chucking) because if both of them are off, where else does our shot making come from in the backcourt
beautiful, if lightning strikes (twice?) maybe we’ll see you in the finals 😍
That would be so fun. I love KAT so even if we were to lose, at least there would be a silver lining. Of course I would want to destroy you, but at the same time give KAT a hug. lol
Likewise! Will always be happy to see Julius and Donte getting flowers
Oh hell yeah
Wolves in 5
^^^Scared of the Spurs^^^
If the spurs can’t beat Minnesota, they would never win against OKC.
That’s not how the NBA and matchups work
They have looked good against OKC this season, which ofc is why you’re scared.
This ain’t the regular season anymore chief.
Denver beat Minnesota in the regular season, look how that turned out. 2 years ago the suns swept the wolves in regular season, look at how that also turned out
Thunder/Wolves if Ant can get close to healthy would be much more entertaining and close even if the pundits think the Spurs would have a higher chance of the upset
When the wolves were up 3-1 I was like “I want to root for the wolves, but I think the nuggets have a better chance against the top two teams”. Now we’re here and I caught myself thinking “I want to root for the wolves, but the spurs have a better chance against the thunder”. But fuck it. Let’s go wolves!
We’ll almost certainly break your heart, but it’s better to root with your heart anyway.
Spooky hours for the Spurs rn
I hope it’s not too soon, calf injuries can be problematic.
Bless the legs and keep them healthy.
Spurs fukt
going to make the other coaching staff’s life difficult by having a different set of guys every night
this is the 5th different look out of our top 7 guys
Yes sirrr
trap game, the extender is reffing this one
to be honest, with Foster reffing, I don’t even know which team you’re talking about. I feel like if he had his way, both teams would lose. lol
I like you Wolves bros but game 1 has y’all talking CRAZY lmao
Yall were spicy the 4 days after our series with Denver ended til Edwards was announced back. It’s okay
tbf it is a completely different series with no ant. but you are right it is in fact ok
The amount of people I saw saying that it wouldn’t even make a difference if Ant came back was crazy lol
I mean I didn’t see that at all but rest assured I agree those people are dumb
Twitter can be toxic
Its just sports talk my guy no need to take it so seriously 🥀
my brother we both just left a reddit comment how am I taking it any more seriously than you lol
because quite simply, your reply wasnt whimsical enough 🌟
Fair enough I’ll work on my whimsy
real talk though, last year playoffs it was posted in the wolves sub our referee win rates and foster was like our 2nd worst one (brothers might have been first i cant remember) so im expecting that to continue
foster games feels like everyone loses
since our series is the battle of communism hoops we might not feel his impact but he always finds a way
They are extra spicy right now. I’m eager for this game to start and end.
Just so things can be normal again lol
i hope he balls out!
Let’s get another 2-0 night going, Wolves 💪🏿
Trying to see y’all go as far as possible… Unless you meet us then I’m no longer rooting for y’all.
Time to top that 43pt game with a 53pt game
Wolves sweep ?
If this dude really shows up this series like he did vs the Nuggets, you’re gonna have to get him paid
Spurs are done
I dunno, I got PTSD when somebody with a calf strain comes back to play in the playoffs.
Curious what happens to TSJ minutes.
Less Bones and Clark.
It might be over
Ayo who cares