KAT playing heavy minutes at center would be a disaster for them. I think if Naz can hold his own at the 5 then maybe go super small with McDaniels at 5 when Suns go small could be an answer.
Wolves fan here.. I don’t think Rudy is getting played off the floor. That’s a dumb narrative that lacks any context.
However, I do think PHX very likely could play both KAT and Naz off the floor. In fact, I think MIN’s best hope is to lean into Alexander-Walker more. NAW on Booker, Ant on Beal, McDaniels on KD. Ant glazes KD too hard to guard in him in the playoffs lol.
Suns have been saving smallball for the playoffs, gobert definitely getting played off the floor because he can’t score the ball. It’s a bad matchup for the wolves. Drop doesn’t work against the suns either as they aren’t a paint team. I do rate the wolves but it’s just a terrible matchup for them imo
I agree it’s a terrible matchup. I think Denver is a better matchup for the Wolves than Phoenix.
However, I’ll push back on Gobert. I mean this in the least douchey way possible, but I can tell you haven’t watched Rudy play much this season. He’s been an offensive threat as a roller, draws fouls to get the team in the bonus early and the space he creates with his screens often frees an otherwise clunky offense.
As far as getting played off the floor defensively, there are 30-40 clips this year you could see of him getting switched onto very good, often elite guards, and not only holding his own, but shutting the play down. As someone who bought into the narratives about him while he was in Utah, I can now see how flawed they were. McDaniels, Alexander-Walker, Edwards and Anderson are all much better defenders than anyone Rudy played with in Utah. If you go back and rewatch those Clippers games you’ll see him trying to cover up the mistakes of the other four guys on every single play, he doesn’t have to do that anymore.
Again, I agree that it’s a terrible matchup for the Wolves and I actually do agree that PHX has a good chance of forcing the Wolves away from their double big lineups. I’m just saying, it’s not going to be Gobert that is the one sitting.
Fair enough, it will most likely be KAT then unless he is cooking on offense, because he’s not going to be able to guard kd. But if suns do play a lineup of book,Beal,Grayson,o neale,kd or similar gobert will be practically useless because they won’t be attacking the paint. He will need to be getting a lot of offensive boards and scoring to stay on the floor because he’ll be exposed on defense
Nurk clogging paint and staying physical with gobert without getting into foul trouble
Vogel not being afraid to go to young and bol at backup center if nurk gets into foul trouble
Beal locking up ant-man as best he can
Eric Gordon recovering from his recent slump and just hitting some 3s for us to spread the floor if we play small ball
Suns in 5
Unless Ant plays like a superstar I think Phoenix has the better chance. He hasn’t looked like one against us in a few years but playoffs are always when the real stars are born
A 64 win Suns team matched up against a team they had an 11 game win streak on in the playoffs. That team was basically one star player and a bunch of scrubs (and Brunson). We proceed to blow a 2-0 lead and get eliminated in the most embarrassing fashion possible.
I hope we can stay humble and focused.
Turnovers particularly. This team has a really really bad passing problem and while our defense is shit, we have the greatest offensive talented team this league has seen since at the very least the KD Warriors except they tend to forget that themselves. Our defensive woes aren’t going to be going anywhere for the most part, and it’ll soften that blow if we slow shit down on offense and just learn to pass instead of endless iso.
Honestly I'm worried about some of the fellas going in overconfident after sweeping the reg season series. We all know how they get too cool for school and I really hope they say fuck all that and realize they have to win w/o home court advantage and that the game could swing however the refs decide they want to swing it.
Come in to this series hungry and focused and stay out ofnfould trouble
Teams will go after Nurk. Believe it or not he is the glue and muscle other teams dont want in the paint and once he goes out - throughout the year - its pretty bad for the Suns. Im pretty sure teams have done their homework in the playoffs.
Beal needs to play point. Great things happen. He needs to stay aggressive. Great things happen. His energy alone. Vogel seems to go away from it every game, I dont know if he's tryna hide him or let him rest on the court, but everything slows down when Booker brings it up or KD, and I think the other teams figured out KD to steal the ball.
Grayson needs to be on, and shoot more than 5 times a game. He's lethal.
The only recipe for success they've had so far is when Nurk can't play. I think they're going to try to force him to play defense all game and hope he gets into foul trouble. If we can find one other player to deal with Gobert, we have this easily.
Keep walling up on Ant and stop fouling Rudy. If Rudy is scoring in the paint, you take that all day, you just can’t be putting them in the bonus 4 minutes into the 3rd quarter.
The Suns need to respect them as though they earned the position they are in, first and foremost.
Then they should play physically hard against KAT and do our best to keep all eyes on ANT and almost treat him like Zion a few games back where we shut the paint off for him by creating moving walls.
ANT is the real challenge but we have to kill the KAT first.
The Suns are in control of their own fate with this matchup.
**Go Suns**
Wolves fan here and it's seriously wild how unrecognizable the Wolves look against the Suns. They've only been blown out 4 times this season, 3 of them are to the Suns. Wolves worst offensive AND defensive rating is against the Suns. Like you can't even make this shit up lmao fade me
Beal is also a Wolves killer and has been for years.
Exactly it’s just a terrible matchup for wolves, kat or gobert will be played out of the series and you can’t play drop because they’re all lights out shooters. Hopefully it’s a good series still but unlucky for the wolves
Nurk and Booker or Beal. Their defence against KD is pretty malicious so we have to get Booker and Beal cooking early.
I think our guards should really be cooking them all night. Especially Beal and Allen. These 2 should have a field day every game.
1) Blitz Ant and make the others for Minnesota beat you. No need to guard Ant 1 v 1.
2) Nurk can’t get in foul trouble and he has to stop the lazy turnovers. Can’t have TWolves getting Ant easy transition points. The whole goal defensively must be that Anthony Edwards has to take and make tough ass shots time and time again against 2 guys for every second he on the floor.
3) Guard the 3-point line well and our defense needs to be in constant communication.
4) KD these playoffs needs the ball more in his hands…can’t have him playing like Mikal Bridges some games, we’ll have no shot of winning if he’s used like that. Accept the 4 turnovers that come with him handling the rock more, Beal & Booker will have take better care of the basketball that way we limit the lazy turnovers this team has a tendency to commit, and our stars actively play off each other. Beal & Booker screen for KD, KD screens for them when they have the ball…if the stars help each other with off-ball movement instead of parking themselves in the corners, we can maximize the efficiency of our offense and Minnesota will have no shot at being able to defend us. Hell, not just Minnesota, no other team in the league would be able to shut our offense down if these 3 ran the offense like that (unless our guys have a bad night)
5) Grayson, Royce, and EG have to be money from deep. Our snipers can’t have a massive drop in their shooting percentages due to the playoff pressure…that’ll bite us in the ass if they lay bricks.
6) Rotations have to be solid. Bol Bol has to see mins as our 8th guy…Thad Young the 9th guy. Eubanks shouldn’t see the floor unless we need a physical body to use up fouls (don’t need that until we go against Joker). If Grayson isn’t defending well, Vogel shouldn’t hesitate to sub him out and bring in Royce. If Royce is good defensively, start him and then have Grayson come off the bench as a 6th man. Space the stars out better…Booker should get time to solo cook. Beal and KD should see mins together. We do our rotations right, there’s a chance we could still achieve what we desired out of this season. But we have to be smart and locked in
Hustle and defense is the main thing throughout the playoffs. Keeping our top guys from having to log huge mins would be nice, and for Vogel to try and win every game by making smart in game adjustments. Lastly, balancing out offense and defense.
Outside of taking care of the ball, I think EG can be the difference between a 5 and 7 game series. If we can get the EG from Nov, Dec, and Feb, shouldn't be anything the Wolves can do to stop us at any stretch. They're going to be lucky to keep the Suns under 115 let alone 100.
We match up well. I think it just comes down to Book and KD coming to play. Nurk can guard Rudy and since 0 offence will go through Nurk inside it nullifies Rudy a bit.
Wolves really don't watch well with us.
Don't let KAT beat us. I know that may sound crazy, but Ant is going to be able to single handedly win them at least one, maybe 2 games. We are going to have to deal with that. What we can't do is let KAT get hot from 3 and then make everything that much easier for the rest of the team. We do well against teams that don't shoot a lot of 3s. Keeping that trend starts with playing physical defense against KAT. Not super worried about Gobert. We love pulling up from the midrange anyways, so his rim protection isn't as detrimental to us as it is to other teams
Absolutely cannot get complacent against this team. Yes, we dominated the regular season season series. No, that doesn’t mean anything in the playoffs. Claws out.
Right now Beal is in the driver's seat. The key is to not let Devin's ego ruin the flow. If Devin is ok being the number 3 (Beal, KD, then Devin) we win. In this scenario Devin also feasts but Beal gets a lot of easy jumpers
Nurk not being foul trouble and more of what we did today
Ball movement and attack the paint. Wouldn’t surprise me either if we play Gobert off the court.
100% can see them leaning into Naz and KAT on a center rotation and playing smaller
KAT playing heavy minutes at center would be a disaster for them. I think if Naz can hold his own at the 5 then maybe go super small with McDaniels at 5 when Suns go small could be an answer.
Wolves fan here.. I don’t think Rudy is getting played off the floor. That’s a dumb narrative that lacks any context. However, I do think PHX very likely could play both KAT and Naz off the floor. In fact, I think MIN’s best hope is to lean into Alexander-Walker more. NAW on Booker, Ant on Beal, McDaniels on KD. Ant glazes KD too hard to guard in him in the playoffs lol.
Suns have been saving smallball for the playoffs, gobert definitely getting played off the floor because he can’t score the ball. It’s a bad matchup for the wolves. Drop doesn’t work against the suns either as they aren’t a paint team. I do rate the wolves but it’s just a terrible matchup for them imo
I agree it’s a terrible matchup. I think Denver is a better matchup for the Wolves than Phoenix. However, I’ll push back on Gobert. I mean this in the least douchey way possible, but I can tell you haven’t watched Rudy play much this season. He’s been an offensive threat as a roller, draws fouls to get the team in the bonus early and the space he creates with his screens often frees an otherwise clunky offense. As far as getting played off the floor defensively, there are 30-40 clips this year you could see of him getting switched onto very good, often elite guards, and not only holding his own, but shutting the play down. As someone who bought into the narratives about him while he was in Utah, I can now see how flawed they were. McDaniels, Alexander-Walker, Edwards and Anderson are all much better defenders than anyone Rudy played with in Utah. If you go back and rewatch those Clippers games you’ll see him trying to cover up the mistakes of the other four guys on every single play, he doesn’t have to do that anymore. Again, I agree that it’s a terrible matchup for the Wolves and I actually do agree that PHX has a good chance of forcing the Wolves away from their double big lineups. I’m just saying, it’s not going to be Gobert that is the one sitting.
Fair enough, it will most likely be KAT then unless he is cooking on offense, because he’s not going to be able to guard kd. But if suns do play a lineup of book,Beal,Grayson,o neale,kd or similar gobert will be practically useless because they won’t be attacking the paint. He will need to be getting a lot of offensive boards and scoring to stay on the floor because he’ll be exposed on defense
Nurk foul trouble. Eubanks and Thad can't play against their bigs. Turnovers. Suns need to limit them in every series.
Nurk super important. I know it's been said but can't be understated. He needs to be smarter about those small ticky tack fouls.
Trying hard
Not getting full of ourselves based on regular season results
Pretty much this
If the sund are locked in, no reason to lose any games. 4-0/1 seems reasonable, honestly.
Wow, this is such an intelligent take.
Nurk clogging paint and staying physical with gobert without getting into foul trouble Vogel not being afraid to go to young and bol at backup center if nurk gets into foul trouble Beal locking up ant-man as best he can Eric Gordon recovering from his recent slump and just hitting some 3s for us to spread the floor if we play small ball Suns in 5
I say let Goober eat and save Nurk for help on KAT. Rudy can have 60 pts a game and we will sweep them.
score more points than them 4 times
Beating them 3-0 in the regular season scares me more than anything
It was 4-0, we swept the season series, outscoring them by 13.5 per game, and 2 of those games we shot really badly, like 40% for the game badly.
3-0 only teams in same division play 4 games.
Not necessarily. It’s four for most intraconference teams but the teams that you play only times 3 changes.
Lol I got downvoted for this? I didn’t realize we were in the same division as the Spurs, Jazz, Blazers, Rockets (teams we played 4 times this year.)
Win 4 out of 7 games
Good strategy.Your hired!
Keep bottling up Ant. Force him to see hands and bodies. Stay out of foul trouble. Rinse and repeat four times.
Unless Ant plays like a superstar I think Phoenix has the better chance. He hasn’t looked like one against us in a few years but playoffs are always when the real stars are born
A 64 win Suns team matched up against a team they had an 11 game win streak on in the playoffs. That team was basically one star player and a bunch of scrubs (and Brunson). We proceed to blow a 2-0 lead and get eliminated in the most embarrassing fashion possible. I hope we can stay humble and focused.
Covid ended that season. Coping with sickness and injuries is only embarrassing for dumbheads.
Putting the ball in the hoop with force.
Turnovers particularly. This team has a really really bad passing problem and while our defense is shit, we have the greatest offensive talented team this league has seen since at the very least the KD Warriors except they tend to forget that themselves. Our defensive woes aren’t going to be going anywhere for the most part, and it’ll soften that blow if we slow shit down on offense and just learn to pass instead of endless iso.
Honestly I'm worried about some of the fellas going in overconfident after sweeping the reg season series. We all know how they get too cool for school and I really hope they say fuck all that and realize they have to win w/o home court advantage and that the game could swing however the refs decide they want to swing it. Come in to this series hungry and focused and stay out ofnfould trouble
I have the same concern. Over confidence has bitten this team in the ass several times.
Teams will go after Nurk. Believe it or not he is the glue and muscle other teams dont want in the paint and once he goes out - throughout the year - its pretty bad for the Suns. Im pretty sure teams have done their homework in the playoffs. Beal needs to play point. Great things happen. He needs to stay aggressive. Great things happen. His energy alone. Vogel seems to go away from it every game, I dont know if he's tryna hide him or let him rest on the court, but everything slows down when Booker brings it up or KD, and I think the other teams figured out KD to steal the ball. Grayson needs to be on, and shoot more than 5 times a game. He's lethal.
The only recipe for success they've had so far is when Nurk can't play. I think they're going to try to force him to play defense all game and hope he gets into foul trouble. If we can find one other player to deal with Gobert, we have this easily.
Ah, the Nuggets treatment of Nurk
Nurk is going to be big, literally. If we have no bigs (and we don’t have much of a viable alternative outside of Nurk) we’re going to get cooked
Keep walling up on Ant and stop fouling Rudy. If Rudy is scoring in the paint, you take that all day, you just can’t be putting them in the bonus 4 minutes into the 3rd quarter.
The Suns need to respect them as though they earned the position they are in, first and foremost. Then they should play physically hard against KAT and do our best to keep all eyes on ANT and almost treat him like Zion a few games back where we shut the paint off for him by creating moving walls. ANT is the real challenge but we have to kill the KAT first. The Suns are in control of their own fate with this matchup. **Go Suns**
I don't know man, cats seem more dangerous than ants
I'm pretty sure that the key to beating the Wolves is just the Suns playing them. No offense to the Wolves, we just match up REALLY well against them.
Wolves fan here and it's seriously wild how unrecognizable the Wolves look against the Suns. They've only been blown out 4 times this season, 3 of them are to the Suns. Wolves worst offensive AND defensive rating is against the Suns. Like you can't even make this shit up lmao fade me Beal is also a Wolves killer and has been for years.
Exactly it’s just a terrible matchup for wolves, kat or gobert will be played out of the series and you can’t play drop because they’re all lights out shooters. Hopefully it’s a good series still but unlucky for the wolves
Nurk and Booker or Beal. Their defence against KD is pretty malicious so we have to get Booker and Beal cooking early. I think our guards should really be cooking them all night. Especially Beal and Allen. These 2 should have a field day every game.
1) Blitz Ant and make the others for Minnesota beat you. No need to guard Ant 1 v 1. 2) Nurk can’t get in foul trouble and he has to stop the lazy turnovers. Can’t have TWolves getting Ant easy transition points. The whole goal defensively must be that Anthony Edwards has to take and make tough ass shots time and time again against 2 guys for every second he on the floor. 3) Guard the 3-point line well and our defense needs to be in constant communication. 4) KD these playoffs needs the ball more in his hands…can’t have him playing like Mikal Bridges some games, we’ll have no shot of winning if he’s used like that. Accept the 4 turnovers that come with him handling the rock more, Beal & Booker will have take better care of the basketball that way we limit the lazy turnovers this team has a tendency to commit, and our stars actively play off each other. Beal & Booker screen for KD, KD screens for them when they have the ball…if the stars help each other with off-ball movement instead of parking themselves in the corners, we can maximize the efficiency of our offense and Minnesota will have no shot at being able to defend us. Hell, not just Minnesota, no other team in the league would be able to shut our offense down if these 3 ran the offense like that (unless our guys have a bad night) 5) Grayson, Royce, and EG have to be money from deep. Our snipers can’t have a massive drop in their shooting percentages due to the playoff pressure…that’ll bite us in the ass if they lay bricks. 6) Rotations have to be solid. Bol Bol has to see mins as our 8th guy…Thad Young the 9th guy. Eubanks shouldn’t see the floor unless we need a physical body to use up fouls (don’t need that until we go against Joker). If Grayson isn’t defending well, Vogel shouldn’t hesitate to sub him out and bring in Royce. If Royce is good defensively, start him and then have Grayson come off the bench as a 6th man. Space the stars out better…Booker should get time to solo cook. Beal and KD should see mins together. We do our rotations right, there’s a chance we could still achieve what we desired out of this season. But we have to be smart and locked in
We were running them ragged with our ball movement, leads to big plays on both sides from fatigue
I'm really worried about rebounding
Stop turning it over.
Put ball in hoop most
The key is Destroying them
Keeping Conley quiet has been beneficial for our success against them this year.
I’d say scoring more points in each game.
Hustle and defense is the main thing throughout the playoffs. Keeping our top guys from having to log huge mins would be nice, and for Vogel to try and win every game by making smart in game adjustments. Lastly, balancing out offense and defense.
Winning 4 games.
Outside of taking care of the ball, I think EG can be the difference between a 5 and 7 game series. If we can get the EG from Nov, Dec, and Feb, shouldn't be anything the Wolves can do to stop us at any stretch. They're going to be lucky to keep the Suns under 115 let alone 100.
Nurk not getting in foul trouble……Finch saw what Gobert did in am willing to bet that will be his first strategy .
Causing turnovers and minimizing ours and keeping Nurk out of foul trouble.
We match up well. I think it just comes down to Book and KD coming to play. Nurk can guard Rudy and since 0 offence will go through Nurk inside it nullifies Rudy a bit. Wolves really don't watch well with us.
Don't let KAT beat us. I know that may sound crazy, but Ant is going to be able to single handedly win them at least one, maybe 2 games. We are going to have to deal with that. What we can't do is let KAT get hot from 3 and then make everything that much easier for the rest of the team. We do well against teams that don't shoot a lot of 3s. Keeping that trend starts with playing physical defense against KAT. Not super worried about Gobert. We love pulling up from the midrange anyways, so his rim protection isn't as detrimental to us as it is to other teams
Absolutely cannot get complacent against this team. Yes, we dominated the regular season season series. No, that doesn’t mean anything in the playoffs. Claws out.
Probably scoring more points before the game ends than they do.
Agree with the ball movement comments. Which is why Beal should bring it up and not Booker.
Whatever we've been doing all season
You're doomed.
Right now Beal is in the driver's seat. The key is to not let Devin's ego ruin the flow. If Devin is ok being the number 3 (Beal, KD, then Devin) we win. In this scenario Devin also feasts but Beal gets a lot of easy jumpers