November 14th - New Orleans Pelicans @ Minnesota Timberwolves - 7-6
Tonight we play the 5-9 Minnesota Timberwolves, freshly devoid of Jimmy Butler. Usually, in a post like this, I'd list a bunch of the team's statistics from the season thus far, but I'm not really sure if that's worth doing, because without Butler they'll look very different. Instead, they've got Robert Covington and Dario Saric, who are both good players but not really on Butler's level individually.
For what it's worth, here are some key stats from the Jimmy Butler Era: 11th most ppg, 12th best offensive rating, worst defensive rating in the league. They were 5th in offensive rebounding, which is very good, but only 19th in defensive rebounding. They were 14th in assists, and 26th in FG%. They weren't a very good team. Like I said though, who knows how much of this will apply when Butler is replaced with RoCo and Saric.
I have heard that we should have Niko back, and that Payton might be able to play limited minutes depending on how he feels prior to the game. Whether this ends up being true or not, there's the information as I've seen it. I hope this is true, as Niko would be big for us, stopping us from having to use a playoff rotation all game, and if Payton can play even 15 minutes that's a good sign that he shouldn't take too long to be back for real.
This Wolves team is not good. We can definitely beat them, I'm certain of it. The only question is whether everyone shows up.
Looking forward to AD dropping 30 on KAT, and Jrue Holiday taking Derrick Rose's lunch money. Let's get this W.
#DoItBig
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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae
