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Post by levine on Jan 12, 2024 14:09:19 GMT -6
Portland is playing on the second night of a back-to-back after a historically bad road loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder last night, in which they trailed by 62 points after three quarters — the largest 36-minute deficit in NBA history.
Minnesota OUT: Jaylen Clark (right achilles tendon rupture rehab)
QUESTIONABLE Rudy Gobert (left hip soreness)
Portland OUT Moses Brown (left wrist fracture) Robert Williams III (right knee ligament tear) Shaedon Sharpe (adductor soreness)
DOUBTFUL: Deandre Ayton (right knee tendinitis)
PROBABLE: Jabari Walker (left knee tendinitis)
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Post by XRaySpecs on Jan 12, 2024 15:36:09 GMT -6
Hopefully the Wolves blowing that home game late last year is widely circulated to the players. An element of revenge doesn't hurt motivation.
Portland got absolutely destroyed last night. The Wolves need to put this away early.
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Post by kingsxman on Jan 12, 2024 16:11:08 GMT -6
Hopefully the Wolves blowing that home game late last year is widely circulated to the players. An element of revenge doesn't hurt motivation. Portland got absolutely destroyed last night. The Wolves need to put this away early. The fact that Portland got embarrassed last night is what makes me nervous. If they have any pride at all...they'll be trying their hardest to get the bad taste of embarrassment out of their mouths.
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Post by levine on Jan 12, 2024 16:33:06 GMT -6
We're not losing this game. They're a horrible team led by the god-awful (and thank god we didn't trade KAT for him...) Scoot Henderson.
From Blazers Edge in their thread about tonight's game:
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Post by levine on Jan 12, 2024 16:36:13 GMT -6
Plus this is the final game (and the back-end of a back-to-back) of a brutal 7 game road trip where they've been absolutely blown out 5 of the 6 games (losses by 21, 29, 33, 28 and 62).
I'll be shocked if they don't come out flat and uninspired.
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Post by levine on Jan 12, 2024 18:36:53 GMT -6
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Post by Nick K on Jan 12, 2024 19:31:43 GMT -6
Wolves up 29-7 to start.
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Post by quinn on Jan 12, 2024 19:38:57 GMT -6
We're not losing this game. They're a horrible team led by the god-awful (and thank god we didn't trade KAT for him...) Scoot Henderson.From Blazers Edge in their thread about tonight's game: No kidding. Thank goodness Tim Connelly is smarter than all of us! I couldn't have been more wrong on Scoot so far. He was hurt early on but hoooooly crap he's been bad.
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Post by quinn on Jan 12, 2024 19:40:58 GMT -6
Jaden, WTF?? WTF is he thinking right now. He's constantly driving into 2-3 guys, losing the ball and turning it over. Then he proceeds to get a T for whipping the ball at the ref. He looks like he doesn't even want to be here right now.
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Post by Nick K on Jan 12, 2024 20:28:13 GMT -6
Jaden, WTF?? WTF is he thinking right now. He's constantly driving into 2-3 guys, losing the ball and turning it over. Then he proceeds to get a T for whipping the ball at the ref. He looks like he doesn't even want to be here right now. Jaden just doesn't think much.
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Post by kingsxman on Jan 13, 2024 10:31:49 GMT -6
Jaden, WTF?? WTF is he thinking right now. He's constantly driving into 2-3 guys, losing the ball and turning it over. Then he proceeds to get a T for whipping the ball at the ref. He looks like he doesn't even want to be here right now. Very boring game which is a good thing when they take care of business so well. I was concerned because Portland was embarrased the night before. I guess they have no shame and dont care. I was surprised to see that they had Malcom Brogdon and Jeremy Grant. I had forgot about them. Simons didnt do much which was good. But one would think the 3 of them would make the team a bit better than they were. They looked like they had no clue what they were doing. I think you have to look at Chauncy for that. Anyway, the biggest takeaway is we took care of business but as Quinn said above....the McD stuff is concerning. There doesnt seem to be a "getting it" factor with him right now in terms to fouling and his anger issues. Not sure what to do about that. I havent read anything yet on the game but curious if Finch was asked about that at all.
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Post by jojo on Jan 13, 2024 11:47:53 GMT -6
Jaden seems to be going through a phase but he is still busting his butt guarding the best scorer every night. That’s helping the team win even if he’s not putting up stats to everyone’s satisfaction. Would like to see Ant take on some of that and give Jaden a breather at times.
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Post by XRaySpecs on Jan 13, 2024 12:48:43 GMT -6
The Wolves took care of business. Jaden was disappointing to start, but he calmed down and was great on Simons. Our bigs were great. They bullied Portland. I liked the decision making from Ant. He realized he didn't need to do it himself and spread things around. Hopefully we can keep up this focus against these bottom teams here as we have Detroit, Memphis (Bane sprained an ankle last night), Charlotte, and Washington within the next 6 games.
The only downer was the play of the deep bench. Just horrendous defense in that 4th quarter and it's not the first time. A few times this year, the Wolves pulled the rotation guys and the bench guys just allow baskets way too easily. We'd probably have a couple additional games of holding teams under 100 if the bench guys weren't so bad defensively. I'm still hopeful on Miller. I think added strength will help him a lot. I'm losing confidence though in Minott. Seems the same as last year. No added strength or skill. Moore Jr. shouldn't have had his option picked up.
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Post by levine on Jan 13, 2024 13:12:25 GMT -6
The only downer was the play of the deep bench. Just horrendous defense in that 4th quarter and it's not the first time. A few times this year, the Wolves pulled the rotation guys and the bench guys just allow baskets way too easily. We'd probably have a couple additional games of holding teams under 100 if the bench guys weren't so bad defensively. I'm still hopeful on Miller. I think added strength will help him a lot. I'm losing confidence though in Minott. Seems the same as last year. No added strength or skill. Moore Jr. shouldn't have had his option picked up. I think we saw last night just how vital Naz and SloMo are to this team. If we move either one of them for a guard, we literally only have 3 bigs that you can play on the roster. Any talk that Miller or Minott can come in and give you "x%" of either guy should be a non-starter.
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Post by XRaySpecs on Jan 13, 2024 14:38:36 GMT -6
The only downer was the play of the deep bench. Just horrendous defense in that 4th quarter and it's not the first time. A few times this year, the Wolves pulled the rotation guys and the bench guys just allow baskets way too easily. We'd probably have a couple additional games of holding teams under 100 if the bench guys weren't so bad defensively. I'm still hopeful on Miller. I think added strength will help him a lot. I'm losing confidence though in Minott. Seems the same as last year. No added strength or skill. Moore Jr. shouldn't have had his option picked up. I think we saw last night just how vital Naz and SloMo are to this team. If we move either one of them for a guard, we literally only have 3 bigs that you can play on the roster. Any talk that Miller or Minott can come in and give you "x%" of either guy should be a non-starter. I've gone back and forth on whether trading SloMo for a guy like Tyus would make sense, but you're right that he's hard to replace. He may not be great as a SF (without spacing), but he certainly provides versatility. KAT and Jaden are both foul prone and Kyle can fill in for either defensively as far as what matchups he can take. This team's identity is about defense and trading Kyle would eat into that. It seems trading him could open up a bigger hole that we fill elsewhere.
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Post by Nick K on Jan 13, 2024 22:55:08 GMT -6
The only downer was the play of the deep bench. Just horrendous defense in that 4th quarter and it's not the first time. A few times this year, the Wolves pulled the rotation guys and the bench guys just allow baskets way too easily. We'd probably have a couple additional games of holding teams under 100 if the bench guys weren't so bad defensively. I'm still hopeful on Miller. I think added strength will help him a lot. I'm losing confidence though in Minott. Seems the same as last year. No added strength or skill. Moore Jr. shouldn't have had his option picked up. I think we saw last night just how vital Naz and SloMo are to this team. If we move either one of them for a guard, we literally only have 3 bigs that you can play on the roster. Any talk that Miller or Minott can come in and give you "x%" of either guy should be a non-starter.
SloMo is a different kind of guy where even if he doesn't score he brings value to us. It's maddening to me, but he's an overall asset for us.
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