Mark Daigneault | Minnesota Timberwolves | Jan. 08, 2021
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00:00Nick Gallo, KCThunder.com.
00:02Their backcourt in particular got off to a really hot start.
00:06Was there anything that you all weren't
00:08doing to your normal standards?
00:10Or did they make a lot of contested shots early?
00:14What were you seeing there?
00:17I thought, I mean, you've got to tip your hat to the shot
00:19making early in the game, especially.
00:23And I thought we kind of kept pace, offensively,
00:25we kept pace with them.
00:27But we can't expect to outscore that team.
00:31We've got to eventually get the defense into the game.
00:33And I thought that was more our issue,
00:36as they got off to a hot start.
00:37And then we didn't dig in the way that we needed to.
00:40And the way that we, quite frankly,
00:41have a lot of the season, and certainly recently defensively,
00:45this was definitely a departure from the way that we've played.
00:48So I thought it was a combination of us
00:52not having our best punch, physically especially,
00:56and also how they played.
00:57You've got to credit them.
00:58They had their shoulder in our chest all night.
01:00And they were aggressive.
01:01They made shots.
01:02They played together.
01:03They had 38 assists.
01:04They had really good offensive performance
01:06and made us pay for not having our fastball defensively.
01:14Joe Masato of the Oklahoma.
01:16And Mark, you guys tied a season high with 20 turnovers tonight.
01:19That was a problem in the first quarter two nights ago.
01:22Did you see sort of the same trends
01:24as far as those turnovers?
01:26Or what did you see for a moment tonight?
01:30They're all a little different.
01:32I thought the other night was kind of uncharacteristic.
01:34We had a lot of really wacky ones the other night.
01:36I thought tonight was more pressure-based.
01:40I thought they did a good job putting some pressure on us
01:42and making the looks more difficult.
01:46So you got to credit their defense.
01:47They do that pretty regularly.
01:49That's part of their deal.
01:50And they got it into the game tonight.
01:53We certainly have to do a better job of taking care of the ball.
01:56In games like this, the turnovers have not
01:58been a huge problem this year.
01:59The defense has not been a huge problem this year.
02:01So we certainly have to learn the lessons
02:04and look in the mirror and own the game,
02:06but not overreact and not internalize it as a trend
02:10unless it becomes one.
02:11So we just got to get ourselves back on track.
02:14And I know your rotations have been fluid,
02:16but why Trey Mann over Wiggins there
02:18to start the second half?
02:20Yeah, I mean, I view those, I haven't done it a ton this year.
02:22We've done it a little bit.
02:23But I view those as substitutions, nothing more.
02:28To be honest with you, I thought the second unit
02:29in the first half didn't have the physicality.
02:33It was more about getting Wiggins into that second unit
02:36and getting another defender there
02:37than it was about the first unit.
02:39Trey was obviously aggressive in the first half
02:41and played well.
02:42So I thought it was a way to kind of check both boxes,
02:45get Trey with that starting unit,
02:46see if we could get going, coming out of halftime,
02:48and then get Wiggins' defense into that second unit.
02:54Pierce Lawson, OKCThunder.com.
02:56I did want to ask you about Aaron.
02:57It seemed like he had a pretty sturdy stat line,
02:59just felt like he was all over the floor on both ends.
03:02Just what have you seen from him,
03:03particularly over these past four or five games,
03:06and what he's been able to bring on both ends of the floor?
03:08Yeah, I think defensively, he's definitely
03:12proven himself as an NBA player on that end of the floor.
03:15He can guard a lot of different matchups.
03:17He gives consistent effort.
03:19He's physically tough.
03:20He's disciplined to the game plan and to our system.
03:24And then offensively, we've talked
03:25about this in some of his bigger scoring games,
03:27but I think he's really learning how to be
03:30aggressive inside of his role.
03:32With the catch and shoots he gets, cuts,
03:35offensive rebounds, driving opportunities,
03:39he's really played a simple game but an aggressive game.
03:41And that's right now in the role that he's in.
03:44That's the way he needs to play, and he's
03:45done a nice job of that.
03:47Myron Patton, Fox 25.
03:49I know Darius kind of gets everybody's
03:51best big offensive weapon, but when
03:54he's going against Karl-Anthony Towns,
03:56size, height, everything else, what's your message to him
03:59to try to defend him?
04:02I mean, a guy like Towns takes a team defense,
04:05and I thought that was our problem with him tonight is
04:07we're doubling him in the post, and that engages all five
04:10defenders when they ISO him in the middle of the floor
04:13like the donkey got on Bazley on that ISO drive.
04:18You've got to really make him feel you
04:20from all the spots on the floor, not just on the ball.
04:23And that's what really good players do to you,
04:25really good offensive players.
04:26And so again, we tip our hat to the way they played tonight,
04:30but we needed more of a team.
04:31It wasn't necessarily just Bazley.
04:33We need more of a team mentality on Towns tonight,
04:36and really on their team.
04:38I didn't think we had our best punch on that end of the floor.
04:44Christine Butterfield, 1077 The Franchise.
04:46Talking about size, especially with Jeremiah Robinson-Earl
04:49down there handling a lot of that,
04:51what do you think a game like this
04:52does for his individual development?
04:56Yeah, I thought they're big and they're athletic,
04:58but we've played teams bigger and more athletic than us
05:01all year and have held our own defensively and physically.
05:05I tell our team all the time, there's
05:06a difference between strength and physicality,
05:09and they're probably the stronger team.
05:10They're a little bit older and more developed physically.
05:14But physicality is a mentality and a choice,
05:17and we've held up there most of the season.
05:19And Jeremiah's held up there most of the season.
05:21And so when we have a game like tonight
05:23where the other team was more physical than we were,
05:26calling it like it is, we got to look in the mirror
05:28and know that we've played to a much higher standard than that,
05:31and that's where we expect to return to.
05:34And this has been a team that's responded all season,
05:37and I would expect us to again.
05:39Mark, not specific to this game, but Shea's three-point shooting
05:43has been down this year.
05:44But it seems like the difficulty of his three-point attempts
05:47have really gone up, like a lot of off the dribble threes.
05:50Is that, like, do you like to see him sort of experiment
05:53with those shots and not really worry about the percentages,
05:56or are you seeing any reason for concern there?
06:00I think the pull-up three, certainly last year,
06:03a guy like him, I think when he was younger
06:06his first couple of years, the book on him
06:09was to kind of gap him.
06:11And Giddey sees similar stuff right now,
06:13you know, where teams try to play off him
06:14and just sell out on the paint, on ball especially.
06:19And so I think him developing that shot and being a threat
06:22and getting guys to play him tighter
06:24is certainly strategic for his long-term development
06:27as a shot creator especially.
06:30And so it's a shot that we encourage him to shoot,
06:32obviously.
06:33We don't love contested shots from anywhere on the floor.
06:36He does get stuck sometimes.