January 12th - New Orleans Pelicans @ Minnesota Timberwolves - 20-22
Closing in on .500, as we come to a vital stretch in the season. It's extremely important that we play at at least a .500 level during the next 10 games or so. We've won 4 of our last 5, so that's reason to be optimistic, but it's important to remember that all of those wins came against other sub .500 teams. Can't let the recent success totally go to our heads. Beating Minnesota tonight would have two huge implications: firstly, it would leapfrog us over them towards the playoffs, but secondly taking this game would put us up 2-1 in the season series, which is always important especially in such a tight conference.
INJURY REPORT: For us, E'twaun Moore is questionable, and may play. If he does, this will be the first time since the fourth game of the season that our entire roster has been healthy. For Minnesota, Robert Covington is out and Derrick Rose is questionable.
Let's take a look at Minnesota since it's been around two weeks since we played them, and a bunch of games.
Offensive Rating: 13th
Defensive Rating: 18th
Rebounds per game: 17th
Assists per game: 15th
Steals per game: 5th
Blocks per game: 7th
2pt percentage: 25th
3pt percentage: 10th
This is a pretty alright all around team. The excel at little, but they aren't tragic at any one thing.
The big guys on their team are the same as always. KAT has been on a tear recently, averaging 27.5/15 with 2.6 blocks over their last bunch of games. It's funny how for him, that's being on a tear, while for AD averaging 27+ppg and 2.6bpg+ is basically just an average year. Still, it's impressive and needs to be contained. If AD plays with the same level of defensive intensity that we've seen recently, he shouldn't have any problem with that, but I'll still be looking for some trapping. KAT is mostly a face-up player without an extremely developed post game, so I'd love to see double teams when he's in the high post, and that will take defensive awareness from the rest of the team to compensate.
After that, it's Wiggins. He's averaging 18/4/2 on 40% from the floor and 35% from three. The solution is the same as it always is when facing him: take advantage of his defensive laziness, make him take difficult shots, play solid defense and let him beat himself. He's not a smart player, and has multiple easily exploited weaknesses if we play clever team defense on him.
Finally, it's D Rose. If he plays, he's been having a very good season overall, as we all know. Jrue is the perfect kind of guy to have on our team, because of his elite defensive abilities especially on the perimeter, which is where Rose's 47% three point shooting comes most in handy. It's strange for him to have developed such an effective jumper basically overnight, but it's happened and not every team has someone at the guard spots who can deal with that.
We play the way we have been recently, I see no reason we can't win this game, even on the road. We need to start picking up road wins if we want to make the playoffs, and this could be a great opportunity. Looking forward to it, let's go and #DoItBig
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Originally Posted by tdcreator
