I find it laughable how some people think we lost this game because we couldn’t stop Trae Young. We still held them to 107 points. Take away their end-of-game FT’s and it’s even less than that.
We lost this game on the offensive end. Our offense looked like a middle school team where Garland was the coach’s son. Hopefully next year we can run an actual offense like we did at the beginning of this year, but I don’t know how that happens without a new coaching staff or a Ricky Rubio return. Time to unleash Evan Mobley.
Well, our inability to stop Young wasn't the only reason we lost, but it certainly was one of the biggest. I'm not saying we could have done much differently -- he was just that good in the second half. That is what superstars do -- they will their teams to victory in the biggest moments. He was hitting 35-footers and dropping floaters left and right. Garland wasn't.
Other factors, in no particular order: We didn't run an offense. Allen clearly isn't 100% -- in particular, he had trouble catching the ball in traffic (which is understandable). We didn't run an offense. LeVert had no shot-clock awareness. We got no breaks from the officials on those calls that could have gone either way, and this was a momentum killer in the second quarter. (To be fair, while close, I thought all of the calls were probably the right ones, other than that it should have been a flagrant on Capela.) We didn't run an offense.
Even though it was only two games and not an entire series, this experience was good for our young guys, and next year should be fun. Hopefully that first round pick will give us a rotation piece. I'm excited to see what our offense looks like with a healthy Sexton. While LeVert and Sexton each do have flaws, they are good players, and we should keep good players. A good coach will figure out how to get the best out of them. I'm not sure Bickerstaff is that guy, but he will have another year to try to show it.
Mobley, Garland, Allen, and Markkanen are all very young and still improving. Okoro is a mystery to me, but he is also very young and I'm not ready to give up on him yet. LeVert is in his prime. Wade is a winner and there is a role for him on a playoff team. Same with Stevens. I think Love can give us another year like he did this year, both on and off the court. Osman I can do without. Windler hustles and is a smart player -- someone has to help him figure out what happened to his outside shot.
If Rubio could come back and be reasonably close to what he was this past year, I'm not convinced we need any more players. We just need to stay healthy and to let the young guys get better in time.