Celtics (5-0) at Timberwolves (3-2) Game #6 11/6/23

[Kuberski33]

JAylen and Jrue a -16 and a -19 respectively

Jaylen is at his best when he doesn't have to think. Put him in these half court situations and rely on him to be your #2 option - he struggles.  That's why his contract is an overpay.

I'm fine Tatum acting as the PG but get Porzingis involved in the action vs him sitting there as the 5th option.

[CelticSooner]

These are the games I plan to focus on during the regular season. They already failed the first test. My god was that some selfish basketball.

[Neurotic Guy]

Minny played a good game. Cs shot 39% and almost won this game. Overall, very disappointing offensive execution. Feels like they went backwards offensively this game.

Jaylen and Jayson shot pretty well. Jrue didn’t. Not sure what his stats were but he missed a ton.

[JSD]

I think this wolves team might be the real deal, Edwards is a stud

[Indocelts]

I think Joe is afraid to call time out to run a play at crunch time because then people can measure the effectiveness of his ATO.
He is such a coward.

[Goldstar88]

Mazulla blew this game

Really?  Lots of missed shots - Horford slips and loses the ball. JT turnovers. Players lost this. They seemed tired but just got outplayed at the end.  Should have called the timeout at end of regulation but JB got a decent look.

No, not really. C’s shot poorly. That’s why they lost. Queue the fire Joe thread, though. 

[Who]

This Minny team is right there for a Championship.

I hope they believe in themselves. They are good enough to win the West.

You are crazy. They will struggle to make the playoffs.

They were that last season despite Towns missing most of the season. Getting him back is a huge improvement. Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels both a year older and improving. That should boost them as well. Naz Reid looks better. NAW looks better.

The West is wide open. So many similarly talented teams and Minnesota is one of them. They should aim high. 7 teams in the West have a realistic chance of winning it. It is ridiculous how open the West is.

[Atzar]

Got our butts kicked!  GG Wolves. 

Thought the effort was fine.  Probably too much iso ball, but good defense can force some suboptimal situations and the Wolves played very good defense.  The Jays were really the only guys who could make shots tonight.  That won't happen too often with the number of weapons we have, but tonight proves that we're still very vulnerable when it does.

At some point we're going to need Pritchard to show up offensively.  I have no problem with his effort and he battles defensively but he can't throw it in the ocean to start this season.  We're still well within the "small sample size" part of the year but if we reach game 20 and he's still a liability, Brad may have to come up with a solution outside the organization. 

[mobilija]

For those saying this is a coaching loss, how so?

Good timeouts, timely challenge, no one fouled out despite early foul trouble, made use of the bench, a timely hack-a-gobert success play. I didn't see bad coaching, please explain.

[blink]

This stuff should really motivate these guys. Edwards dominated them all by himself down the stretch.

He is a legit mvp level player.  Just like Tatum.  We doubled him and forced other guys to beat us, but unfortunately Conley hit some big shots too.

I will say our offense sucked in the last few minutes.  I don't know how we can be as good as we are but then not know what to do in that situation.

[jpotter33]

Truly didn't deserve to win anyways, but it's super frustrating to still poop the bed late in games because of idiotic decision-making by both our players and our over-his-head coach with decision paralysis.

I saw Karalis theorizing on Twitter that Joe was - yet again - trying to let the guys "figure it out themselves" in OT and was willing to lose the game as a learning opportunity.

If that's truly the case, then shame on him. Still hasn't learned of how futile that approach all last year was.

[CelticSooner]

The wolves played just as dumb, the only difference is they their made shots. Nobody on the C’s had more than 6 assists.

[Neurotic Guy]

These are the games I plan to focus on during the regular season. They already failed the first test. My god was that some selfish basketball.

Didn’t they win the first 2 close ones?  Those don’t count?

[radiohead]

That’s the game. Minny has beaten both Boston and Denver at home. This team is legit. We needed a loss like this to bring us back to earth. The season is long. On to the next.

Other then Miami it’s the only good team we have played and we lost

That’s why we needed a loss like this. For a while there we were feeling “invincible”.

[liam]

This board reacts like The Celtics are 1-5 instead of 5-1... LOL

Goodnight.