Wolves giveth hope, wolves taketh hope away

This has always been my problem with the Finch Timberwolves going back to the Grizzlies series. They’re insanely volatile. 

Castle took over at that point and led an awesome response. 

Can’t believe a team would ever let the Spurs do that.

Julius Randle

Wemby ain’t falling for their shit again lol

He’s crushing ‘em

Second highest ceiling on the team and that’s from somebody that loves Castle.

Castle and Harper with Wemby is 2012 OKC big 3 vibes

Is it crazy to say that he could be as good as Cade?

That 1 dunk was impressive felt like he didn’t have his legs under him, and them 5 offensive rebounds were big time!

This series has caused me a lot of stress and doubt which isn’t shocking because the Timberwolves are a really good team. But the absolute biggest bright spot is Dylan Harper. Playoff experience is like gold that only few can enjoy and the fact that he’s showing out off the bench as a rookie gives me a great feeling that he’ll make a big leap in the years to come.

Helps that Harper can shoot

That was when Fox was the 2nd best player on the team

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Biyombo more conference finals than Embiid, food for thought.

My favorite player ever I love Bis

A backup guard getting 10 boards where he’s going against Naz, Randle, and/or Gobert at any time seems otherworldly. That rebound out of position over Conley was just absurd.

I was in shock seeing he only scored 12 after I saw the box score. They were indeed a loud 12

It’s because he’s so damn efficient with it. So we never see him miss anything basically these days

I think this is who Randle is, he is exceptional at a single style of basketball. Bully ball attacking while drawing fouls and his drive pull up shot and hitting a few as well. I think Wemby is probably the worst match up for him and the rest of the Spurs team has pretty exceptional defense that he struggles to work around.

Put him in a situation where he can succeeded and he will like verse Denver. But he’s not versatile enough to be effective in more situations like Edwards can be.

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Damn, is this series the tipping point?

Wolves fans are calling for randles neck 😬

I thought he finally turned it around last year. Was actually impressed with his play.

Haven’t watched you guys all season except our games. Has he been that bad? I’ll always respect him for helping to get the Knicks on track and in the playoffs but knew we could not continue with him

Dubious Handle is my single favourite NBA nickname of all time, it really is. Its almost perfect.

Somehow?

Respect to Mike Conley and Ant and NAZ REID.

Harper is so smooth and composed for a rookie, it’s ridiculous

Do you know how many times I had to read or hear that the Spurs were stupid for taking him over Kon and VJ? Hopefully this puts that to bed.

He has insane confidence to play at this level in the playoffs as a rookie. He’s arguably our 2nd best player after Wemby this playoffs.

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“The People’s Elbow” lolol

Dylan Harper is so fucking awesome already

The People’s Elbow should become one of Wemby’s nicknames.

I never liked the nickname alien in the first place.

Sounds so weak and harmless.

The people’s elbow is so tuff

Like our offense was saved by the fact that we have 2 of the best volume 3pt shooters in the nba.

Everyone should try having 2 of the best volume 3pt shooters in the nba. Can confirm it makes things easier.

Yeah but Ant has been insane. I think he is the best pure scorer in the league right now. Even better than Shai.

Naz Reid has been the Wolves most playable big this series. Any chance we see him start next game and Randle to the bench? Getting some looks in non Wemby non Ant minutes might get him going but honestly Randles been abysmal this series except for rebounding.

Rudy at least had been finishing well up until this game. Bad time for him to play so poorly. I give him a pass though.

Randle on the other hand, has he forgotten how to shoot a normal jumper? Everything is wildly flailing off balance trying to draw a foul. Seems like he has no confidence in his game right now. You are right that they can’t play those two together.

McDaniel’s reverted back to getting a bunch of dumb fouls too, which forced Finch to play some less than ideal lineups.

Such is this Wolves team. High highs and low lows. Hope they can catch fire in game 6 because without Donte, it seems like the Spurs have them figured out.

Ayo is hurt as well 

If he didn’t lose his cool then, he 100% woulda lost it during the OKC series by like Game 2. Better to make the mistake and learn now.

It is what it is. We’ve been better on shorter rest anyways but the series is far from over.

Spurs are a young enough team that I can cope and say the extra games worth of experience is worth more than the rest.

Honestly okc getting rest is a disadvantage

at least that got the refs to call it a lot better than what it was. everyone gonna complain but wemby was clearly held and pushed every possession before the elbow

Iron sharpens iron

I was told that Randle would be the Wemby stopper. lol

i thought he played good D, but yeah having Randle as your 2nd best player is rough.

Well their roster thrives off weak interior defense, so yeah

Tbf, it took them to 2 conference finals

You can’t argue with results lol.

They aren’t healthy. A rematch between healthy wolves and improved Spurs would be awesome next year

Team is playing without its only other perimeter difference maker in Donte, and Ant has 2 bad knees.

Really not a fair statement to make after a series that isn’t even over yet.

I don’t think the gap is huge between Twolves and contenders. I just think their brand of basketball with no PG and Rudy+Julius makes them a really high variance team and its hard to win 4 series in a row like that

Timberwolves have no plan on offense just pray Edwards or Naz Reid does something amazing 

The physicality is because we’re outmatched so we got to drag the other team down into the mud with us. It worked against the Nuggets because they’re soft but the Spurs have too many dawgs on that team.

Ant is going to die of exhaustion from having to carry on both sides of the floor while Randle can barely decide if he wants to be good or not.

It also doesn’t help that Jaden is a #³⁄₄ on a good team and Naz is a 6th man. The only saving grace is Ayo who can apply pressure outside of Ant.

Reading way too much into this. Losing Donte was absolutely huge for our offensive spacing and our defense, and Ant is playing with double knee injuries. This will be a “what if” season, happens to a lot of teams. Can’t predict injuries.

No matter what next round (assuming spurs advance) the Thunder are going to be much more experienced and composed, but being able to make mistakes here and get an actual challenge from the wolves could be what evens the playing field enough for them.

Spurs in SIX

Nah thats just classic Wolves 

Fuck no. He’s a more skilled player for sure but Shaq is far and away the most imposing player to ever play basketball. The entire opposing team could be grouped under the rim and it didn’t matter, he would just bulldoze them and literally rip the backboard down. When all said and done Wemby will probably fall on the all time list as a better player than Shaq, but will never usurp him as the most physically dominant player of all time imo.

More skilled yes, more foceful? Hell no. Shaq could have 3 Mcdaniels strapped to him like a backpack and he would’ve still dunked it.

I see those Wolves guards second guessing their passes to him

Wemby is a different beast and spurs have a deeper team. Unfortunately yalls team never clicked.

Because nuggets are nowhere as good on defense as the spurs, and the spurs punish Rudy’s bad offensive game. Nuggets really don’t.

He’s not burdened to be productive offensively against Denver when Denver’s defense is nonexistent. Denver doesn’t have any slashers to put pressure on Gobert as well.

Hes a good post defender not a good mobile center

Two plays from Castle really stood out to me:

• Him dribbling by every Wolves defender for an easy layup, causing Finch to call a timeout. It felt like it happened in slow motion.
• His baseline drive towards the basket where he got up for the dunk. It felt like he jumped from under the basket, I was amazed how quickly he got up and was able to get it in.

Sorry if it’s not 100% clear which plays are which, I don’t exactly remember which quarter each was

OKC is weird because they are a bit smaller than the Spurs but they have better sustain offense and defense. But they can be bullied by physicality if the refs let them play, they almost go out two times last playoff going to 7 two times.

Yeah, let’s see what he can do when he has to deal with playoff physicality…

That’s a declaration of war

Frankly, I’m happy things have played out as they have. That game 1 loss showed a bit of inexperience (just chucking up an insane amount of 3s lmao), and Wemby losing his cool likely needed to happen before they play OKC.