Beaten in Portland, the Wolves look gloomy

Unrecognizable. The word will suit both the Blazers and the Wolves. The former, who were coming off a shameful 45-point defeat against the Grizzlies, showed a completely different face last night. And the latter in no way took advantage of the opposing dynamic or enforced the hierarchy supposed to exist between the two formations.

What better symbol than this end of the third quarter? When Deni Avdija crossed Anthony Edwards to confidently sanction behind the arc at the buzzer, giving his team a 19-point lead (93-74).

Naz Reid, the most productive player among the Wolves (28 points), may well have punished twice at 3-points in the following seconds, but the visitors, trailing almost the entire match, will never manage to get back below the 10-unit mark. .

Habits will come

At the end, a 14-point defeat against one of the teams reputed to be the weakest in the West. A setback which comes after that against the Heat, marked a failed end to the match on a tactical level.

“ We are far from the level we are aiming for “, agrees Naz Reid by finding an extenuating circumstance: “ We're still kind of a new team, we have to understand each other. We'll get used to it. Coach said it this morning: do we want to be a good team or a great team? These habits will come, it's always early. »

Understand that the integration of Julius Randle (11 points at 3/9), and Donte DiVincenzo, has not yet been digested? “ We need to structure ourselves more, sometimes we lose our structure “, remarks from his side Chris Finch regretting that his players “ try to do these very risky actions far too often. You have to play simple. »

We can cite the start of the meeting where Rudy Gobert and Jaden McDaniels tried to combine together in the racket with transmissions that were not easy against the defense opposite. Which generated several lost balls (4 each – 21 in total for the Wolves).

Negligence with the ball in hand

“ Balls lost tonight were due to carelessness, not being connected », judges Chris Finch who relied on eight players in this match, but would like to extend his rotation: “ We are trying to integrate another player into the rotation. The guys aren't playing well enough, so that opens up opportunities. »

Anthony Edwards, whose coach believes that he took “ difficult shots » to start his match, prefers to put things into perspective. “ We can't get discouraged after two… matches. We can win ten in a row. We need to focus on that rather than worrying about what just happened. It's over. We can't go back and change things », notes the rear.

“ We're in the 11th game, so it's still a little early. At this point, we want to have an idea of ​​our identity, but it's still early. The West is open, with injuries and all that. It will come », also stands out Naz Reid whose Wolves (6v-5d) have a chance to redeem themselves next night on the floor of the same Blazers (4v-8d).