Forty days is what separates us today from the end of the 2021-22 regular season. A month and a half before the Playoffs – or the Lottery – each franchise honed its weapons during the trade deadline on February 10, then recently took advantage of a week of All-Star Break to ask itself some essential questions. to a regular end in the nails. The objectives are not the same everywhere, of course, but we also quickly settled on the main themes of the six weeks ahead of us, by selecting for each franchise three small questions, three ideas to develop. Non-exhaustive choice of course because otherwise it never ends, and we leave without further delay on the end of the season of… Wolves.
What if Wolves played the Playoffs, like without going through the play-in?
2.5 wins. This is what separates today the Wolves, seventh in the West, the Nuggets, sixth. The dynamics are good on the Minnesota side and the many absences on the Denver side are one more clue in the case that interests us. Nikola Jokic has been carrying his franchise at arm’s length and at the end of every bone in his body since the start of the season, seeing Denver suffer at the end of the regular would not necessarily be illogical even if there are resources in the Colorado and, if necessary, the young pack of Chris Finch might well infiltrate the breach to scratch in extremis a place in the Playoffs, without having to go through the play-in tournament, exciting it’s in real life but in mode heads or tails especially. The Nuggets to grill, the Clippers to keep in retrospect, the Lakers who are already (too?) far away, in short, Wolves’ last 19 games will be worth a look and – it’s not once morest the Nuggets, huh, we often goes to McDo – we would clearly not be once morest the return of KAT and co. in the Playoffs, with a franchise that has only experienced the postseason once since the end of the Garnett era, in 2018, under the orders of the Thibodeau / Butler duo and thanks to a victory on the last day of the season, facing… Denver. With a Pepouze calendar in the next two weeks (Blazers twice, Thunder twice, Magic, Spurs), Minnesota can in any case let go of the horses and offer us a very exhilarating duel for this famous sixth place, which should logically offer a match-up with the Grizzlies or Warriors in the first round. Go on !
Is Karl-Anthony Towns the Big Men’s best all-time shooter?
The sentence is deliberately open to debate, especially since the person concerned himself offered himself this status a few weeks ago. We can talk regarding it for a hundred years, compare the length of each person’s career, compare eras, the discussion is endless like a bunch of others, but more than the statistics, it’s the feeling that we’re going to highlight. before today. A feeling that makes us say that since the rowdy declaration of the KAT the latter has clearly assumed, and that he even pushed the cork very far to the point that he went to win a shooting contest during the All- Starweekend. It’s just a shooting contest with zero defenders in front, yes, but when you argue that you’re a shooter and that you win a shooting competition, we can’t say much regarding it, especially since when Charles-Antoine has four hands in his face and in a money time he also puts his shots. In short, the big cat talks very loudly in the discussion and the most important thing in this case is that he still has a bunch of years left to ensure that there is no longer any debate. And quite frankly, this year, the cat has other… fish to fry, like everything we said in the first paragraph in particular.
Explosion of Anthony Edwards in the spring?
If we had to issue a flat on the current form of Wolves? It might be the shape of Anthony Edwards. Author of a huge start to the season and some already memorable cards, the n°1 of the Draft 2020 is currently going through a kind of sophomore wall, not helped it is true by a left knee which has been bothering him for several days or even several weeks. His franchise player does the job, D’Angelo Russell came back from All-Star Break drooling, Jarred Vanderbilt and Jaden McDaniels span six meters between them, the Bench Mob is incredible… but the local crack has been struggling ever since La Chandeleur, and for Wolves to go from team ‘why not’ to team to avoid in April it will take the return to form of the ant man. Back in shape and even back in grace, since it is now that the kid must show that he is really special. He proves it every day in interviews, he has proven it very often on the pitch, but a Playoffs atmosphere can very quickly raise the ranks and change the status of a player like ANT. In attack but also in defense, a sector of play where he has both shown that he might be a leader but where he has sometimes avoided making the effort, in short, he is a leader that we now expect in Minneapolis. Quite frankly, we are hopeful, at least if his kneecap leaves him alone.
