Game one was a near-perfect game. Slight underdogs heading into Miami to face Giannis, the Wolves won by 25. They led by more than that before benches were emptied. Nearly everything went as we hoped. A few first impressions and thoughts, before Friday night’s tilt at Orlando.
The main attraction was LaMelo Ball. He had an interview with Ernie Johnson in the pregame, saying very little except that on the floor he has “no expectations,” and off the floor it isn’t his job to change his baby’s diapers. The TNT Crew (yeah on ESPN now, I know) seemed bothered by the expectations part, and amused by the diapers one. Once the game tipped off, we immediately saw the benefits of Tim Connelly’s latest bold move. Ball delivered the thing we half-expected and fully-hoped: dynamic team offense by virtue of advanced passing and relentless ball movement. If things stall for even a second, it seems like Ball detects the problem, gets the ball, and fires it toward a big for a quick hand-off action that loosens up the defensive shell and gets things humming. The oft discussed “one-legged threes” look more like a last-resort “grenade” shot than something he plans to do for shits and giggles. (In a sense, they seem to operate almost like a “turnover avoidance” decision, much like Tyus Jones’s 13-foot floaters used to.) I don’t know what else to say right now about Ball, other than that he looks exactly like what this team has needed for a couple of years.
Jonathan Kuminga, the other important new guy. Good game. Kuminga’s offense isn’t smooth, and as long as he doesn’t force too many shots that is just fine. He showed versatile and physical defense, bodying up Giannis at the point in the game when the Wolves gained major separation from the Heat. It was one of the factors leading to the blowout. When Ball gets things moving and the ball (that word redundancy is just going to be a thing for anyone writing about this team) finds Kuminga in the corner, he’ll need to have a cleaner mindset for what happens next. He looked a little bit clumsy attacking close-outs the other night, but all in all, a promising debut. Finch hyped him up after the game, for good reason.
Ant had 45 points and shot 9-17 from downtown. He held the ball in isolation more as the game went on, which seemed okay because he was on fire. Given how well LaMelo seemed to manage the game, I trust that things will recalibrate pretty naturally on nights when Ant isn’t scorching hot, and the game requires other stuff. Against Miami, Ant was fully in his scoring bag, and his trash-talking bag. I wasn’t crazy about the technical foul up by 30 with a couple minutes to go, but that’s because I’m middle aged.
Jaden played a perfect Jaden game. He fake put out a cigarette when Ant hit one of his last treys. No notes.
If we need to nitpick some things – and we always need to nitpick some things: (1) Trey Lyles looked pretty bad, and I guess we’ll have to see if that looks any better when he isn’t facing a team that can stagger Bam and Giannis into bench rotations. First impression was that he’s not a rotation player. (2) TJ Shannon looked quite a bit like last year’s regular season TJ. Awkward one-handed stuff off the dribble. He did make two 3s, but also missed five 3s. I will credit him with consistently decent defense, and I suspect Finch will cite that when not even thinking about pulling TJ in favor of Clark, at Orlando. (3) Joan looked pretty green. That might also owe somewhat to facing a Bam-caliber guy against a typical bench big. See: Trey Lyles note above. He played hard, as we know he would, and really went all out to save a rebound that led to a trey at one point. He’ll do some miscellaneous stuff to help justify his minutes, and we just hope the basics get cleaner with reps.
That’s all I got after a fantastic season opener. Wolves at Magic tonight/Friday.
Go Wolves.
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