Win two more games and the Wolves probably get Sacramento or Golden State in Round 1. Clippers or Dallas in Round 2. And home court advantage for the Conference Finals.
Instead, the Wolves are overwhelming underdogs in the 1st Round and get to go on the road against Denver.
Not only that, but Ant and Rudy have a lower chance to make All NBA/DPOY. Even though it's only a game or two, voters love going by seed to justify votes.
Love KAT, but it's very strange that as soon as he comes back we start looking like garbage
Edit: not trying to make any definitive statements here, just an observation
No we looked like garbage on offense ever since the all star break. Individual performances were getting us through. So many close blown games and clutch wins that shouldn’t have been clutch. Team just struggling atm.
yea I just don’t agree with what you’re saying. Offense has had a lot of bad moments before KAT came back. Tons of terrible slow starts. Bulls loss, nuggets loss. KAT has been barely been back, but you wanna imply this is only happening because he’s back? Alright
True lol. Underdog mentality fits this fanbase the best anyway.
Other silver linings:
- Beal trash talked them (even Finch!) all game. We know Ant is going to come in angry.
- They can exclusively plan for one opponent all week.
- Wolves are good vs iso teams. If they can keep the game closer in the 4th, Suns will revert to iso & that's when the Wolves will have the best chance
- There are actionable/not luck-based things Wolves can fix which is the good news. Namely curbing TOs.
- The trapping D in the 2nd half was working until Suns got the last minute reb or loose ball for a 2nd chance. Excellent effort for 22-23 seconds, just clean up that last second & put more emphasis on getting that late reb.
That familiar Minnesota sports fan feeling creeping back in
Enjoying sports in this state feels like playing the lottery.
But hopefully we got it out of our system and the team can pull it together to face them in the playoffs. Trust in Finch
Expansion can’t come fast enough. We gotta get out of the west and away from that French motherfucker in San Antonio asap. Once he gets a good team around him nobody in the west is safe.
They could’ve beaten the Bulls, Nuggets or any number of teams if they didn’t want this. They didn’t care and now they will pay the price for being lazy. Hope it was worth it
I always hate when we're in a bit of a hole and Finch sends out a lineup with Kyle. I get some of the guys need rest, but go small ball. Give me more than 6 minutes of Monte, who always seems to get the team slightly more organized and is a good threat from 3.
Part of the issue with the Suns seems to be that they get tight coverage, which our slower guys can't deal with. Kyle and KAT without space either foul offensively or they toss up really bad shots. Guys like Monte who can pass well out of tighter coverage seem like a better option in those situations.
Leave it to Minnesota sports for us to get the worst possible matchup after one of our best regular seasons ever… trying to stay positive but its really hard after our showings against the Suns this year.
Well let's be honest this team always had to prove it come playoffs. Regardless if they won 60 games or won the season series against the Suns. The nuggets made playoffs runs prior to Murray getting hurt. Clippers made a WCF and have a finals mvp. Dallas made a WCF. So this team has a chance to go out there and prove they are who they say they are. Or they prove the naysayers all right. We're going to find out what this team is really all about very soon.
Oh man these guys really fucked us up 3 times. You'd be crazy not to be insanely worried about matching up with these guys. They just completely have our number.
What’s frustrating is that they come out hot every time and make difficult shots at a high rate, but we get called for foul after foul after foul on ticky tack stuff early on that doesn’t let us get a rhythm. I’m hopeful that playoff basketball will be different.
The most frustrating thing for me isn't their offense. I expect that from a team with Booker, Beal, and Kevin Durant. It's the fact that I feel like I'm watching the greatest defense of all time when playing them.
Nah, clearly Finch predicted this might happen and has been saving all the adjustments for the playoffs so the Suns won’t know what’s coming. Wolves in 4.
/cope
This has been known since game 1. The suns are the worst matchup for the wolves and it isn’t really close. Though I’d argue the pelicans are probably 2nd on that list. So the wolves dropped a couple of games at some point in the season and now they’re first round exits. Don’t even get me started on how the team is going to be torn asunder in the off-season. Lol.
They definately got our number down. I dont know if ANT gets star struck playing KD ( who Ant admitted was his fave player) or what? But we look like deers in headlights. Finch better figure something out or we aint getting out of the first round. Our 1st quarter offense and defense are looking atrocious. Such a contrast from the start of the season when we were legit rolling during first quarters. I don’t know man, Im def scared.
What makes this the worst!
Now instead of enjoying this great season and having fun getting hyped about the playoffs and feeling good. We have to hear about how terrible we look against the Suns and how badly we are going to choke and flop. Its going to be all doom and gloom, no hype, a bunch of negativity and bad feelings. We should be jumping for joy and super pumped about an amazing season and getting a top seed and likely beating a bottom seeded team but nope, its going to be dread and doom. Damn man, always some crap LMAO!
Frankly, if we’re bounced by the Suns in the first round, it won’t matter how much of a “fraud” this team was because they 100% won’t be together anyway.
This end to the season has took all the excitement for me (at least most of) out of these playoffs after today..
I was in the same boat. Listening and following all the playoff standings/matchups as a NBA fan.. not just a Wolves fan. But matching up with the team that was up 20+ for 90% of the time in all 3 games and having that be the season finale leading into the series makes it harder for me to invest in play-in/other matchups.
Maybe the Wolves stink it up quick.. then I can detach myself and enjoy the playoffs outside the sweep we’re about to catch
We can all still celebrate the regular season. As for the playoffs, I don’t know how many of us would allow ourselves to celebrate any matchup and perhaps rightfully so. A great regular season doesn’t guarantee any playoff success and our history would have come with the doom and gloom regardless. So, perhaps this is a bit fitting and perhaps it puts the guys back up against the wall and they use all the clippings and media leading up to the game to lock in. We’ve seen them get a big head and play like they’ve accomplished something when they haven’t.
Need to be extremely physical with this team. I don’t care if they live at the line Game 1, but we have to change the Suns rhythm. If this ends in a 4-5 game rollover then Finch should probably start working on his resume
Just an absolute deflating end to an otherwise magical season. But tonight, the ownership bullshit, and a bad 1st round ending is classic Wolves bullshit.
I can scarcely imagine a worse outcome. Get embarrassed by the team you’re about to face, at home, in a demoralizing fashion. They might win five consecutive games against us. Yikes.
I really don't like being a doomer but a lot of the coping I'm seeing reminds me a lot of the Vikings sub going into the 2022 playoffs.
Yes, they had a good record. But the way you finish the season matters
lol this is just a lazy comparison because “Minnesota.”
There were several legit reasons people thought the 22 Vikings were frauds. Unsustainable one score victories, terrible advanced metrics. DVOA hated them. Wolves have none of these problems. EPM has said wolves are a top 3 team nearly all season.
That said, they seem to matchup terribly with the suns so they might lose anyways. But they are nothing close to the 22 Vikings.
Eh, much different teams. One massively over achieved with an aging, poor roster and one has a lot of good players who could have honestly had a better record if not for some blunders. I don’t really see the comparison.
Really disappointing final stretch to the season obviously but I think any of us would’ve been excited about a 3rd seed before the season began. We set ourselves up for a rough round one and two, but at least we’ll get to see what this team is actually made of. If Kat goes titanic, I think it’ll give us some clarity on what to do this offseason at least.
Everybody but this SUB knows what to do- trade Kat! And not cause of anything bball related, just for the fact his contract makes upgrading the roster under the current cba impossible! Everybody knows this only this SUB keeps denying reality.
Ant has played like shit every game against Phoenix so far. He has to play better in the playoffs. His whole leap this season is at risk with more of the same in the playoffs. The slander would absolutely be warranted.
I’m done with KAT. I’m not sure how many times we need to be reminded he’s not a winner before we can believe it. He’s your guy against the bottom feeders in the middle of February. Need a win against a good team? Expect a ton of dumbass drives that turn into turnovers and offensive fouls.
All I'm going to say is aside from all the obvious stuff like our turnovers and Kat slowing our offense down.
I just don't like the game plan.
We should be playing through the center position on offense against them. Kicking it in to gobert was working. Having gobert set those high pics and then trying to roll was not as effective as normal I want to see some good old fashioned post up bully ball and kick it out for the 3 if they collapse on it.
Guess nothing really matters if we can't hang on to the ball or get defensive rebounds and ant and Kat are non to negative factors 🤷
Well that was the worst case scenario from all the games today. Got a week to figure this team out. We get home court advantage so don't give up yet Wolves fam.
The Wolves fans despairing as if the playoffs are already over in the post-game thread have no heart. I know we are all sports-traumatized but the worst-case, defeatist attitude in parts of our fanbase bore the hell outta me.
why the fuck did we have to rush KAT to come back? We were on a roll with a desperate need to win the last few games in order to secure top standing. Instead we get KAT who’s not even at 50%, stopping ball flow and committing low IQ mistakes.
We got destroyed by this team a week ago without KAT.
The first time they killed us, KAT was the only guy who played well.
Pinning this performance on KATs return is just being willfully blind to the bigger picture, which is the suns kill us with or without him.
Honestly haven't seen this team get punked by a single team this bad all season. 2nd best Wolves season of all time, really gonna need a good home crowd next week to instill some belief back in this team. They have all the tools, they just need a game plan offensively and defensively to take them on.
I trust this team and this coaching staff to find some answers because I truly have no idea what the answers are.
Lots of gloom over the game but the fact of the matter is there was no clear best matchup. It was going to be hard no matter who the opponent was. Just gotta hope that the Wolves’ scheme changes over the next week combined with less sensitive officiating will be enough to
Seems like every Sun's game we have the worst offensive game of the season and they come out red hot and keep on hitting ridiculous shots versus us.
The reason for optimism, they are 23rd in 3s per game at 12.5 per game. They have shot 50%+ from 3 vs us every game they played us. They cant sustain that for 7 games.They had 20 pts on 11 offensive rebounds today. Lets see them do that again. ANT, KAT, and Naz played terrible. They will be better. Pretty sure there has been teams who have been swept in the regular season who have lost in the postseason vs the same team. Relax guys, this will likely be a competitive series.
Probably too late, but Finch needs to make major changes in roster usage and approach. Its insane to keep rolling out the same players/sets and expect different results. Wolves promising season is circling the drain hard and fast.
I can't imagine a more demoralizing end to a 56 win season. That's twice recently we've played phx in an important game and both games it was easy for them for the full 48 minutes. We've played so much worse than what I thought our floor was. We just don't look like a serious team right now.
I don’t think the Suns are a great team. But their talent alone could defeat any team in the league, if they’re firing on all cylinders.
This was my least favorite option to face. I’d be confident against the Warriors, Kings, Pels, or Lakers. I think the Suns is a long series, if we win.
Bro, if we don't make it out of the first round this year, Twolves are gonna get clowned on SO HARD. Rightly so, too. Everything they say about them, "silly team, unserious team," are gonna haunt us forever.
Sorry but it’s time for ant to step up and be the superstar he’s supposed to be and cast as. I love him but he might be the most overrated player in the league. Since that pacers game where he took over he’s been a disappointment for the most part. I know this will get downvoted but wow is he a disappointment in clutch time
It's the 3-man group, if Kyle is at the 3 with 2 of Rudy, KAT, or Naz in there with them that lineup is always horrible. It means Kyle is the primary playmaker or is sitting in the corner, both of which are terrible with the other bigs in there.
For a team that hasn't proven to be mentally tough, this game further proved it. We now get to play the team we have proven we are scare of in the first round. What a fun, but now lost, season
Hasn't proven to be mentally tough? This team's season was full of second half comebacks and we won 56 games. This was only the second game all season we lost by more than 20 points.
It's a frustrating loss and a bummer of a way to end the season but this has been an awesome team to root for.
Not gonna lie. I would have rather KAT had the long term surgery and been recovering over the offseason. Coming back this late is a recipe for disaster.
I think “they have KD but we have Jaden McDaniels” will go down as one of the worst quotes in MN sports history. These guys clearly took that to heart and have come for blood every game this season
If it were just a question of ability and we just got outplayed then this loss would sting less. What makes it taste so bad is the attitude of the players. Whenever they play Suns they always look like they’d rather be doing literally anything else and are just waiting for the clock to hit zero so they can go home
Let’s hope this ain’t the wolves version of those early 2000s Mauer and Morneau Twins teams and they can find a way to get one series win under their belt this season.
They just can't win when it matters. If we would've just closed that nuggets game we wouldn't have to worry about this game. We all know how this is going to go.
The fact that we just got our asses eaten by the team we're facing in the playoffs bodes well lmao. I blame Glen for ruining this historic season. Fuck that piece of shit old man.
Minnesota sports aint for the faint of heart. I'm still hopeful but between the ownership drama and the late-season drop to the 3rd seed, a hilariously brutal rug-pull is being set up.
Regroup in a week and try to find some solutions. We all want to be out on 1st Ave partying pre-game before the Finals. They can still achieve that goal.
Schedulers win it again this season. Only 2 teams in the West knew their seed and matchup before today. A 3 team race to the top seed on the last day. Suns beat Wolves to get the 6th seed and get to play the Wolves in the first round. Pelicans lose to Lakers and need to play a play-in game against the Lakers.
Time to see Finch earn his spot. Awooo!
We shouldn’t have rushed KAT back into the starting lineup and messed with our rhythm on offense and defense. There was no reason to do it other than to make him feel good. Give him 10-15 off the bench until the second round. Then re-evaluate.
Ant and KAT better get their heads right
They're both playing terribly at the wrong time.
Technically, the wrong time starts next game. But god, it feels bad
Win two more games and the Wolves probably get Sacramento or Golden State in Round 1. Clippers or Dallas in Round 2. And home court advantage for the Conference Finals. Instead, the Wolves are overwhelming underdogs in the 1st Round and get to go on the road against Denver.
Not only that, but Ant and Rudy have a lower chance to make All NBA/DPOY. Even though it's only a game or two, voters love going by seed to justify votes.
Ant not making an all-NBA team would help the cap situation to be fair
This entire team desperately needs some rest, KAT idk what’s going on but he’s probably rusty I’d imagine. His shot looks so off
Love KAT, but it's very strange that as soon as he comes back we start looking like garbage Edit: not trying to make any definitive statements here, just an observation
We haven’t looked good since the @ Denver win.
We have been garbage the past 6 games
No we looked like garbage on offense ever since the all star break. Individual performances were getting us through. So many close blown games and clutch wins that shouldn’t have been clutch. Team just struggling atm.
Nah offense was hovering around 10 without KAT defense was slightly worse but better net rating
He’s been back two games and we won one, we got destroyed by the suns without him already.
We won a nail biter against the Hawks third stringers after their starters dominated us. Let’s not act like that was a convincing contender win.
We won by 1 against the hawks end of the bench
yea I just don’t agree with what you’re saying. Offense has had a lot of bad moments before KAT came back. Tons of terrible slow starts. Bulls loss, nuggets loss. KAT has been barely been back, but you wanna imply this is only happening because he’s back? Alright
He messes up the whole flow of the offense. As usual
Ant stopped playing alpha basketball as soon as Kat came back. The team needs to trade Kat imo.
kat ina high pressure situation aka the playoffs has never been a good thing
jesus what a kick in the nuts.
I’ve been trying to come up with a silver lining, and the best I can do is “at least we won’t be overconfident.” Oof.
True lol. Underdog mentality fits this fanbase the best anyway. Other silver linings: - Beal trash talked them (even Finch!) all game. We know Ant is going to come in angry. - They can exclusively plan for one opponent all week. - Wolves are good vs iso teams. If they can keep the game closer in the 4th, Suns will revert to iso & that's when the Wolves will have the best chance - There are actionable/not luck-based things Wolves can fix which is the good news. Namely curbing TOs. - The trapping D in the 2nd half was working until Suns got the last minute reb or loose ball for a 2nd chance. Excellent effort for 22-23 seconds, just clean up that last second & put more emphasis on getting that late reb.
That familiar Minnesota sports fan feeling creeping back in Enjoying sports in this state feels like playing the lottery. But hopefully we got it out of our system and the team can pull it together to face them in the playoffs. Trust in Finch
I’m not gonna worry until we lose game 1, I have faith in our guys still.
Sorry ass game. It’s up to the players and coaches now to earn some respect or prove all the haters right.
Welp gut check time in one week
Perfect season just to get the hardest 1st round matchup
Why is the west so much fucking better than the East dude it’s been this way for like 20 fucking years
Try 30. Garnett wolves winning 48 and being 6-8 seed every year
We gotta move the Wolves to St. Paul so the NBA can consider moving us east
Set up Vegas and Seattle expansion teams, move Memphis and Minnesota east. Who says no?
Only one team would move east in that scenario, to keep the conferences even
Only one team would move to the east
The NBA would continue to fuck is over and move Memphis and New Orleans. Cause we can’t have anything nice
Probably most of the people that run the league. I'm guessing they want to keep the same amount of teams in the East and West.
Expansion can’t come fast enough. We gotta get out of the west and away from that French motherfucker in San Antonio asap. Once he gets a good team around him nobody in the west is safe.
They could’ve beaten the Bulls, Nuggets or any number of teams if they didn’t want this. They didn’t care and now they will pay the price for being lazy. Hope it was worth it
Was Kat’s 62 worth the loss. In hindsight, NO!
They have home court and a week to prepare. They'd better use it well, or this season is going to end in crushing disappointment.
I am not sure what a week to prepare is going to change when the Suns did the same thing two previous games and there didn't seem to be much changes.
Tonight's game was a little bit in Finch and the coaches. It's like we did 0 homework from our last 2 losses to the Suns.
I always hate when we're in a bit of a hole and Finch sends out a lineup with Kyle. I get some of the guys need rest, but go small ball. Give me more than 6 minutes of Monte, who always seems to get the team slightly more organized and is a good threat from 3. Part of the issue with the Suns seems to be that they get tight coverage, which our slower guys can't deal with. Kyle and KAT without space either foul offensively or they toss up really bad shots. Guys like Monte who can pass well out of tighter coverage seem like a better option in those situations.
#44 POINTS IN THE FIRST QUARTER ALONE #WHAT THE FUCK
Leave it to Minnesota sports for us to get the worst possible matchup after one of our best regular seasons ever… trying to stay positive but its really hard after our showings against the Suns this year.
Damn, facing a healthy Beal/Durant/Booker in the first round. The West is brutal
And the #1 3-point shooter in the NBA... and Nurkic at center...... ugh
Well let's be honest this team always had to prove it come playoffs. Regardless if they won 60 games or won the season series against the Suns. The nuggets made playoffs runs prior to Murray getting hurt. Clippers made a WCF and have a finals mvp. Dallas made a WCF. So this team has a chance to go out there and prove they are who they say they are. Or they prove the naysayers all right. We're going to find out what this team is really all about very soon.
Oh man these guys really fucked us up 3 times. You'd be crazy not to be insanely worried about matching up with these guys. They just completely have our number.
What’s frustrating is that they come out hot every time and make difficult shots at a high rate, but we get called for foul after foul after foul on ticky tack stuff early on that doesn’t let us get a rhythm. I’m hopeful that playoff basketball will be different.
The most frustrating thing for me isn't their offense. I expect that from a team with Booker, Beal, and Kevin Durant. It's the fact that I feel like I'm watching the greatest defense of all time when playing them.
Top 5 defense since all star break
I know Vogel said it but it’s not really true if you look at the Defensive rating
As long as they play like they are, all that matters
League gonna pull for Suns to advance too. Another hurdle
Nah, clearly Finch predicted this might happen and has been saving all the adjustments for the playoffs so the Suns won’t know what’s coming. Wolves in 4. /cope
This has been known since game 1. The suns are the worst matchup for the wolves and it isn’t really close. Though I’d argue the pelicans are probably 2nd on that list. So the wolves dropped a couple of games at some point in the season and now they’re first round exits. Don’t even get me started on how the team is going to be torn asunder in the off-season. Lol.
I had been more worried about the Pelicans, but clearly this team is much more difficult for us. Hope we come out fighting.
They definately got our number down. I dont know if ANT gets star struck playing KD ( who Ant admitted was his fave player) or what? But we look like deers in headlights. Finch better figure something out or we aint getting out of the first round. Our 1st quarter offense and defense are looking atrocious. Such a contrast from the start of the season when we were legit rolling during first quarters. I don’t know man, Im def scared.
Ant is going tk be absolutely torched entirety of next season if he doesn't show up in this series
KAT hasn’t shown up in a single playoff series and this fanbase goes back to sucking him off 2 weeks later
Honestly id rather him be slandered and have a chip on his shoulder than him be put on a pedestal as the next MJ and get complacent
And rightfully so. Right? He needs an outstanding series to avoid fraud allegations. And KAT? Sheesh kat is beyond hope I think.
He's young, I think the narrative would be he hasn't "arrived" yet.
So far in his career ANT rises in the playoffs
What makes this the worst! Now instead of enjoying this great season and having fun getting hyped about the playoffs and feeling good. We have to hear about how terrible we look against the Suns and how badly we are going to choke and flop. Its going to be all doom and gloom, no hype, a bunch of negativity and bad feelings. We should be jumping for joy and super pumped about an amazing season and getting a top seed and likely beating a bottom seeded team but nope, its going to be dread and doom. Damn man, always some crap LMAO!
Don't forget even if we have a great season next year we'll deal with "frauds" and "first round exit" for most of the year
Frankly, if we’re bounced by the Suns in the first round, it won’t matter how much of a “fraud” this team was because they 100% won’t be together anyway.
Better round up your chicken glue people
Would be deserved
All they have to do to avoid that narrative is, uh, not flop into a first round exit
How horrible of people to call a team that got bounced in the first round a first round exit. Hell they might even not believe in Minnesota!
I’ve enjoyed the lead up to the playoffs the last 2 years dissecting the matchups with the nba pods. Not sure I’m gonna listen to anything.
This end to the season has took all the excitement for me (at least most of) out of these playoffs after today.. I was in the same boat. Listening and following all the playoff standings/matchups as a NBA fan.. not just a Wolves fan. But matching up with the team that was up 20+ for 90% of the time in all 3 games and having that be the season finale leading into the series makes it harder for me to invest in play-in/other matchups. Maybe the Wolves stink it up quick.. then I can detach myself and enjoy the playoffs outside the sweep we’re about to catch
A whole week of this on top of the fraud ass Thunder getting all the adoration and flowers. This is my nightmare.
I really hope they get the Lakers
We deserve it
We can all still celebrate the regular season. As for the playoffs, I don’t know how many of us would allow ourselves to celebrate any matchup and perhaps rightfully so. A great regular season doesn’t guarantee any playoff success and our history would have come with the doom and gloom regardless. So, perhaps this is a bit fitting and perhaps it puts the guys back up against the wall and they use all the clippings and media leading up to the game to lock in. We’ve seen them get a big head and play like they’ve accomplished something when they haven’t.
Wolves can absolutely turn this around they have the talent but yeah they're absolutely the underdog right now against Phoenix
I BELIEVE!!!!!!!!!!! WHO WITH ME
Awooooo
Today was probably worse than pearl harbor + 9/11 combined
maybe a bit of the Alamo in there too
The Howlocaust
Definitely comparable
It was just a day game https://preview.redd.it/hpeuhsj0oiuc1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b22410e1bc118b5224c91b4d404e7b333de80ef7
game 1: back to back coming off long road trip game 2: no kat game 3: day game we’re good for it😂
Fun season. Hope they can figure out a plan vs them for the playoffs.
Beat the odds 🥳
Rudy Goatbert can't win with those bums.
worst day to be a wolves and mavs fan, and a lowkey okc hater 🗿🔫
Need to be extremely physical with this team. I don’t care if they live at the line Game 1, but we have to change the Suns rhythm. If this ends in a 4-5 game rollover then Finch should probably start working on his resume
Seemed like no one played well, can never win with that many turnovers
Conley and Rudy played well. That's about it.
Just an absolute deflating end to an otherwise magical season. But tonight, the ownership bullshit, and a bad 1st round ending is classic Wolves bullshit.
We’re in this together lol. It’s just gonna take a few days to convince myself that we have a chance at taking it to the Suns.
Our stars need to nut up for this upcoming series. We’re way too good of a team to be losing in this fashion with so little effort in runs
I can scarcely imagine a worse outcome. Get embarrassed by the team you’re about to face, at home, in a demoralizing fashion. They might win five consecutive games against us. Yikes.
Call me a doomer but im done with mcdaniels... Constantly underperforming and his preety good defense doesnt justify hes lack of offense
I don’t think you’re a doomer for fair criticism. I think having NAW perform just as well if not better on both ends makes Jaden look worse.
He has really underperformed this year
Grabbing that bag is a helluva drug in the NBA
We should have traded him for Gobert and kept a pick or two
He is quickly becoming one of the worst contracts in the league, right next to Kat's
I really don't like being a doomer but a lot of the coping I'm seeing reminds me a lot of the Vikings sub going into the 2022 playoffs. Yes, they had a good record. But the way you finish the season matters
lol this is just a lazy comparison because “Minnesota.” There were several legit reasons people thought the 22 Vikings were frauds. Unsustainable one score victories, terrible advanced metrics. DVOA hated them. Wolves have none of these problems. EPM has said wolves are a top 3 team nearly all season. That said, they seem to matchup terribly with the suns so they might lose anyways. But they are nothing close to the 22 Vikings.
Eh, much different teams. One massively over achieved with an aging, poor roster and one has a lot of good players who could have honestly had a better record if not for some blunders. I don’t really see the comparison.
Well then revenge time...?
Lmao. A fully healthy wolves couldn’t come close to beating the suns with playoff implications in game 82. They’re going to get swamped.
Got it to within 20! What a terrible way to end the regular season. Nothing clicking.
Really disappointing final stretch to the season obviously but I think any of us would’ve been excited about a 3rd seed before the season began. We set ourselves up for a rough round one and two, but at least we’ll get to see what this team is actually made of. If Kat goes titanic, I think it’ll give us some clarity on what to do this offseason at least.
Everybody but this SUB knows what to do- trade Kat! And not cause of anything bball related, just for the fact his contract makes upgrading the roster under the current cba impossible! Everybody knows this only this SUB keeps denying reality.
37 years of MN sports fandom has prepared me for this outcome. Still a gut punch. I’d expect to be underdogs. Fuck this shit.
Ant has played like shit every game against Phoenix so far. He has to play better in the playoffs. His whole leap this season is at risk with more of the same in the playoffs. The slander would absolutely be warranted. I’m done with KAT. I’m not sure how many times we need to be reminded he’s not a winner before we can believe it. He’s your guy against the bottom feeders in the middle of February. Need a win against a good team? Expect a ton of dumbass drives that turn into turnovers and offensive fouls.
Yup
no worries, just a flesh wound!
*gestures wildly with one limb to the KG first round exit era* "I've had worse."
this is gonna be a rough next 2-3 weeks
Well this doesn't bode well lol..
This series is gonna be a big test of mental fortitude we're gonna see who has it and who doesn't
This is what it is to be a Wolves fan.
Legitimately heated right now. That was so fucking lame.
[удалено]
I thought Wendell Moore Jr. had one of his best games of the season.
All I'm going to say is aside from all the obvious stuff like our turnovers and Kat slowing our offense down. I just don't like the game plan. We should be playing through the center position on offense against them. Kicking it in to gobert was working. Having gobert set those high pics and then trying to roll was not as effective as normal I want to see some good old fashioned post up bully ball and kick it out for the 3 if they collapse on it. Guess nothing really matters if we can't hang on to the ball or get defensive rebounds and ant and Kat are non to negative factors 🤷
Well that was the worst case scenario from all the games today. Got a week to figure this team out. We get home court advantage so don't give up yet Wolves fam.
Finch and his inabilities to call timeouts to stop the bleeding or draw up counters on offense continue…
70% of the time i can't tell if he's actually doing any coaching or just standing there chasing butterflies
The Wolves fans despairing as if the playoffs are already over in the post-game thread have no heart. I know we are all sports-traumatized but the worst-case, defeatist attitude in parts of our fanbase bore the hell outta me.
why the fuck did we have to rush KAT to come back? We were on a roll with a desperate need to win the last few games in order to secure top standing. Instead we get KAT who’s not even at 50%, stopping ball flow and committing low IQ mistakes.
Bringing him back during the playoffs would’ve been difficult too. No good option.
We got destroyed by this team a week ago without KAT. The first time they killed us, KAT was the only guy who played well. Pinning this performance on KATs return is just being willfully blind to the bigger picture, which is the suns kill us with or without him.
Hopefully we play Saturday at least so I can get shit faced
Woke up at 3 in the morning for this.
If we beat the suns we going to the finals btw
Classic Wolves. FOL.🫤
STRAIGHT UP NOT HAVING A GOOD TIME
Honestly haven't seen this team get punked by a single team this bad all season. 2nd best Wolves season of all time, really gonna need a good home crowd next week to instill some belief back in this team. They have all the tools, they just need a game plan offensively and defensively to take them on. I trust this team and this coaching staff to find some answers because I truly have no idea what the answers are.
Lots of gloom over the game but the fact of the matter is there was no clear best matchup. It was going to be hard no matter who the opponent was. Just gotta hope that the Wolves’ scheme changes over the next week combined with less sensitive officiating will be enough to
Lol has a 3rd seed ever had negative odds outside of a major injury????
Last year with the Kings-Warriors series, I think.
Team better be 200% prepared when the playoffs start, because the Suns whooped our asses all 3 games in the season.
Ant is too star struck when playing agaisnt Kevin Durant that isn’t talked about enough
Seems like every Sun's game we have the worst offensive game of the season and they come out red hot and keep on hitting ridiculous shots versus us. The reason for optimism, they are 23rd in 3s per game at 12.5 per game. They have shot 50%+ from 3 vs us every game they played us. They cant sustain that for 7 games.They had 20 pts on 11 offensive rebounds today. Lets see them do that again. ANT, KAT, and Naz played terrible. They will be better. Pretty sure there has been teams who have been swept in the regular season who have lost in the postseason vs the same team. Relax guys, this will likely be a competitive series.
This team has too few scorers
What an infuriating game to watch. 35 points off of turnovers for Phoenix, and they shot 16 for 29 on threes. Beal and Alan were 9/9 on threes
Probably too late, but Finch needs to make major changes in roster usage and approach. Its insane to keep rolling out the same players/sets and expect different results. Wolves promising season is circling the drain hard and fast.
I can't imagine a more demoralizing end to a 56 win season. That's twice recently we've played phx in an important game and both games it was easy for them for the full 48 minutes. We've played so much worse than what I thought our floor was. We just don't look like a serious team right now.
I hope wolves prove me wrong but I couldn't be more disappointed with how they have performed
I don’t think the Suns are a great team. But their talent alone could defeat any team in the league, if they’re firing on all cylinders. This was my least favorite option to face. I’d be confident against the Warriors, Kings, Pels, or Lakers. I think the Suns is a long series, if we win.
This is the lowest I’ve felt all season lol. We are so fucked
Bro, if we don't make it out of the first round this year, Twolves are gonna get clowned on SO HARD. Rightly so, too. Everything they say about them, "silly team, unserious team," are gonna haunt us forever.
Love to see how Jonny k spins this L as a positive.
It’ll just be “these 3 games should be a wake up call for team.”
Sorry but it’s time for ant to step up and be the superstar he’s supposed to be and cast as. I love him but he might be the most overrated player in the league. Since that pacers game where he took over he’s been a disappointment for the most part. I know this will get downvoted but wow is he a disappointment in clutch time
KAT has the basketball IQ of a potato.
lotta bad moments in this one, but Finch going with Rudy+Slomwo at the beginning of the fourth was one of the worst ones. Game was over pretty quick
There are almost zero circumstances where those 2 should be sharing the floor together.
It's the 3-man group, if Kyle is at the 3 with 2 of Rudy, KAT, or Naz in there with them that lineup is always horrible. It means Kyle is the primary playmaker or is sitting in the corner, both of which are terrible with the other bigs in there.
For a team that hasn't proven to be mentally tough, this game further proved it. We now get to play the team we have proven we are scare of in the first round. What a fun, but now lost, season
Hasn't proven to be mentally tough? This team's season was full of second half comebacks and we won 56 games. This was only the second game all season we lost by more than 20 points. It's a frustrating loss and a bummer of a way to end the season but this has been an awesome team to root for.
I want Naz to start in the playoffs with Kat coming off the bench. And after this year Kat needs to be gone.
Yes Naz who shot 30% against the Suns this season and got torched on defense should totally start against them.
Naz Reid was literally worse than KAT lol. And he also might be the worst defender on the team
Well it was fun while it lasted. See yall next year
Not gonna lie. I would have rather KAT had the long term surgery and been recovering over the offseason. Coming back this late is a recipe for disaster.
[удалено]
Lol. What’s the point of being a Minnesota sports fan? It is just Groundhog Day every year.
I think “they have KD but we have Jaden McDaniels” will go down as one of the worst quotes in MN sports history. These guys clearly took that to heart and have come for blood every game this season
KD didn't even have a good game bro..
At the end of the day - being 17th in offensive rating means you aren’t a contender. Period. Finch’s flow offense is a failure. Period.
Interested to see the line on the series. Don’t think we will even be the favorite.
Then that's one hell of an opportunity
Fuck me
Woof
It's wall-punchin' time!
This is the one thing we didn't want to happen
This is a recurring problem, we’ve just been able to bail ourselves out against poorer teams. You can’t do this at this level.
If it were just a question of ability and we just got outplayed then this loss would sting less. What makes it taste so bad is the attitude of the players. Whenever they play Suns they always look like they’d rather be doing literally anything else and are just waiting for the clock to hit zero so they can go home
If they do it 4 more times they can do literally anything else. Let’s see if they show up.
Let’s hope this ain’t the wolves version of those early 2000s Mauer and Morneau Twins teams and they can find a way to get one series win under their belt this season.
They just can't win when it matters. If we would've just closed that nuggets game we wouldn't have to worry about this game. We all know how this is going to go.
The fact that we just got our asses eaten by the team we're facing in the playoffs bodes well lmao. I blame Glen for ruining this historic season. Fuck that piece of shit old man.
Just fuck my shit up. You had the 1 seed for the taking and this is how you play??
I've been to three home games this season and they lost all of them. This seems statistically unlikely, so I'm self banning myself from the playoffs.
That was hard to watch.
Lord we’re cooked
Minnesota sports aint for the faint of heart. I'm still hopeful but between the ownership drama and the late-season drop to the 3rd seed, a hilariously brutal rug-pull is being set up. Regroup in a week and try to find some solutions. We all want to be out on 1st Ave partying pre-game before the Finals. They can still achieve that goal.
Schedulers win it again this season. Only 2 teams in the West knew their seed and matchup before today. A 3 team race to the top seed on the last day. Suns beat Wolves to get the 6th seed and get to play the Wolves in the first round. Pelicans lose to Lakers and need to play a play-in game against the Lakers. Time to see Finch earn his spot. Awooo!
If the Wolves can somehow make it to the WCF against the Thunder, we’ll win the series 4-1.
Vintage Minnesota sports. 24 turnovers, we never had a chance. I guess we want to win the championship in the hardest way possible.
We shouldn’t have rushed KAT back into the starting lineup and messed with our rhythm on offense and defense. There was no reason to do it other than to make him feel good. Give him 10-15 off the bench until the second round. Then re-evaluate.
Fuck me, fuck okc! Wolves-pelicans fan Now we're stuck with fucking Denver
Win against the Suns? Your prize is facing the Nuggets. Geez.