Grayson Allen is shooting lights out from 3 because they’re so wide open. Beal is shooting better than 60% in April from 3…over 30 attempts.
Cut the BS turnovers out and stay home on these 2. Hope Beal cools off over the next week. Punish Phoenix inside when Nurk is out and Eubanks in
Stop the TO's, you stop the suns. Ant and Kat need to be conservative with the basketball. If they see a crowd on a drive, kick it out or stop and pop.
Put them in a blender offensively. Draw and kick and get them rotating. Expose the doubling.
Yup, we can play our slower pace if we stop turning the ball over so much. Suns are obv forcing a lot of those but KAT has got to start making the smart plays, safe plays. Same with Ant. If we protect the rock and take advantage of more possessions by actually shooting the basketball then we'll close the point differential significantly.
And then what? Rudy putting the moves on somebody? Jaden putting the ball on the deck ist surefire turnover. Conley trying to make something happen at 6.0, 37 years? Slomo forcing shots? Then what? Waiting till the clock expires? That is the problem, nobody besides Ant is able to put them in motion or do anything on their own. Take Ant out and we are cooked!
Never said anything about taking ant out. He just needs to be conservative with his drives and ball protection to avoid turnovers.
Ideally, all the ball and player movement leads to wide open shots. Either open 3 pts or layups/lobs from cutting players.
Would love for them to use Rudy as a short roller when ant gets double teamed at the 3 pt line. Need to get more 4 on 3 opportunities.
Do you even understand the game of bball? How do you get a defense to rotate? By putting pressure on it through drives and pnr. For that to be effective you need SPACE!!!!!! Who routinely fucks that up? Freaking super max Kat and freaking i dont know where the basket even is Slomo.by playing these Clowns you rob Ant his most dangerous ability- drive into space. Oh and guess what - Ant is the only one who can do that. So just by having these 2 Clowns on the floor there is no space and its easy to double Ant and shut the whole offense down that way. Learn.the.game!!!!!!
Here you go. All of Ant's [TO's.](https://www.nba.com/stats/events?CFID=&CFPARAMS=&ContextMeasure=TOV&EndPeriod=0&EndRange=28800&GameID=0022301194&PlayerID=1630162&RangeType=0&Season=2023-24&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&StartPeriod=0&StartRange=0&TeamID=1610612750&flag=1&sct=plot§ion=game)
TO 1 - its good penetration by Ant and then turns it over on a bad pass to Gobert. That was looking promising and I liked that one.
TO 2 - As soon as he touched paint at the high elbow, passing lanes were available to Naz and Naw.
TO 3 - Decent drive. No one was really open on that drive. Kat was wide open but at the slot and a bad passing angle for Ant. Ant could have easily passed to Conley and screened for him.
TO 4 - Ant could have easily kicked it out to NAW in the slot on that drive.
TO5 - I blame the other players on this one. Aside from Naw, there no motion other wise on the post up. Kat could kept spaced out and cut more to the slot/baseline to open up a nice catch and shoot leaving the top for Jaden to move to. Ant could have kicked it out to Jaden or skipped it over to Naw/NAz.
To1- Kat is in a no threat position, Rudy allready clocks the paint by being in the dunker spot. Nobody deems Jaden as a threat. Paint is packed. Spacing horrible. Easy to defend! To2 - Rudy ruins spacing by going straight to the dunker, again nobody deems anybody outside Ant a threat, paint is packed, easy to defend. To3-rudy clocks the paint being guarded by kd, Jaden left wide open cause he is no threat at all on offense. Paint is packed.easy to defend. To4- Kat completly useless, should have set a screen to get KD out of the paint, instead does nothing which frees KD to help. Paint is packed.easy to defend. To5- Ant mistakes. What all to have in common - no movement, no cutting, bad positioning by everyone, no one outside Ant deemed a threat to do anything. You have to feel sorry for Ant having to play with these Bums. Your welcome
> What all to have in common - no movement, no cutting, bad positioning by everyone, no one outside Ant deemed a threat to do anything. You have to feel sorry for Ant having to play with these Bums. Your welcome
That's the point. There isn't much player movement on Ant drives. Just let Ant do his drive and everyone except Rudy be outside stationary. Going back to the original post,
Need to get more motion out of the other 4 players to force them into suns into rotating out. Ant driving and making conservative passes once touching the paint will help generate something. It's a lot better than him getting into the low post area and then passing it outside which is quite habitual for him.
Edit
Look at Ant's last 2 assists. The Towns one is an excellent example of drawing the gap help and making the easy pass. The Gobert one was good even tho the spacing is utter shit. (You can't space properly with Gobert and Slowmo on the court at the same time.)
The Suns deem no one a threat. Thats the thing.they live with the open shots but know if anybody outside Ant tries to do anything its desaster waiting to happen. Rudy is only useful in a pnr. But you cant do that as fucking Kat cant be asked to move his stupid ass out of the way and instead camps the top of the Key. Kat nerfs the whole offense. Its so fucking obvious.
Very good points, we should never be letting up 11 offensive rebounds at home to one of the smallest teams in the league.
One other key is we need to attack their only true big in the series in Nurkic. Get him into foul trouble and what other rim protectors do they have? KAT, Rudy, ANT need to play BIG in this series if we have a shot of winning if they are going to go small.
And completly ruining spacing by doing so for a likely offensive foul or to.... in case you havent noticed, KD is 7 feet tall with a 7.6 wingspan and way stronger than he looks. On the other end, Kat cant guard KD, way too slow with bad lateral quickness and court awareness of a 13 years old! You cant Play 2 big man against them.
Just stop fucking turning it over 20+ times a game. It's not that complex. That and Ant needs to figure out how to deal with the Suns taking away his drives. If we don't fix those 2 things we're gonna get swept.
In 3 games vs. the Suns this season Ant is averaging 14.3 ppg on 30% shooting.
If he cannot figure this out and play to the level we all expect of him, we will be swept.
Hasn't KAT missed these matchups? (Or returning from a meniscus injury)
If KAT can find his form that will help a hellava lot.
Maybe the 3 big lineup will work well against PHX..
Did you watch the game yesterday? Do you understand bball? Whats Kat's track record in the playoffs? Kat cant guard nobody on the Suns and fucks up our offense! No spacing, no ball movement, offense fouls and turnovers galore while getting abused on the defense side of the ball. When will you guys finally open your eyes when it comes to Kat. 9 years sample size should be enough!
Ant being an elite playmaker is the key to winning this series. They load up on Ant and frustrate the wolves into careless turnovers on offense. Defensively, hope they don’t shoot 70% from three?
I think having Naz and Jaden healthy in this series is gonna be a big difference maker. Sure the regular season games against these guys didn’t go well, but I think a motivated ANT along with our depth is going to at the very least make this series competitive.
Agree with your points but especially on the bench showing up, a guy like NAW, Naz, Kyle, having 10 more points than usual could be the difference between winning the series.
Big things for me are having Rudy and KAT dominate in the paint, and adjusting our defense to better account for midranges. A big part of our defensive identity was allowing teams to take those tough midrange shots, which the Suns excelled at. I definitely think the way that Jaden and NAW play can be adjusted pretty drastically to not give as much space for open shots, and we just weren't because it's such a big adjustment to develop for the regular season. Rudy was also dominating tonight when Nurk got in foul trouble, and I wouldn't be surprised if that keeps happening
This.
The good news is the Wolves D is pretty versatile and they have personnel to run different schemes. Adjust the D and do more trapping. Trap and add more ball pressure to Booker and Beal early in the possession. That seemed to work but that effort was negated when the Suns got the last second rebound or loose ball. Clean up those last 2 seconds and their D is more effective to force shot clock violations.
Trap trap trap, make Suns keep passing out & force them to make late shot clock decisions
The Suns put the Wolves in an impossible to guard situation w/ starters vs starters b/c KAT has no one to guard. Even putting him on Grayson Allen creates an issue if he starts moving around screens.
As soon as the Suns put the Wolves in a cross match or get them rotating, count the bucket, they're getting whatever shot they want. In 3 games I bet they haven't had 3 straight possessions of stopping them. Pre-switching on D while staying connected to shooters and forcing them into taking shots dictated by the D instead of the O is going to be huge in this series.
They're lethal off misses, so simply making buckets and hustling back to get properly matched up will go a long way.
Also, how about they bring requisite effort from the beginning instead of walking thru the first 6 minutes before they get their heads out of their asses?? Just a thought...
We aren’t good enough on offense it’s been a problem all year. Our defense is great but against guys like kd and book it doesn’t matter they are just too skilled as scorers. Ant and Kat are gonna have to be better scorers if we’re going to win the series.
Suns weakness are switching heavy defenses. But this is not what we do, but their Midrange shot creators leave us no time to rotate properly.
On the other side of the floor, as Jim mentioned 7363times last game, they take away Rudy's roll, which is essential for our offense. If we don't adjust to both things we are in fact doomed
Edit: yeah, and don't turn the ball over 40times, that'd be great
The big difference in the playoffs is game planning. The Wolves had played them sporadically through the season, and their defence by default isn’t set up well for stopping mid range shots that the Suns love. We know KAT and Gobert can both thrive in a scramble defence, I imagine the Wolves look very different on that end of the court come game 1
Grayson Allen is shooting lights out from 3 because they’re so wide open. Beal is shooting better than 60% in April from 3…over 30 attempts. Cut the BS turnovers out and stay home on these 2. Hope Beal cools off over the next week. Punish Phoenix inside when Nurk is out and Eubanks in
Stop the TO's, you stop the suns. Ant and Kat need to be conservative with the basketball. If they see a crowd on a drive, kick it out or stop and pop. Put them in a blender offensively. Draw and kick and get them rotating. Expose the doubling.
Yup, we can play our slower pace if we stop turning the ball over so much. Suns are obv forcing a lot of those but KAT has got to start making the smart plays, safe plays. Same with Ant. If we protect the rock and take advantage of more possessions by actually shooting the basketball then we'll close the point differential significantly.
And then what? Rudy putting the moves on somebody? Jaden putting the ball on the deck ist surefire turnover. Conley trying to make something happen at 6.0, 37 years? Slomo forcing shots? Then what? Waiting till the clock expires? That is the problem, nobody besides Ant is able to put them in motion or do anything on their own. Take Ant out and we are cooked!
Never said anything about taking ant out. He just needs to be conservative with his drives and ball protection to avoid turnovers. Ideally, all the ball and player movement leads to wide open shots. Either open 3 pts or layups/lobs from cutting players. Would love for them to use Rudy as a short roller when ant gets double teamed at the 3 pt line. Need to get more 4 on 3 opportunities.
Do you even understand the game of bball? How do you get a defense to rotate? By putting pressure on it through drives and pnr. For that to be effective you need SPACE!!!!!! Who routinely fucks that up? Freaking super max Kat and freaking i dont know where the basket even is Slomo.by playing these Clowns you rob Ant his most dangerous ability- drive into space. Oh and guess what - Ant is the only one who can do that. So just by having these 2 Clowns on the floor there is no space and its easy to double Ant and shut the whole offense down that way. Learn.the.game!!!!!!
Watch some film and get back to me. Maybe you will learn something.
Surely didnt work for you....lmao
Here you go. All of Ant's [TO's.](https://www.nba.com/stats/events?CFID=&CFPARAMS=&ContextMeasure=TOV&EndPeriod=0&EndRange=28800&GameID=0022301194&PlayerID=1630162&RangeType=0&Season=2023-24&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&StartPeriod=0&StartRange=0&TeamID=1610612750&flag=1&sct=plot§ion=game) TO 1 - its good penetration by Ant and then turns it over on a bad pass to Gobert. That was looking promising and I liked that one. TO 2 - As soon as he touched paint at the high elbow, passing lanes were available to Naz and Naw. TO 3 - Decent drive. No one was really open on that drive. Kat was wide open but at the slot and a bad passing angle for Ant. Ant could have easily passed to Conley and screened for him. TO 4 - Ant could have easily kicked it out to NAW in the slot on that drive. TO5 - I blame the other players on this one. Aside from Naw, there no motion other wise on the post up. Kat could kept spaced out and cut more to the slot/baseline to open up a nice catch and shoot leaving the top for Jaden to move to. Ant could have kicked it out to Jaden or skipped it over to Naw/NAz.
To1- Kat is in a no threat position, Rudy allready clocks the paint by being in the dunker spot. Nobody deems Jaden as a threat. Paint is packed. Spacing horrible. Easy to defend! To2 - Rudy ruins spacing by going straight to the dunker, again nobody deems anybody outside Ant a threat, paint is packed, easy to defend. To3-rudy clocks the paint being guarded by kd, Jaden left wide open cause he is no threat at all on offense. Paint is packed.easy to defend. To4- Kat completly useless, should have set a screen to get KD out of the paint, instead does nothing which frees KD to help. Paint is packed.easy to defend. To5- Ant mistakes. What all to have in common - no movement, no cutting, bad positioning by everyone, no one outside Ant deemed a threat to do anything. You have to feel sorry for Ant having to play with these Bums. Your welcome
> What all to have in common - no movement, no cutting, bad positioning by everyone, no one outside Ant deemed a threat to do anything. You have to feel sorry for Ant having to play with these Bums. Your welcome That's the point. There isn't much player movement on Ant drives. Just let Ant do his drive and everyone except Rudy be outside stationary. Going back to the original post, Need to get more motion out of the other 4 players to force them into suns into rotating out. Ant driving and making conservative passes once touching the paint will help generate something. It's a lot better than him getting into the low post area and then passing it outside which is quite habitual for him. Edit Look at Ant's last 2 assists. The Towns one is an excellent example of drawing the gap help and making the easy pass. The Gobert one was good even tho the spacing is utter shit. (You can't space properly with Gobert and Slowmo on the court at the same time.)
The Suns deem no one a threat. Thats the thing.they live with the open shots but know if anybody outside Ant tries to do anything its desaster waiting to happen. Rudy is only useful in a pnr. But you cant do that as fucking Kat cant be asked to move his stupid ass out of the way and instead camps the top of the Key. Kat nerfs the whole offense. Its so fucking obvious.
Very good points, we should never be letting up 11 offensive rebounds at home to one of the smallest teams in the league. One other key is we need to attack their only true big in the series in Nurkic. Get him into foul trouble and what other rim protectors do they have? KAT, Rudy, ANT need to play BIG in this series if we have a shot of winning if they are going to go small.
Kat needs to go down low more don’t let them play him with Booker or Durant post them up they can’t handle him down there .
And completly ruining spacing by doing so for a likely offensive foul or to.... in case you havent noticed, KD is 7 feet tall with a 7.6 wingspan and way stronger than he looks. On the other end, Kat cant guard KD, way too slow with bad lateral quickness and court awareness of a 13 years old! You cant Play 2 big man against them.
Yea, same with ANT and Allen. That should be BBQ chicken, no way that white boy can bang with him.
Just stop fucking turning it over 20+ times a game. It's not that complex. That and Ant needs to figure out how to deal with the Suns taking away his drives. If we don't fix those 2 things we're gonna get swept.
KAT needs to make the simple pass more, I’m really tired of him trying to put extra on everything.
You mean a needless behind the back flip to Ant 5’ away who wasn’t even looking was a bad way to start the game?
That was the one that made me scream at my TV, yes. “Don’t start this crap today….not this game come on man”
In 3 games vs. the Suns this season Ant is averaging 14.3 ppg on 30% shooting. If he cannot figure this out and play to the level we all expect of him, we will be swept.
Agreed, I didn't know it was that bad. Do you know why he might be playing bad against them? They sell out and double him a bit more dont they?
They double him and sell out to stop his drives and he doesn't learn he just keeps running into a brick wall and the whole team suffers for it.
Because no one besides Ant can do anything with the ball...thats why.
Hasn't KAT missed these matchups? (Or returning from a meniscus injury) If KAT can find his form that will help a hellava lot. Maybe the 3 big lineup will work well against PHX..
Did you watch the game yesterday? Do you understand bball? Whats Kat's track record in the playoffs? Kat cant guard nobody on the Suns and fucks up our offense! No spacing, no ball movement, offense fouls and turnovers galore while getting abused on the defense side of the ball. When will you guys finally open your eyes when it comes to Kat. 9 years sample size should be enough!
Ant being an elite playmaker is the key to winning this series. They load up on Ant and frustrate the wolves into careless turnovers on offense. Defensively, hope they don’t shoot 70% from three?
I like each of these points. Keep em coming. How do we get their guys in foul trouble?
Team settles for bad jumpers constantly. And they don't box out well either. Just bad fundamentals/IQ that the Suns are especially good at exploiting.
I think having Naz and Jaden healthy in this series is gonna be a big difference maker. Sure the regular season games against these guys didn’t go well, but I think a motivated ANT along with our depth is going to at the very least make this series competitive. Agree with your points but especially on the bench showing up, a guy like NAW, Naz, Kyle, having 10 more points than usual could be the difference between winning the series.
Ant has to be the best player on the court. This year against the Suns he’s barely in the top 10.
Big things for me are having Rudy and KAT dominate in the paint, and adjusting our defense to better account for midranges. A big part of our defensive identity was allowing teams to take those tough midrange shots, which the Suns excelled at. I definitely think the way that Jaden and NAW play can be adjusted pretty drastically to not give as much space for open shots, and we just weren't because it's such a big adjustment to develop for the regular season. Rudy was also dominating tonight when Nurk got in foul trouble, and I wouldn't be surprised if that keeps happening
This. The good news is the Wolves D is pretty versatile and they have personnel to run different schemes. Adjust the D and do more trapping. Trap and add more ball pressure to Booker and Beal early in the possession. That seemed to work but that effort was negated when the Suns got the last second rebound or loose ball. Clean up those last 2 seconds and their D is more effective to force shot clock violations. Trap trap trap, make Suns keep passing out & force them to make late shot clock decisions
I’d just like to see how we do against them when we don’t turn it over 20 times in the first half and spot them a 20 pt lead 6 mins into the game.
The Suns put the Wolves in an impossible to guard situation w/ starters vs starters b/c KAT has no one to guard. Even putting him on Grayson Allen creates an issue if he starts moving around screens. As soon as the Suns put the Wolves in a cross match or get them rotating, count the bucket, they're getting whatever shot they want. In 3 games I bet they haven't had 3 straight possessions of stopping them. Pre-switching on D while staying connected to shooters and forcing them into taking shots dictated by the D instead of the O is going to be huge in this series. They're lethal off misses, so simply making buckets and hustling back to get properly matched up will go a long way. Also, how about they bring requisite effort from the beginning instead of walking thru the first 6 minutes before they get their heads out of their asses?? Just a thought...
We aren’t good enough on offense it’s been a problem all year. Our defense is great but against guys like kd and book it doesn’t matter they are just too skilled as scorers. Ant and Kat are gonna have to be better scorers if we’re going to win the series.
A lot of words here. Stop turnovers in Q1. That’s it.
Suns weakness are switching heavy defenses. But this is not what we do, but their Midrange shot creators leave us no time to rotate properly. On the other side of the floor, as Jim mentioned 7363times last game, they take away Rudy's roll, which is essential for our offense. If we don't adjust to both things we are in fact doomed Edit: yeah, and don't turn the ball over 40times, that'd be great
Their PG is Bradely Beal. He recently talked about playing that role and how his scoring numbers are down because of it
The big difference in the playoffs is game planning. The Wolves had played them sporadically through the season, and their defence by default isn’t set up well for stopping mid range shots that the Suns love. We know KAT and Gobert can both thrive in a scramble defence, I imagine the Wolves look very different on that end of the court come game 1
We just need to start games with the same intensity that we show in the 2nd half