2023 Wolves

Fun season.

Irving and Luka are gamers.

notes taken…..

i have not watched playoff ball in 2 decades and it is pretty obvious home court means absolutely ZERO in the NBA. They got to get smarter if that is even possible? Out coached and out played but none the less a super successful season. Luka is a killer like nothing I have ever seen. he deserves the MVP of the playoffs. Wow just wow!

Wolves back in 2025

The franchise took another step in the right direction.

AK Guy wrote:

The franchise took another step in the right direction.

Very true!

I generally agree with the assessment. Certainly in the grand scheme of things, finishing 3rd in the conference (only 2 games back of first overall?) and making it to the conference finals is a successful season, given the failures of this franchise in recent memory.

At the same time, it was kind of an embarrassing way to end the season. Slaughtered on home court in an elimination game? I mean they weren’t even really competitive from the start and that didn’t change all game.

Sometimes you can learn from losses though. Its valuable post season experience for the future.

Luka almost looks to be unathletic when standing next to many of the other NBA athletes, but man are those looks deceiving. Luka can play well at all aspects of the game and can he shoot !!!

I watch almost zero NBA games except wolves play-off games. In retrospect I am glad I got to watch Luka play … Irving is certainly a player and a huge late pic up by the Mavs. Unlikely to watch a minute of the Celtics-Mavs finals … on to MN summer stuff.

Bring ya ass maybe next year.

Brittman wrote:

Luka almost looks to be unathletic

I’ve posted about this before and I agree. He doesn’t appear to be athletic at all. It looks like he’s playing in slow motion. Certainly not the traditional prototype player in today’s NBA, that’s for sure.

Outside of last night’s debacle, the Wolves had a legitimate chance to win each of the first 3 games of this series…this playoff run will go a long way in terms of building a championship mindset for our young kids, it will be upto them what they do with it…

The good news is that we have finally ironed out who the leader is of this team and the rest of the players are settling into their roles, i’m excited to see what this core can do moving forward.

The bad news is that the rest of the top West teams (Denver, Dallas, Oklahoma) are in a similar situation with good young cores and will be good for a long time, so it will be a battle every post season…

The next steps for the GM/Staff is figuring out what skillsets are needed to fill in the roster gaps (This will be difficult as we are already in the luxury tax level and we have very limited draft picks the next 3-4 years)

I really enjoyed watching the wolves all season. It is easy I guess when they were the best team in the west for 90% of the season!
It was a great season, hope they can find a way to improve in spite of thier future salary restraints.

It just seemed they got tired as the playoffs went on. I also we as fans really latched onto their performance in games 1 and 2 of the Denver series. The wolves proved they were not capable of sustaining that kind of defensive mastery. Our offense is just not good enough to beat a Mavs or Nuggets team by offense alone. And if a team is hot and is going to shoot 50% even against strong not great defense the wolves are in trouble. That is without saying they need to be better at home in the playoffs! losing 5 of the last 6 at home is beyond unacceptable.

eyeguy507 wrote:

notes taken…..

What do you mean by this? Like we can’t criticize a team that has made the Conference finals twice in their entire existence, or what happens?

It was a fun season, and some big steps were taken. From getting to the WCF, Ant ascending to the lead dog, KAT seemingly being ok as #2, and at times some suffocating defense.

There also are some glaring deficiencies. Ant is not better than Joker, Luka or Kyrie right now, and that is just off of the teams we played. And both him and KAT vanished in the WCF. I also have significant questions about Finch and the coaching staff. They gave up huge leads last year against Memphis and Denver, had 0 answers for Joker, Luka or Kyrie this year, and have not shown themselves capable of winning close games at the end, it’s all boom or bust.

Matchups are crazy. Everyone thought we had no chance against the Suns and they mopped the floor with them. No chance against Jokic and the Nuggets but squeaked it out. Consensus was we would take down Dallas and they handled us relatively easy. I think the Nuggets would have beat down the Mavs if they played each other. Obviously Luka played out of his ass cause if he was always that awesome Dallas wouldnt have been a 5th seed. Congrats to them. Luka is only 25 so antman better up his game.

It was a fun ride while it lasted Hopefully grow on this season and next year, were back babay !!!!

A lot is lost on the fact that Dallas really improved their team at the deadline. If it was the regular season roster I think the wolves would have faired much better but they had more depth now than earlier. Doncic is just ridiculous! The guy looks like the JOhn Daly of BB but shoots the lights out.

BigWerm wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>eyeguy507 wrote:</div>
notes taken…..

What do you mean by this? Like we can’t criticize a team that has made the Conference finals twice in their entire existence, or what happens?

It was a fun season, and some big steps were taken. From getting to the WCF, Ant ascending to the lead dog, KAT seemingly being ok as #2, and at times some suffocating defense.

There also are some glaring deficiencies. Ant is not better than Joker, Luka or Kyrie right now, and that is just off of the teams we played. And both him and KAT vanished in the WCF. I also have significant questions about Finch and the coaching staff. They gave up huge leads last year against Memphis, had 0 answers for Joker, Luka or Kyrie, and have not shown themselves capable of winning close games at the end, it’s all boom or bust.

I’m curious what people thought they should have done differently with Luka, Joker, and Kyrie?

They beat Jokic last I checked. He feasted on Gobert, but he’s generally feasted on everyone for a few years now. It’s not like Finch and company were the first to be exploited by him for stretches of games.

Luka literally lit up the best perimeter defender the Wolves had in McDaniels who has quickness + length. Short of magically skirting rules and making a mid-May player trade, I’m not sure what else could’ve been done.

Kyrie is a guy who has been on deep playoff runs and made shots and is a champion. It’s not like he’s suddenly going to roll over and die in a big spot because of some coaching scheme. He also weighs about 180# and is a long day to cover for ANT when matched up.

Dallas was better, and generally the better teams win in a 7 game series. ANT is an amazing talent but he’s not the next MJ. He’s a top 10 player in the league which is more than enough to win with. It will be interesting to see if he takes it to the next level and becomes one of the 2 or 3 faces of the league someday.

buckybadger wrote:

I’m curious what people thought they should have done differently with Luka, Joker, and Kyrie?

They beat Jokic last I checked. He feasted on Gobert, but he’s generally feasted on everyone for a few years now. It’s not like Finch and company were the first to be exploited by him for stretches of games.

Luka literally lit up the best perimeter defender the Wolves had in McDaniels who has quickness + length. Short of magically skirting rules and making a mid-May player trade, I’m not sure what else could’ve been done.

Kyrie is a guy who has been on deep playoff runs and made shots and is a champion. It’s not like he’s suddenly going to roll over and die in a big spot because of some coaching scheme. He also weighs about 180# and is a long day to cover for ANT when matched up.

Dallas was better, and generally the better teams win in a 7 game series. ANT is an amazing talent but he’s not the next MJ. He’s a top 10 player in the league which is more than enough to win with. It will be interesting to see if he takes it to the next level and becomes one of the 2 or 3 faces of the league someday.

So what they just pack up shop and head home until those guys retire? Or maybe figure out a way to beat them? That’s kind of the coaches job imo. Vegas and most of the experts had the Wolves favored against the Mavs, overall and in nearly every game. And they almost got swept. When Luka started the game on fire AND talking smack to the whole arena last night, someone should have put a forearm in his chest and let him know we are going to be physical and there are consequences. Shouldn’t take a coach saying it but that is like basketball 101. Then Slo-Mo is also about the only one to fight thru a screen against the Mavs, which again is a pretty basic defense that is on the coach. How many times did a big end up on Kyrie or Luka? Way more than the never that should have happened. I think Finch and team are decent coaches, but this is 2 years in a row that they lost the coaching matchup.

BigWerm wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>eyeguy507 wrote:</div>
notes taken…..

What do you mean by this? Like we can’t criticize a team that has made the Conference finals twice in their entire existence, or what happens?

You can criticize all you want?????

Wolves hopefully learned what it takes to get to the finals after this run……notes taken

Finch is the best coach this franchise has ever had IMO. RIP to the great Flip Saunders.

I agree they should have gotten physical early and often but they didn’t. I ain’t pinning that on the coaches because none of us on were there in those meetings.

Ant has a chance to be the greatest player in franchise history. The sky is not falling. We finally have a team built to compete for the foreseeable future. Top 5 in the west give or take.

The only thing I don’t understand is the playoff record at home. It’s almost unfathomable to lose that many games and make it this deep. I’d love to see some stats on how often this has ever happened

I don’t think many teams get beat when they shoot like Dallas did last night. Fun season. I watched more games this year than ever before. Dallas played well. I hope Boston spanks them but I don’t see that happening.

I held very little hope for a series comeback after going down 0-3, but I wish we could’ve gone out a little more competitively than that. Hats-off to Dallas, they rose to the occasion–unreal shooting by that team. It’s painful to watch Luca Doncic even walk, but the guy can play and can absolutely will the 3’s.

eyeguy507 wrote:

You can criticize all you want?????

Sorry I misunderstood your “….notes taken” post to mean you were taking notes on anybody criticizing the Wolves.

As I think I posted earlier, the narratives were Ant is the next MJ/Kobe, McDaniels is Pippen 2.0, Rudy is 4x DPOY making him one of the greatest defenders ever, and KAT is the self proclaimed greatest shooting big man of all time. Reality sure didn’t match any of that narrative.

BigWerm wrote:

Sorry I misunderstood your “….notes taken” post to mean you were taking notes on anybody criticizing the Wolves.

As I think I posted earlier, the narratives were Ant is the next MJ/Kobe, McDaniels is Pippen 2.0, Rudy is 4x DPOY making him one of the greatest defenders ever, and KAT is the self proclaimed greatest shooting big man of all time. Reality sure didn’t match any of that narrative.

None of what you have posted isnt true. They just fell apart in this series. I dont watch a lot of basketball, but I have seen enough to know that this team is very capable of winning it all if they just execute. Is it coaching making changes? IDK maybe just execution. They have beaten all of the top teams in the league and handed them their first loss. We lost focus on that. Plus our guys never really took games off unlike many other teams. I think they were just gassed at the end here.

I think Dallas was the hottest NBA team the last month or so? I’m not sure the Wolves were ever the favorites anywhere other than Minnesota.

Plenty of room for the bandwagon jumpers to hit the Twins wagon.

The better team won this series. I think that Dallas played by far their best basketball of the season in this series. It looked at times like they just could not do anything wrong. Luka is a incredible player and he played at the top of his game in this series. Good season for the wolves and hopefully they can build on it next seaason.

I like Finch but I think the coaches should be getting most of the blame for this series loss. Sure its hard to beat them the way Doncic was shooting but they didn’t get physical with him at all and let him have a 2 foot cushion to shoot. I guy like that you have to get in his face to get him off his game. He’s not going to beat you off the dribble.

Also the clock management was terrible down the stretch where at times they should have called a time out. I think there was a couple games that the Timberwolves had timeouts left at the end of this series. Even last night in the first they should of called a timeout rather than just let Luka keep on scoring. Rudy was also gassed in the first but Finch kept him in there.

This team should be really happy with this season and I’m excited for the future. I just hope the coaches and players learn from this run.

Dutchboy wrote:

I think Dallas was the hottest NBA team the last month or so? I’m not sure the Wolves were ever the favorites anywhere other than Minnesota.

Plenty of room for the bandwagon jumpers to hit the Twins wagon.

Just about every Vegas sportsbook had the Wolves as the favorite.

Is there even a wagon to jump on yet at the ol ballpark? Once the chosen one is back from rehab, I will have to watch a few games.

KP wrote:

I like Finch but I think the coaches should be getting most of the blame for this series loss. Sure its hard to beat them the way Doncic was shooting but they didn’t get physical with him at all and let him have a 2 foot cushion to shoot. I guy like that you have to get in his face to get him off his game. He’s not going to beat you off the dribble.

Agree to disagree. Players admitting fatigue is not a coaching problem. Finchy having to coach from the second row is not a coaching thing. I can agree that they got outcoached by Kidd to some extent but no way I am blaming our coaching staff.
As for guarding Luka. They were wrapped on him and he does whatever he wants. His signature shot is literally a step back one footer that goes in no matter what you do. That’s why he has space to shoot. Unless you break his arm like I suggested, you not stopping him. They should have bodied him early in the post but didn’t. Maybe the outcome would have been different. Maybe?

Whenever they guarded him tight he didnt score but too often there was too much room. Those shots from mid court were just ridiculous! Who is going to expect that?

They way he was shooting with a broken arm he would have just shot with his off hand and probably still hit 50%.

Luka is an amazing shot creator very similar to Jokic.

Who would have thought the West would be paced by a couple out of shape white boys from overseas? Not I. It’s going to be tough sledding in the West next handful of years. They better be ready