u/Imaginary-Cycle-1977

Haven't paid as much attention to the draft this year since the Spurs have been so good, so I'm looking for insight into PFs we might have a chance to draft. Gimme your favorites and stay-aways (and why) out of this list who could still be on the board at 20

And fwiw I'm more curious to hear from non-Spurs fans cause I have been keeping up w draft discussions on our sub

- Yaxel Lendeborg

- Hannes Steinbach

- Karim Lopez

- Chis Cenac

- Koa Peat

- Jayden Quaintance (more of a center?)

- Morez Johnson

- Allen Graves

- Joshua Jefferson

Imo challenges should be saved for the last few mins of the game. The upside of winning a call in the first quarter doesn't outweigh the risk of losing your challenge for the rest of the game

Our bench doesn't have time to analyze a replay carefully from every angle before Mitch calls for a challenge, and when he does, the refs then end up spending several minutes searching for some BS like Castle holding onto the guy as he gets run over to justify the call. Because they're always going to try to justify the call before they overturn it and admit a mistake

Even if we do win a challenge early in the game that wins us points, that might not be as important as having the ability to challenge an out of bounds call in the last 15 seconds of the game. Games have a way of evening out even if one team pulls ahead early and you want to be certain you can challenge something late

Here's what I'm looking towards. Curious what y'all think and what else I should be thinking about.

How do we matchup against their frontcourt? 

• My guess is Wemby → Gobert, Champ → Randle, and Castle → McDaniels
• I’m interested to see if they are able to make us play bigger than we usually do, and if we can slow down this star ascension we’re seeing from McDaniels
• Also curious if they play their giant lineup more (Gobert - Reid - Randle - McDaniels) and what sort of issues that gives us if they do. That lineup had a +28 rating in 18 minutes against Denver

Will Minny play off Castle as aggressively as Portland did? 

• By game 5, Portland was playing so far off Castle there were possessions where he looked unsure of what to do and just kinda dribbled around without a plan for several seconds
• I’d like to see him close the space and get into handoff and PnR actions inside the 3 point line to make Minny pay for playing off him
• I don’t think Castle shooting 8 threes a game is the answer, but he’s got to be aggressive enough and smart about when he chooses to let it fly
• Portland played Harper similarly when Castle was off the court and I’m surprised he was as reticent to shoot as he was. He’s a better shooter than Castle and should let it fly if they’re gonna play 10 feet off him. He can shoot 40% on wide open 3s

 

Can Fox dominate his matchup? 

• Whether it’s Conley, Ayo, or whoever, Fox will have a clear advantage against whoever is guarding him
• He closed last series fantastically, can he start this series similarly while Ant is healing up?

 

How do we hold up on the boards? 

• Minnesota dominated Denver on the boards (55% to 45% rebound rate, 28% offensive rebound rate, +53 rebounds for the series) 
• Champ, Castle, and Vassell are going to need to keep playing big and help Wemby because Minny is a better rebounding team than Portland (we had a 52% to 48% rebound rate advantage last series) 
• Vassell in particular was fantastic rebounding against Portland and needs to keep it up

How big of an advantage will our depth be? 

• We’re a deeper team when everyone is at full strength, and Minny is down several key players
• If they keep an 8 or 9 man rotation, our bench guys need to beat theirs
• If they shorten their rotation, we need to wear down their starters and make them pay for having to play their guys 40+ minutes

Can KJ get back on track? 

• With the physicality ratcheting up in the playoffs, KJ wasn’t able to bully people around the rim like he does in the regular season
• Regular season he averaged 13.2 two point attempts per 100 possessions and shot 60.1%
• Last round those numbers dropped to 11.2 and 28.6%. It was noticeable that he wasn’t able to create the same space on his drives to get to his little spin move jump hook that he killed people with all season. Looking for him to adjust