Wolves at Warriors

9:30pm CST

NBA TV

The Wolves ultimately came up short in their first preseason matchup in Phoenix, but will look to bounce back and work on a few things tonight. They make their way into the Warriors’ shiny new building, the Chase Center.

Preseason is intriguing to me mainly because of the way people view it. Half of these teams and players really don’t seem to care about it. It’s more about experimenting and getting players up to speed. With that being said, there’s a few things in particular I’ll be looking for tonight.

— Can Minnesota make shots tonight? The shot chart from Tuesday night was much, much better than what we’ve been accustomed to in terms of where shots were coming from. The problem, however, was that Minnesota didn’t make many shots, shooting only 41% from the field. Additionally, the Wolves only hit 8 of 39 attempts from beyond the arc. That’s not going to cut it. The shot distribution is good in theory, but doesn’t mean much if you can’t make the shots.

— Will the Wolves continue to run the offense through KAT and Culver to the extent they did in the first game? KAT looked incredibly comfortable being the center of the offense from the top of the key, and it yielded strong results. He may average near 5apg this year if that keeps up. Additionally, it’ll be interesting to see if the Wolves continue to use Jarrett Culver as the lead ball handler. He seemed comfortable there and did a pretty solid job.

— Will the same woes that haunted the Wolves last year continue? In Game One, the defense and rebounding was dreadful, especially when Minnesota went small. Everyone wants to go small, and it works in theory. It doesn’t work, however, if you are incapable of defending and/or closing out possessions on the glass.

It’s important not to take too much stock from preseason games, but those points were what really stuck out to me from the first game. Seeing how Coach Ryan Saunders and co. adjust will be intriguing.

Lastly, on the Warriors side, I’m pumped to see how the D-Lo experiment works there, as well as the opportunity to watch Draymond Green play basketball again.

Projected Starters (Guessing?)

Warriors

Steph Curry

D’Angelo Russell

Alfonzo McKinnie

Draymond Green

Kevon Looney

Wolves

Jeff Teague

Andrew Wiggins

Jake Layman

Robert Covington

Karl-Anthony Towns