*~*~* 2022 PLAY-IN GAMES THREAD *~*~*

KAT was really pouting during the celebration, he ends up looking almost worse than if they lost

he got in a nice sweet kiss with his girl

“Weak ass Clippers! Beat they mf ass!”

- Pat Bev on IG live 🤣 pic.twitter.com/pD9jLB91iq

— Lakers All Day Everyday (@LADEig) April 13, 2022

KAT was -14
naz reid was +17

reid was exactly what they needed tonight. super solid backup

wolves/bev getting roasted hard on twitter lol

kat looked like he had no idea what was going on out there, hes so lucky they won everyone would be killing him right now

he played like he had suffered a severe head injury right before the game

i love that the wolves celebrated like that tbh. mlb teams do it when they win the one and done game. but it was also hilarious and over the top.

i love them celebrating like that, i love people making fun of them for it. i’m taking no sides. great entertainment all around

pretty awesome game to be at for m@tt

definitely, one experience I’ve never had (will never have!) is being at a home game series clincher. this isn’t a series but the feeling’s probably similar!

Was amazing, we had great seats, def the loudest crowd I've ever seen at the Wolves...exciting night of hoops

It wasn't a playoff game for real but in terms of the crowd and atmosphere it totally was, obv we don't take anything for granted

it’s not technically a playoff game by the letter of the law but by atmospheric measures it certainly is

ESPN Analysts' Nets-Cavs Predictions:

Kendra Andrews: Nets

Jamal Collier: Nets

Nick DePaula: Nets

Nick Friedell: Nets

Kirk Goldsberry: Nets

Israel Gutierrez: Nets

Richard Jefferson: Cavs

Tim Legler: Nets

Andrew Lopez: Nets

Tim MacMahon: Nets

Bobby Marks: Nets

Dave McMenamin: Nets

Kevin Pelton: Nets

Kendrick Perkins: Cavs

Omar Raja: Nets

Jorge Sedano: Nets

Ramona Shelburne: Nets

André Snellings: Nets

Marc J. Spears: Nets

Ohm Youngmisuk: Nets

I think celebrating is warranted, it’s a win and you’re in game

old one got deleted

Inside The NBA played WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS over the Timberwolves Play-in celebration 😂pic.twitter.com/CjTs1BhBsD

— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) April 13, 2022

what was up with the announcing team repeating over and over that pat bev is "the most impactful player" on the wolves, as if it's inarguable? i give him big credit for a culture and intensity shift and obv he came up big last night but cmon

and congrats ums, mustve been amazing to be there!

i love them celebrating like that, i love people making fun of them for it. i’m taking no sides. great entertainment all around

― J0rdan S., Wednesday, April 13, 2022 12:38 AM (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

same. kinda hate when players get clowned on for celebrating as though their entire lives don't culminate in whatever you do during your 25 minutes on the court during exactly those kinds of games. at the same time lol it's a play-in vs. the Clippers

Lavator Shemmelpennick
Posted: April 13, 2022 at 9:46:18 AM
what was up with the announcing team repeating over and over that pat bev is "the most impactful player" on the wolves, as if it's inarguable? i give him big credit for a culture and intensity shift and obv he came up big last night but cmon

the impact situation is such a mess in the nba rn on one hand you have impact metrics which are good faith if often flawed stats that attempt to quantify winningness then you have the mostly unrelated side of impacting winning and the awful word impactful which ties into all sorts of corporate motivational speech like shifting the narrative winning culture and so forth which then leads to the mythology of pat bev turning the wolves around purely by force of personality which prob somewhat explains the wolves celebrating a playin win like they just got gold medals

pat bev was even yelling about narrative and culture during his post game revery lol, true heads know he just runs around doing nothing

and of course all this selling of impact and culture is revealed as farce by the fact that the wolves are a 7 seed who won a single gave vs the 8 seed

their culture and narrative are middling at best

ultimately the reason this pat bev story is so appealing is because the wolves generally as a team are soft, tuxedo guys

yeah their best player apparently melted as soon as someone touched him so not sure where that fits into the culture

yeah some of the wovles elation was prob at surviving kats total meltdown which they were all prob a lil worried about ahead of time

kat was trying to follow the new narrative and play physical but he just ended up fouling out in 24 mins lol sometimes even when the prevailing culture is pressuring you its better to be yourself

ultimately the reason this pat bev story is so appealing is because the wolves generally as a team are soft, tuxedo guys

― lag∞n, Wednesday, April 13, 2022 9:39 AM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is close to it, I think the Pat Bev thing is sort of overrated and underrated at the same time? I mean, when you say impactful I don't think setting a locker room vibe is on par with what happens on the court, as frustrating as KAT is (last night being a great example) he's the most impactful player, love Edwards but night in, night out KAT produces and is the #1 reason we had a good season so far.

However, to lagoon's point, I think Wolves fans have embraced Pat Bev so much because goddamn we have just seen (aside from being shitty basketball) the most passive, least aggressive, least passionate teams...Wiggins is obviously the classic example of this

KAT is our most talented player but he's not a leader, and he's kind of a nerd and a bitch overall, so there's a weird vacuum there that Bev has filled

And you do have to give him credit, many people on and around the team have talked about a preseason meeting he held where he talked to the team about setting a standard and understanding their roles. Also, frankly, he can yell at the stars in a way that gets through with them, but at the same time they really have an affection for him (something Butler tried to do in his psychotic way but he generally seemed to hate KAT and Wigs, whereas Pat always talks about their talent, always gushes about them.)

also, I think his effort on defense (something that has been sorely lacking for a long time) was an example, most of our players, including KAT, aren't naturally great defenders, but particularly Ant this year has shown hustle and is athletic enough to stay in front of guys and has active hands.

But ultimately he had 7 points last night and was a -5 so people need to relax

plus he's just kind of the classic "hate him when he's not on your team, love him when he's on your team" kinda guy.

yeah all reasonable points tho i dont think pat bev is quite the culture guy he sells himself as hes too unhinged and unpleasant and also not that good at basketball, i actually dont think id like him on my team hes way too chaotic, marcus smart for instance is the real deal as far as that kind of guy still super passonate and fiesty too the extreme but much more focused and skilled, draymond is maybe the ultimate, tho if you look at where hes got himself in trouble its the more pat bev aspects of his personality coming out

xp that makes sense, this team desperately needs someone to kick them in the ass and he is capable of doing it.

the other thing to remember is that the media LOVES pat bev because he's always a good quote and seems like he's happy to play ball with them so they're going to overrate what he does probably no matter what.

xpost

oh for sure i would never suggest he's on the same planet as smart or draymond, i will push back on this a bit:

i dont think pat bev is quite the culture guy he sells himself as hes too unhinged and unpleasant

because honestly in all the local and beat coverage people on the team and the org (and finch) seem to genuinely like the guy! i don't know if that's not been the case elsewhere, but don't think he's as unpleasant as butler was at all

.....but I agree w.your overall points, and I'm fearing a playoff game where he takes the schtick too far. (and as much as I love him and Vando - I LOVE Vando - it's tough to have 2 of your starters be so limited on offense despite all the D and "little things" they do)

i guess the best way to say it is that he's a very flawed and weird player but the wolves are a very flawed and weird franchise and for whatever reasons in this particular circumstance he's had a positive impact. but it feels like a one in a million confluence of things.

lol maybe honestly the whole thing is "this guy can yell at KAT and get away with it"

i dont know if hes well liked or not but he just seems like he would get old fast

jimmy butler is periodically psychotic and tries to fight his own coach but hes cool and will make you coffee

pat bev is not cool tho idk i just dont like his whole thing hes too proud of being a maniac

not shit on the wolves first good season in forever tho! all this talk of impactful culture narrative just got me going

its important to have guys that arent afraid of the bigger games. tuxedo teams 100% need a goon and pat bev is the perfect goon for the wolves. when your best three players are guys who've had 'does he even like basketball?' questions circling around them you need a psycho to kinda force them to care night in night out... to manufacture beef and infuse some bravado. jimmy didnt embrace the role to lift them up and instead shit on them, bounced and found an organization that embodies it vs pat bev whos embracing trying to lift the teammates/franchise up. ie he was on JJs pod he said ants gonna be as good as jordan lol. i think bev was a good signing by them and i dont think they win that game last night without him.

m@tt made some of those points i see. sorry hadnt refreshed

idk his shtick didnt prevent kat from having maybe all things considered the worst game ive ever seen from a guy whos about to make an all nba team, the idea that it should when framed that way seems kind of ridiculous, ultimately imo what tuxedo teams need is just fewer tuxedo guys

pat bev is an 8th man on a good team people are asking too much of him

i dont disagree but maybe his schtick helped lift up other guys. this stuff is basically impossible to quantify.

i liked D Los game last night, pretty unique player

thats the thing culture narrative impactfulness are all very abstract terms which have their uses when you want to you know be abstract but then people try to solidify that into some lil chunk of convenient meaning, your and matts posts were more getting at how constituent parts of these big ideas might actually function in basketball terms which i appreciate, but i do think the analysis has to include the not as good pat bev stuff too which is basically that hes a loose cannon whos not that good at basketball lol, so i think its reasonable to say that he functions as "the spark plug" for them but that in the hierarchy of basketball culture thats a relatively minor role when compared to guys like "the professional" and "the difference maker"

dlo can def do some stuff but hes pretty soft too maybe not the best fit with kat, and you worry about edwards development too

so i think its reasonable to say that he functions as "the spark plug" for them but that in the hierarchy of basketball culture thats a relatively minor role when compared to guys like "the professional" and "the difference maker"

yah otm spark plug.. not the engine that makes a lot of it work ie dray/smart. borderline starter. but hes a good fit with those three scorers.

i do think that aside from the culture impactfulness man stuff pat bev does have an actual role on a team whose three best players are, to put it mildly, far from the most enthusiastic and skilled defensive players in the league. we’ll see how it all goes in a 7 game series when the grizzlies can plan repeatedly to not even pretend to guard him when he’s on the floor. the reason he stopped getting minutes for the clippers is because you end up playing 4 on 5 when you have the ball w/ him on the floor

i think russell’s game could play up in the playoffs where individual scoring matters more. his ability to hit pull up jumpers off the pick and roll makes them hard to guard when he’s on the ball, he was walking into shots in the fourth last night and drilling them

the thing that concerns me is just that he’s a FA after next season and already making $30m per year & i shudder at what that next contract is going to look like for him. if they’re gonna commit huge money to him to play next to towns & edwards they’re gonna need to have a really nice run of GMing and development to put the right pieces around them.

the west was down this year which i think will change, the clippers and nuggets are gonna be much better, you’d have to think the lakers will be too. zion coming back as well. there’s gonna be a morass of teams with real expectations going into next year the majority of which aren’t even gonna get out of round 1

nets are favored over the celtics rn, wonder if the smart money is gonna come in, i have a lil money in an old poker account i was just gonna put on it but they separated out their sportsbook into a different operation wtf, they do have virtual sports you can bet on some sort of simulation lol

xpost
ultimately the fact is we have 2 of our starting lineup (pat bev and and vando) who just aren't starting caliber NBA players, our roster isn't good enough to compete with the real deal teams in the playoffs, i'll be happy to be surprised if they take memphis in the series

i agree, i worry about the D-lo conundrum, he's player way better than expected this year which raises his value but at the same time i don't think he has much more potential to get better than he is now and he doesn't feel like a max player...but losing him would hurt as well if you can't replace him with someone of equal talent