Yes, things are as bad as they look for the Wolves

Because I ve been remiss in providing specific Wolves And One newsletter sign up if not already a subscriber the past two columns and because I m about to climb into a rental car and head back miles to Minneapolis currently s very short Wolves column will be strictly for And One newsletter subscribers Signing up for the newsletter like all our content at MinnPost is absolutely free Now that we ve given our And One subscribers first read at Encounter s postgame content here it is for our general website audience If you re looking for silver linings the Minnesota Timberwolves more than doubled their points scored in the paint from to and ceded fewer points off their turnovers from to in the second contest of their Western Conference Finals series against the Oklahoma City Thunder Their margin of defeat dropped from to But citing these petty positives will just help provide you the melody for whistling past the graveyard For the second straight event the Thunder assessed what had happened in the first half and thoroughly dominated the third quarter And for the second straight championship they played with more purpose and unity and set the tone for how it would be played on their terms A great tweet on social media by the analyst Hardwood Paroxysm displayed that through the first two games of the conference finals the Wolves shot selection was the best of the four remaining playoff teams including the Thunder and the two participants in the Eastern Conference Finals in that the spots where the shots were launched would typically produce the highest effective field goal percentage eFG according to advanced analytics But the Wolves eFG is authentically the lowest of the four teams This is because the Wolves are shooting poorly and because the Thunder are executing phenomenal defense that collapses the space that historically has been created for shot attempts in those spots One dynamic feeds into the other The Thunder s ability to physically make those shots more intricate has besieged the Wolves shooters enough to now make them mentally more complicated to convert The OKC defense is inside the Wolves shooting space so pervasively that it is also now inside the Wolves heads To get back into this series the Wolves improvement necessities to be comprehensive On offense they need to be both more disciplined and structured in how they attack the Thunder in the half court and more aggressive and attack-oriented when pushing the pace coming up the floor That sounds like a contradiction but all situations and opportunities aren t circumstantially the same It means the Wolves need to be aggressive enough to be opportunistic which can only happen if they explore opportunities But if those opportunities aren t there the Wolves need to be victim and planful in their execution This describes the Thunder s approach It also describes what the Wolves are like the bulk often when Mike Conley is on the floor In the Conley has played during these first two games just a second under minutes the Wolves have outscored the Thunder by points In the Conley has been on the bench the Wolves have been outscored by points Conley s individual stats are nothing special Like largest part of the crew he is shooting poorly especially from long range But he has experience playing against high-pressure defense has dependably been elite at reducing turnovers for himself and his crew and yet can probe for opportunities within a structured framework All is not hopeless Teams have looked worse in the first two games of a series especially on the road and located means to reverse the momentum and break through their own physical and psychological obstacles But time is getting precious The Wolves have put themselves in a position where they have punted the rest advantage they had coming into this series and rendered their more extensive postseason experience over the past meager years a moot point Now they must beat a organization that was - in the regular season four out of the next five games That s a tall order The post Yes things are as bad as they look for the Wolves appeared first on MinnPost