Lakers VS Timberwolves: The Kobe & Rubio Show

This was a great game to watch as we saw tons of potential from both teams. It was nice to see the Minnesota Timberwolves get a win after their head coach, Flip Saunders, recently passed away. Let's take a look at the game and how the Minnesota Timberwolves came to win this game by 1 point.

Rubio Can Shoot
No, I'm not lying. The first points of the game were a 3 pointer by Rubio. He looked great. He had a very great jumper and shot with lots of confidence. He shot 10-17 in the game, most of those being mid-range jumpers, as well as shooting 2-4 from the 3-point line. He also finished strong at the rim, something that Rubio has also struggled with in his career. His shot looks really good and it really helped Rubio find open players when the Lakers had to really guard him. He has 14 assists to go along with his 28 points. Rubio said after the game "Yeah, well, it was a tough year for me last year, sitting almost the whole year, so I was working on that shot. I've been working (the) whole summer on that shot, and um a, it is something that if I want to keep being in this league, I got to knock them out, knock them down, and today, they, they did." Well, if they do continue to fall for Rubio, he will be a big key to success for this team.

Kobe Still Has The Skills
Well, if there was any doubt that Kobe wasn't going to be the best player on the Lakers, those doubts can be put to rest. Kobe Bryant is still the Lakers main man. He probably should have shot that last shot. He had 24 points on the night, and he is still shooting as much points as he always has. Last night, Kobe shot just 3-13 from deep and only shot 8-24 from the field. However, it sure didn't seem like it because Kobe was dropping amazing shots last night. He crossed up Tayshaun Prince a couple of times, and really had a great performance in terms of increasing peoples expectations.

Julius Randle and Karl-Anthony Towns
These big men have got some talent, and they were showing it off last night. Julius Randle really controlled the boards and did pretty good on the inside. However, he only shot 5-13 from the field. Towns lead all players in rebounding with 12 and had a nice inside game. He also showed us a step-back jumper in the game. Randle ended the game with 15 points and Towns ended it with 14. Both of these players have lots of potential and have lots of intelligence.

The 6th men
Louis Williams and Kevin Martin looked really well coming off the bench. Williams only shot 2-7 from three and Kevin Martin shot 0-5 from deep, but both of these players got to the line at a very high rate. Williams shot 7-7 from the line and K-Mart shot 11-12. Both of these teams are going to need this production from both of these guys through-out the season.

Other Points

• Roy Hibbert really didn't look all too great except for the fact that he had 10 rebounds and went 10-10 from the free throw line. He also had 2 blocks.
• Other than Towns and KG, the Timberwolves didn't rebound well. They lost the rebounding battle 39-51
• Nick Young had 14 points, including a near half-court buzzer-beater shot. Swaggy P was in the house last night and the crowd obviously loved him.
• Tayshaun Prince guarded Kobe most of the game, but I was really impressed with how well Andrew Wiggins was able to guard him. He really did a good job defending Kobe's shot. It should be noted that Tayshaun Prince seemed like he struggled with that.
• D'Angelo Russell didn't look too great in the Lakers opener. He shot just 2-7 from the field and 0-3 from deep to go along with only 4 points and 2 assists. He also had 3 turnovers in that game.

It was really nice to see these young talented teams play the other night and I'm excited to see them play this season.

Karl-Anthony Towns Is a Skilled Big Man

"Karl-Anthony Towns 2015" by Dennis Adair from Gainesville-StPetersburg, FL - Karl-Anthony Towns. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Commons.

The Big KAT had lots of people that questioned him going into this upcoming season. I really hope that all of those questions have been put to rest. Last night, the Minnesota Timberwolves had a preseason win over the Milwaukee Bucks. They have Karl-Anthony Towns to thank for that W. He played great on both the offensive and defensive end of the floor and had shown off his great post game. He was anything but a disappointment last night.

Karl started off the night with a nice basket underneath the hoop right after the opening tip. He made a nice pivot move to get up the shot. Then he showed us a nice kind of fade-away bank shot over Greg Monroe. Then he gave a nice hesitation move with a hook shot. Later, he would give us a pump-fake and a nice finger-role layup. My favorite post move he gave us though, was the little shimmy shake fade-away that he nailed over Greg Monroe. It is clear that Towns has his post game down.

His defense really struck me though. He was really able to contain a big man in Greg Monroe in the post and he really started to bother Monroe. When the Wolves went against the Bucks the 1st time this preseason, we didn't see that because Towns got into foul trouble early on. But in this game, Towns was able to defend at the 4 and the 5.

While Towns is a center, he proved the ability to play at the 4 spot. At the end of the game, Gorgui Dieng was put in with Towns. Gorgui played the 5 spot while Towns was placed at PF. It worked and the Wolves played pretty well with the both of them in there. You could see that the Wolves played a lot of high post action and PNR with both of them in the game, and you know Ricky Rubio will find you if you make a nice roll to the basket off a pick.

Towns played well at the defensive end and the offensive end. His rebounding is what put the cherry on top though. He ended the game with 12 rebounds, and he fought for each one of them. It really wasn't Towns that surprised me with the boards though, it was the whole Minnesota team. They really fought for each possession and grabbed as many boards as they could. While they did loose the rebounding batter, they definitely won the hustle battle. This is a young team that clearly wanted to win.

We new Towns would have these attributes, we might have thought they would have been that refined, but we knew he could play defense and rebound as well as post up. What you might not have known about him is that he can run the fast break and pass the ball really well. Towns fits so well with this Timberwolves team because he can run. Just take a look at the dunk and the alley-oop he had in transition. His passing abilities looked good in the summer league and they look pretty good now too. He had a nice around-the-back pass to Tayshaun Prince for a 3 pointer in the game.

In the end, Towns played really well, and I expect him to have a great season. It will be fun to see him, Wiggins, Muhammad, and LaVine running with Rubio throwing some oops.

Hawks VS Wizards (game 2)

Final Score: Hawks win 106-90



Series tied 1-1

John Wall was out. There was really no leader for the Wizards. The Hawks really did take control of the game. Let's take a look at what the Wizards need to improve on as they go back home.

The Wizards need John Wall. Simple as that. This guy averages over 10 assists per game. He runs the offense. He is like a Ricky Rubio that can score better. When he is on the floor, everyone plays so much better. Take a look at this, the Wizards took more contested shots than uncontested shots. That is a sign of lack of ball movement. Next, Nene and Gortat only had a combined 12 points. Wall's ability to get it low to the posts is better than anyone else in the league. Wall is like Chris Paul dishing to DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin or Rubio dishing to Kevin Love or Pekovic (throwback to last year). When you take away Chris Paul and Ricky Rubio, what do you have, 2 bigs having to try really hard just to touch the ball. What did they do great of? Ramon Sessions played great. He had a great second half. Paul Pierce shot great from the three point line. In fact the whole team shot 54.5% from deep, which is very impressive for a team like the Wizards. Last, they contained Jeff Teague to only 9 points.

The Hawks played a great overall game. They had 10 turnovers but made them all up with 10 steals. Everybody went for every loose ball and played their hardest. They had great ball movement and wanted to get everyone involved. One thing they could do better is get Kyle Korver some more touches. This guy only had 14 points off of only 40 touches. He needs the ball more. His usage was the lowest on his team at 13.2%! That is unacceptable. Other than that they look like they are in great shape for the next game as long as they play the same in game 3.

Injured Teams

This year has been struck by injury for many team. Many teams were hoping for playoffs and more but then injury got in the way. Lets take a look at the worst

5.Oklahoma City Thunder: Durant and Westbrook went down. But Westbrook came back with fire in his eyes. After Ibaka went down and Durant was out for the rest of the season, it's really hard to see this team making much noise in the playoffs. But you never know with Westbrook.

4. Minnesota Timberwolves: This is a team that suffered way too many injuries this season. They were looking at the possibility of the 8th seed in the West. All of a sudden, Rubio went down on their 5th game against the Magic. Kevin Martin played against the Knicks and broke his wrist at the beginning of the game. After he broke it, he scored 37 points that night. Nikola Pekovic went down (as usual) Shabazz Muhammad went down for the season after averaging about 13 points per game. And this is just to start with.

3. Miami Heat: It's bad enough that LeBron James left their team. Now Chris Bosh is out with blood clots on his lungs. This team thought they could do some great things in the playoffs. Dwayne Wade and Shabazz Napier are out. How does this team expect to beat anyone with two of their stars out. It's going to be a bumpy ride for this Heat team. Someone needs to send them a sympathy card.

2. Los Angeles Lakers: Julius Randel goes down before the season even starts. So does Steve Nash. Kobe goes down of course. Nick Young is injured. The playoff hopes that this team had pretty much flew away. They had to start players like Wayne Ellington who was supposed to be a bench player this year. No playoff for this team. And no more Steve Nash.

1. Indiana Pacers: This team was coming back from the loss in the Eastern Conference Finals looking toward next season. Then Paul George goes down ruining all their hopes of a title run for next season. Minor injuries occurred along the way like George Hill going down. They still await the return of Paul George. We all miss him. But I'm pretty sure the Pacers miss him most.