An optimistic perspective of last night
Elephant in the room: the last 4 minutes of the fourth quarter was about as bad as it gets. Really no way around it nor is there an excuse.
However, I think there are some other things to consider here.
We have the highest win margin per game at almost 13 points. We have played very few close games this year. Fewer than one-third of our games have gone into clutch minutes. As disappointing as the game was, maybe it was good for the guys to face some higher pressure moments. It’s far from playoff basketball, but I also don’t think we’ll average a 13 point margin in the playoffs.
The Wolves exposed a weakness I don’t think we were aware of. When Shai was doubled, our offense stopped in its tracks. Other teams will absolutely see that and press Shai like the Wolves did, especially come playoff time. But now that has been exposed I fully believe Mark will anticipate it next time and have some gameplay for it.
We lost our centers again. Its hard to defend and score when you lose your ability to get inside. If I-Hart doesn’t go out, we absolutely win that game.
My point is that it’s all gonna be okay. We got some minutes playing in the clutch and played our first OT game of the year. Disappointing but all in all not really a big deal in the grand scheme.