Opponent Scouting: Minnesota Timberwolves. (20-21)
About last night
I can’t bring myself to write a full recap and I will readily admit I had pretty much tuned out the Pistons game for a pretty entertaining Red Wings game for much of the 2nd half. Here is what I really want to say though. It simply isn’t good enough. Even in a tanking season where we all expected the team to be awful, two straight games of totally disinterst from the players where they got utterly rolled over is not enough. There has to be a line somewhere and the line should be “Was down by 40 before the 3rd quarter was even over”. With that in mind, it is officially time to fire Dwane Casey.
You all probably know that I’ve wanted Casey gone from the moment he was hired, but once the rebuild began in earnest I shifted to abmivalent about it because the team would suck anyways and at least Casey would keep the locker room together through the losing. It’s clear that whatever powers he has to keep guys pulling the same direction is gone. This may well not even be his fault, after so many seasons losing guys will tune out even the best coaches. The Pistons don’t have the talent on the roster to be anything but bad, but this team simply does not give a shit anymore and its pretty obvious. The only players who have seemed interested in playing are guys with obvious reasons to play for themselves (guys normally out of the rotation, buys trying to get a new contract, or play well enough for a worthwhile team to play for them). You can’t do this as an organization. Fire Casey, try to inject some life into the team, and take the second half of the season with something else. That’s it.
Tonight
Tonight at 7:00pm EST the Detroit Pistons will be back at home to face the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Wolves are on two days of rest after defeating Houston meanwhile the Pistons are on the second night of a back to back and third game in four nights after getting shellacked by the Sixers. Not ideal.
The Them:
The Timberwolves are without Karl Anthony-Towns and has been for a bit. Even before he got hurt it seemed that the Rudy Gobert trade was a complete flop, since he’s been hurt things have been about the same. They come into the game having won their last 4, but before that they had been on a 6 game losing streak. The Wolves currently sport the league’s 19th offense and 13th defense.
Without Towns the Wolves are led by star youngster Anthony Edwards who is a super athletic and physical scorer who can also shoot and is even displaying some decent playmaking this season. Edwards is averaging 23 points and 4 assists per game, he takes more threes than he probably should given his physical attributes but he’s hitting nearly 37% so it isn’t exactly a bad thing. He doesn’t always have the ball in his hands but he is unquestionably the #1 scoring option with KAT out.
In case you hadn’t been paying close attention, Rudy Gobert was traded to Minnesota for a kings ransom this offseason. Statistically Gobert is still doing his thing, scoring 14 points on absurd efficiency and grabbing nearly 12 boards per game while remaining one of the game’s most intimidating paint protectors while also not being worthless defending away from the paint, but it has been very bad overall in Minnesota. He hasn’t had the expected defensive impact, the fit with Towns was bad and without Towns he isn’t a good enough offensive player to really make best use of him offensively. I have not watched enough of the Wolves to give a clearer picture on what exactly is wrong, but the clearest way to put it is that a guy long touted as a hugely impactful player even if it doesn’t stand out on the stat-sheet is now on a team that is not just mediocre but seemingly worse than they were the previous season. That doesn’t mean Gobert sucks now or that this experiment is doomed forever, but this was not what the Wolves had in mind.
D’Angelo Russell is pretty much the same guy he’s been for years now. A silky-smooth scorer who also passes the ball well, but despite being a capable passer he often over dribbles and isn’t able to penetrate defenses regularly enough to open up the most valuable passing lanes. When his jumper is falling he becomes a terror but he is over reliant on them. He also remains piss poor defensively.
After their proverbial big 3 (and we are stretching in a big way to call those guys a big 3) Kyle Anderson is starting, he’s a rangy wing who’s a great passer and now shooting the ball pretty well. Jaden McDaniels is 6’9 and a capable shooter as well to round out a starting lineup that still looks fairly offensively potent on paper.
Off the bench, Taurean Prince is still a decent 3 and D wing, Austin Rivers can still shoot and capable of making an impact defensively, Naz Reid is a guy I actually like as a backup center who’s huge and has some nice skills offensively. Jaylen Nowell is mostly just a body at the back of the rotation.
On paper this team still looks like it should be better than they are even without KAT, but they haven’t been all season. The bad news is that the way the Pistons have been playing it is not likely to matter.
Matchups to watch:
Pistons vs. Giving a shit: The last two games were brutal. First the Pistons soundly beaten at home by a Embiid-less Sixers team and then went to Philly and had one of the more embarrassing losses in recent memory. They have to do more, it doesn’t matter who is hurt and whatever. You can’t let that happen again. The fact that they are on a back to back and 3rd in 4 nights does not exactly fill me with confidence though.
Hamidou Diallo vs. Being the bright light: Shoutout Hamidou Diallo. Not sure I have flipped as far on a Pistons player as much as I have for Diallo. I still don’t know how he fits on a winning team but at this point I’d be in favor of starting him. He plays hard, attacks the basket, provides real energy. Just keep doing you Hamidou.
Injuries? As of this writing (which is Tuesday night) I have not seen clear updates on the various guys the Pistons had out last night. Obviously if all their bigs and Bojan are hurt this is likely to be a tough game for the Pistons even if they bring proper energy.
Pistons vs. Surviving inside: IF Stew and Duren are out this could be a blood bath again. Gobert is going to post up but he is too big for Noel and then when Noel is out Naz Reid will give buckets to whoever the Pistons try to play at center.
Jaden Ivey vs. Staying aggressive: Last night was very bad for Ivey. But I’m not going to complain because at least he was bad while playing with real aggression. Do that again even if it has some poor results, if Bojan is out I want him getting up like 20 shots no matter how many he misses.
WIN THE GAME
There are no predictions. I’m so sad about the Sixers game. Play hard. Win a game.