I looked at MIN's injury report before the game and don't remember seeing Anderson on it. But he ended up not playing. And I really thought Rudy would be there. So maybe MIN was trying to confuse us. It didn't work. I was talking to an acquaintance a couple years ago about superstars claiming injury when they just need some time off, AKA "load management." And he brought up the "out" vs. "game time decision" listings for players as maybe part of mathematical game-theory: make the opponents confused about who they might or might not be matching up against and you get an advantage. (This theory gets very complex the more variables are added in, and maybe you remember the "Prisoner's Dilemma" of three guys being taken in for questioning, but kept in separate rooms and the cops tell each one, "If you tell us the truth you'll walk." What would you do if you were a prisoner? What is the optimum strategy for you? It gets even more complex if the cops say, "If all three of you refuse to confess you'll each get 4 months. If only one of yas confesses, that lucky a-hole will walk and your two friends will get a year in stir. What's it gonna be, bright-boy? We are telling your friends the same thing we just told you. Time to get smart and tell us the truth." Answer: ya clam up. Probably. Because you don't know for sure what you three planned to say beforehand still holds if the cops suddenly come in and say, "Well your pal spilled the beans on the three of yas. Wanna come clean now? The judge will look more kindly on ya." You don't know what's true. Best case scenario for all three of ya; but do your pals think the same way? Etc) This all seems like over-thinking it to me: just assume that, unless you've seen Player X in street clothes for weeks on the sideline, or obviously unable to play, his injury has led to more losses, etc, that he will be there, on the court. End of story. Well, maybe not 100% "end" of story: you're always guessing (so maybe there is a little gamesmanship going on): star player's game differs from his substitute's, so you have to prepare for those contingencies and make adjustments, "in case he's really sidelined." Very often AD and Bron are listed as "game time decision." And often they end up playing, especially this season. So if you have the Lakers coming up, just assume those guys are going to play; if one or the other doesn't suit up and play, you need to make adjustments of some sort, but you obviously have the advantage, no matter what, because one or two superstars won't be competing. And the C-Bags screwed this up: they saw neither guy in uniform at game time, took us lightly, and we torched 'em. Mazzulla and staff either didn't make adjustments, or the players subconsciously relaxed anyway seeing Bron and AD in street clothes. If GSW is saying Steph will be ready for us, assume he will be. It's the best strategy. (Not like anyone's gonna stop him from hitting 5-8 3s if he's feelin' it, though.)
i'll say that the miraculous recoveries for the lakers games are clear signs that the brand is strong, so i'll take it in the long view.
Bucks shoot a hellacious 7 for 39 from 3 and lose by 35 points in SAC. 18% while jacking it up 39 times. That's worse than our shooting! I was at an informal meeting at a bar and they had a big screen on with MIN@Clips on: Looked up and MIN was down 20 something. Then I looked up and they were down 4, then they passed the Tenants and won by 18. Didn't get a chance to see Ballmer's face. Ant was unreal: 37/8 in 37 mins. They had Rudy and Anderson back. We may have dodged a bullet there. Kawhi left the building with back spasms?
Man, the Kings blowing out the Bucks by 35 is not what I had in my bingo card. We really need to win this game tonight otherwise I think we'll be stuck at 9th and have an outside shot at 8th and only way we get to 7th is if the Suns fall below the Kings (which is possible looking at the Suns schedule which is brutal, but Booker is back now so idk).
This is crazy - we're 1-6 against the Kings spanning over the past 2 seasons, and Domantas Sabonis is 9-0 against AD wtffff They also have a +30pt differential over us this season...that is unreal. The way they dominate us, it's almost mental at this point... We SHOULD be a matchup nightmare for the Kings given our style of play and them being meh in offense and horrible on defense...but they've just had our number unfortunately.
Yea, it's really buggin' me. But every loss to them was their quickness over our size, basically. Man, I can't wait for Vando to get back.
The Kings had the best ppp offense of all time last season and are 8th this season , it's far from "meh"
they have our number we'll be better off if we end up in any kind of playoff run to let another team eliminate them
It’s Bizzaro Kings vs Lakers. Man, we ripped their hearts out with our Shaq/Kobe squads. Such great memories- especially when Foxy ran half way around the arena, through the tunnel to punch Doug Christie- in a preseason game!!! Fox was my favorite enforcer because he could bring it on offense as well.
We are going to have to put an epic run together to even have a chance of getting out of the playin situation. Like win 12 of the last 15 or something in a bid for the six spot. Not sure that would even do it. More likely we are probably stuck in 9th or 10th. I guess we'll see. If we can win ten more of the final 15 maybe we get up to 8th or 7th somehow.
