A real game wrap
by Stop-n-Pop on Jan 27, 2010 10:09 PM CST
17 comments
It was close folks. Somewhere in the late 2nd quarter I started fiddling around with my Korean cook books with the full intention of having to pull out yet another recipe for yet another blow-out game wrap. While the game really wasn't as close as the final score indicated (LeBron only played 30 minutes while Shaq played less than 20, effectively turning the Cleveland LeBrons into the Cleveland Boobies with 38 minutes from Mr. Gibson), it was close enough to write about a few key points.
Let's start with a very interesting Four Factors:
|
The Wolves ended the game with 8 turnovers. Where they were done in was at the line and from inside the paint. The Cavs went 24-28 from the line. They took 22 fewer shots from the floor as the Wolves yet they made 3 more shots. That's pretty damn impressive. They did this on a night where LeBron went 3-8 from the floor. How did they score so many points? They did it with a massive positive point differential in the paint. 69 of the Cavs' 109 points came from their front court rotation. Their entire roster was able to get into the lane and score at will. LeBron was able to set up his teammates at amazingly close ranges to the rim. According to HoopData's box score, the Cavs shot a mind-bending 30-41 from inside of 10 feet. The Wolves ended up with a 16-34 mark. 20 of the Cavs' 30 makes within 10 feet of the bucket came off of assists compared to only 4 of the Wolves' interior shots. Ish, ish, ish, and more ish.
We're holding off on an in-depth look at Kurt Rambis' rotations until we have a few more games worth of data, but last night's tilt featured some doozies. Kevin Love and Ramon Sessions ended the game with a positive +/- (3, 1) in 32:54 and 26:24. At several times during the game Kevin Love and Al Jefferson substituted in for one another. At several times during the game, effective pairings were swapped with ineffective ones. I think we all know that Rambis is dealing with one of the most talent-deprived rosters in the league but at some point the question has to be asked if whether or not he is putting the rotations with the best chance to win on the court. Maybe that's an unfair question. Maybe it's an untenable situation. It's clear at this point in the season that Big Al and the Big Piranha are the best players on the team followed by Ryan Gomes and Ramon Sessions. Does Rambis overload the starting unit with all 4 of these players and hope that his massively over matched and D-Leagueish bench can fill in the cracks or does he split them up 2/2 or 3/1 and hope that a mutually depleted set of rotations can provide a more balanced approach to the game? Maybe Rambis has decided to roll with the later approach and he really can't be faulted for trying to give the team its most balanced set of rotations throughout the game. The flip side to that take is that by splitting up his 4 best players for long, long, long stretches of time he is clearly not giving his team the best chance of winning for roughly 20-25 mpg, or whatever time these guys would be on the court together. As a fan I'm kind of torn on this dilemma. I'd like to see what all of you have to say about it.
Random thoughts:
- How fun must it be to watch LeBron on a night-in/night-out basis? I'm really hoping that the Wolves get their mitts on John Wall or that Ricky Rubio turns out to match the hype. I have a feeling that there would be no Korean Cuisine Game Wraps with a player like LeBron on the roster. Of course, there's also the fact that writing about LeBron would include writing about a dancing idiot who cuts his nails on the bench and throws a hissy fit by hitting a bunch of Gatorade into the 1st row after he doesn't get a call to go his way. Last night, LeBron exhibited more d#%k moves than a Greg Oden sext and I hope the Wolves remember how badly he clowned them when they (hopefully) get the personnel to match the
CavsKnicks. - The Wolves took an interesting approach to guarding LeBron: they fouled him the second it looked like he was gaining a head of steam towards the basket. This turned LeBron into a facilitator and he torched the Wolves for 11 assists, but I'm pretty sure that this is the correct approach to take against the Cavs in the playoffs. Make LeBron be a point guard and don't let him get a bunch of and-1 chances. Foul him early and away from the bucket. This was a good strategy and it's too bad the Wolves didn't have the personnel to pull it off.
- I'll say it again: Jonny Flynn really needs to learn how to do something else besides score.
- Kevin Love had a very interesting offensive game. He was 2-5 at the rim, 1-2 inside of 10 feet, 2-2 from 10-15 feet, and 3-7 from 16-23 feet. He is quite simply a threat from everywhere and it will be nice to see him get back into the starting lineup and with some regular minutes. He seems to be getting jerked around here of late and I don't really know why. He's the team's best player.
Well folks, that about does it for this game wrap. It's time to give the baby a bath and my honey-do list has exploded since the little critter came home. I'd appreciate any thoughts on the game from y'all in the comments.
Until later.
0 recs |
17 comments
|
Email
Print
Comments
I'm fine with splitting up the best players
But I can see the problem that Rambis has, since it’s not just a small number of rotation worthy players, but also an overload at positions. Our six best players (at the moment) are Love, Jefferson, Sessions, Flynn, Gomes, and Brewer. That’s 6 guys at 3 positions! You can try and hide that by putting Brewer at the 2, but when you get right down to it there’s no good way cover up the holes caused by this (especially since Brewer and Flynn are inconsistent on a night to night basis). Personally I don’t blame Rambis for some of the gnarly rotations, because considering the minutes needs of his players and the impact matching the opponents rotations can have on your minutes, it’s takes a strong coach not to start drinking on the sidelines.
If we really only have players at 1,3,4
then wouldn’t the suggestion that Ellington and Tucker should be getting more time hold even more water? Also, I would rather see Jawai playing his minutes at the 5 than Hollins. No matter how high Hollins’ ceiling might be. And really, it’s not very high at this point in his career. Ellington, Tucker, and Jawai all deserve more playing time on top of the fact that Sessions should be starting.
thats a really interesting point about guarding lebron. i hope some other teams try it so we
can get a better idea of its effectiveness. hes such a good passer (and flashy!) that he can easily pull it off, but it is the opposite of what the conventional strategy has been against other gifted passers like paul and nash: make them become scorers. thanks for pointing that out snp.
"Oooohhh, cat in the wall, eh? Now you're talkin' my language."
"It's clear that Big Al and the Big Piranha are the best players on the team followed by Ryan Gomes and Ramon Sessions."
Gomes is clearly better than Brewer? What am I missing?
S&P your data is very interesting.... I haven't seen this broken down this way before statistically. Found a very interesting page at the same web site which shows where all of a teams opponents score
I didn’t do a detailed analysis, but it doesn’t look like we are extraordinarily bad “at the rim” or within 10 feet.
But see for yourself.
http://hoopdata.com/oteamshotlocs.aspx
There is also a page which shows where we shoot compared to other teams. That is below also.
by Kevin Love Jefferson on Jan 27, 2010 11:31 PM CST reply actions
Did some analysis of shot locations. The average for ALL NBA teams for OPPONENT shots "at the rim" is 16. Wolves allow 16.6. We are ranked 20th for the season.
And please remember. Love has missed about half the season. I’m guessing if we did an analysis for December it would show a higher ranking.
by Kevin Love Jefferson on Jan 27, 2010 11:39 PM CST up reply actions
As for rotations, you have to define the goal first. When we watch we mostly want them to win. But is winning the goal or is development?
We might have a better understanding of our best players strengths and weaknesses if they played more as a unit. No NBA player can be effective if you surround him with a bunch of guys from D league.
I think Love and jefferson in particular, as the foundation of our future should both be starting and getting at least 35 minutes a game. They need to develop chemistry with each other. I’d say at least 25 minutes of the 35 minutes on their court should be with each other. The other 10 minutes ensures that at least one of them is on the court at all times.
If we are trying to win, I’d start Sessions. If its about development, I’d start Flynn only if he agreed that 70% of the time he handles the ball he is working to set up other players. That would be good development for Flynn.
I’d start Brewer for both winning and development. I’ve seen amazing improvement in his shooting. Only can pray he keeps it up. But we want to see more improvement in Brewers defense. Corey can be a lock down defender. We need to see him shut down people. I was impress with Corey’s effort on Lebron.
The final starter would be ellington. Gomes is probably better now, if we are trying to win, but ellington might have the potential to develop into a very good player, and should be given more playing time to see what he can do.
We can see how Jefferson and Love play separately that 5 to 10 minutes a game. But most of their time on the court should be together. They need to improve their chemistry together, probably even more on the defensive end than the offensive end.
by Kevin Love Jefferson on Jan 28, 2010 12:45 AM CST reply actions
Worth repeating...
…“I’ll say it again: Jonny Flynn really needs to learn how to do something else besides score.”
If Rubio is a given
how important is it for Flynn to learn to do something else besides score? Obviously defense is important for any player, but perhaps Flynn was drafted to score. With Rubio not here right now it makes sense to give Flynn big minutes at the 1 and to develop his passing/team running skills.
I see Flynn’s score first mentality as a current liability but a future asset (again, given Rubio is here).
Suppose Rubio is here and suppose Flynn is a scoring and getting to the FT line machine off the bench who is an adequate passer, especially on the break. That’s a win, especially if he’s happy in this role. If you draft Curry, is he happy as a back up PG? You can’t play him at SG with Rubio, at least not for significant minutes. Curry’s a great shooter and passer, but can he get to the FT line with any regularity? Flynn has a potential strength in one of the all-time weak areas of this franchise, free throw attempts.
In a vacuum, Curry is the right pick and Lawson is the right pick. But given that wolves already have their PG why draft another one?
I think that Flynn
makes a much better backup than sessions as his scoring abilities will be magnified playing against backups. The wolves could turn a net point loss when the backups are on the court to a net positive. That has a HUGE implication on winning games.
Every time the wolves would take KG off the court…they would start loosing net points, without fail. It kills a team in the playoffs more than anything else.
by TheEvilProfessor on Jan 28, 2010 9:27 AM CST up reply actions
But backups don't only play backup
Starters go down. They miss games. Look at CP3 this year. Why don’t you want your backupPG to actually be adept at running the offense and making the smart pass?
I don't think Jonny will have any problems
being a spot starter. Jonny has flaws that he needs to spend serious time fixing/improving, but Sessions has shown me very little to cause me to slam the door on Jonny. I would guess that playing and practicing with Rubio would make Jonny a much better passer than he currently is.
by TheEvilProfessor on Jan 28, 2010 10:06 AM CST up reply actions
Flynn won't "forget" how to score. But he does need to learn how to pass. If we are giving him lots of playing time to develop, then he should develp his weaknesses, passing and defense.
If we keep Rubio (or get Wall), chances are we end up trading Flynn. His value as a PG, is much higher than as a small shooting guard – MAKE HIM LEARN TO PASS!
If he is not looking to “pass first” sit him next to Rambis. If Flynn wants playing time, “ITS LEARN TO PASS TIME”.
by Kevin Love Jefferson on Jan 28, 2010 10:35 AM CST up reply actions
Agreed...
Flynn seems like a shorter Foye. I think he is trade bait when Rubio comes over and Sessions stays as the backup. I’m still disappointed we didn’t take Curry…not that anything can be done about that now.
I don't think it matters how we stack out rotations to be honest
Some lineups certainly perform better than others, but the reality is even our best 5 man line is still one of the worst in the league compared to the best lines just about anyone else can field. So we’re going to lose pretty much not matter what we do, which is the bottom line in the end.
Good observations, disagree on a few points
Nice little writeup SNP. I too noted Lebron’s clowning, somewhat immature behavior off the court. However, on the court he was simply dazzling and extremely intelligent.
Some points of contention:
I’d say Brewer is the 3rd best player on the wolves right now (though Sessions could be with more playing time).
I agree that Flynn needs to contribute in other ways besides scoring, however, the coaches need to let Flynn have some freedom as a 6th man. He is a wonderful scorer, and while some compare him to Foye, I think he is a much more effective scorer than that because of his quickness and ability to draw fouls…next time anyone is sitting near Rambis yell “Flynn is the next Ben Gordon” or “Flynn is the next Jason Terry.”
I’m now convinced that if the wolves decide to trade Al or Love, they must keep Love. However, I’m not sure that they could ever get the appropriate value back in a trade for Al. It’s very risky to trade talented young bigs for anything other than another talented young big…
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Certain photos copyright © 2010 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
