Thunder 113 - Wolves 101. Piling onto the pile
FYI that final score is not at all indicative of how poorly the team played, nor how badly they were actually being beaten at the lowest point.
1. Karl-Anthony Towns got back into form. 23 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals and 2 blocks, even in a losing effort, is good stuff. His defense is still pretty yikes, but that’s a team-wide problem. Not gonna single KAT out when everyone else was just as bad. And in any event, Towns performing at a high level in the midst of a wretched game, and with all the utter nonsense happening with the Coachident, is a good sign. Reliability is a skill.
2. Andrew Wiggins is still out of form. Or, maybe we should say at this point, back in form. (har har har) After showing a tiny spark of life against the Clippers, Wiggins slumped back into his usual nonchalant-i-ness. 4 points on 2-9 shooting, 1 rebound, 1 assist in almost 30 minutes.
That one assist, by the way, is his first of the entire preseason…almost 80 minutes of playing time. Y I K E S. CJ Williams had one assist in 48 seconds tonight. Keita Bates-Diop has 14 rebounds and 2 assists in 60 minutes so far. Tyus Jones has 7 rebounds in 60 minutes and he’s like 6’0” tall. Preseason seems like it’s too early to be alarmist about Wiggins, but at the same time, what has he shown us that’s different from what he was last season? Nothing. If this keeps up when the regular season starts, the calls for Keita or Josh Okogie to start in his place are going to get loud, and are going to cause a mess.
3. I am in on Keita Bates-Diop though. I mean, to be fair, I was always in on him.
But through three preseason games - if we’re going to be super reactionary here - Keita has been everything I hoped he’d be. He can play the 3. He can play the 4. He can knock down threes. He can defend (relative to the team’s overall level of defense, at any rate). And he gets basketball. He gets when to move, and where. He gets when to pass instead of shoot. He gets how to contribute without demanding the ball. He’s my lifeline this season. Respect the hyphen.
4. Josh Okogie’s shot is um…. Look, by no means am I putting the nail in the coffin of his shooting here. But you can clearly see the concerns that were brought up on draft night. His shooting form is WILD. All over the place. Sometimes he’s square to the hoop. Sometimes he’ completely sideways to it. Sometimes he’s so still only his wrists move. Sometimes he flings his whole body like a trebuchet. The number one key to shooting is consistent form. Okogie is the opposite of that. Get him a shooting coach. Preferably not Wiggins’.
5. Ugly bully ball without Jimmy Butler isn’t bully ball. It’s just ugly. The Wolves are the same team as last season. They still iso way too much, don’t move the ball, don’t shoot threes, and try to make it up at the free throw line. They’ve always played ugly basketball. But it was effective because Jimmy Butler is a top 15 player. Now he’s gone, and the effective part of the equation went with him. Ugly is all that’s left.
This team is not built to play this way. Towns’ greatest strength is his shooting. It’s what makes him unique. Tyus is a killer in pick-and-roll. Teague clearly wants to play more of a 5-equal-parts offense like his old Atlanta team. Tolliver is a gunner. Wiggins is still all athleticism, minimal skill. Ditto Okogie (at least on offense). They need to lean into this. Play fast. Spread the floor. Shoot. Playing slow Thibs-ball minimizes all of these strengths in favor of a skill that no one has with Jimmy gone - efficient isolation scoring.
The vibe at Target Center was reeeaaalllly bad tonight. You could feel it even through the TV screen. Thibs got boo’d to hell in the intro, and by the second half, the crowd was just dead. This disaster of an offseason has burned up whatever good will the team accrued by making the playoffs last year. This was never fun. Now it’s not working, either. If Thibs isn’t going to change that, then he needs to be replaced by someone who will.
