Month: March 2007

Game #69, Home Game #33: Minnesota 94, Portland 93

1. Two Cheers For Wittman, Davis and James

I originally wasn’t going to post after the Portland game, if only because I usually only go once on the weekend when the online traffic is down and already posted yesterday after Friday’s loss. But the Wolves pulled out a win in the last second against Portland this afternoon and some of my favorite targets of late did well for themselves. Specifically, I’ve ripped coach Randy Wittman, Ricky Davis and Mike James to varying degrees over the past month of two–and still regard them heavily responsible for the team’s disappointing season–and have been particularly scornful during the recently concluded five game road trip. So, silence after a rare win didn’t seem quite fair.

I really started sharpening my fangs when Wittman replaced Rashad McCants with Mike James alongside Randy Foye in the backcourt with 5:04 to play and the Wolves down 80-82. The Trailblazers had a big lineup in the game and on Portland’s first possession after the substitution, James was on soon-to-be Rookie of the Year Brandon Roy. As soon as Roy received a pass, Minnesota went into scramble mode and Zach Randolph eventually was fouled to save a slam dunk. The next time down, Martell Webster nailed a trey. Then Randolph tipped in a miss. Blount and KG were pressuring the perimeter to help out the small backcourt, opening up the inside. When they didn’t help, Portland had open looks. I expected a substitution adjustment.

But Wittman stuck with it, and Ricky Davis began playing some monster defense on Roy, compelling two turnovers in the last two minutes, one occurring when he forced a jump ball with Zach Randolph and then won the jump with a perfectly timed leap on the toss. This was in addition to Davis’s eight assists, including one beautiful stretch early in the third period when Pretty Ricky fed James for a 19-footer on on possession, Blount for a 20-footer on the next, and KG for a finger roll on the next–3 dimes in 65 seconds, taking the Wolves from one down to three up.

“Ricky was huge,” Wittman said after the game. “Forget about his offense–his defense ignited us. At 89-84 [the Wolves down five], he started us getting us back into it, which obviously he can do.” Then Wittman addressed the little backcourt. “I decided to go small because I liked Randy and Mike giving us more pressure.” When it was pointed out that Randy Foye went off in the 4th quarter once again with a series of beautiful drives right up the gut of the defense, Wittman pointed out that the plan was to spread the floor, putting James on one corner baseline and Davis on the other so that Foye had room to penetrate in the middle or dish it to a three-point threat. And he was right–James and Davis were worthy decoys if that’s what Portland chose to cover, and decent threats to hit the big one if they didn’t. So, nice work all around.

2. KG Saves the Day He Almost Lost
It was a beautiful turnaround jumper by Kevin Garnett at the buzzer which won the game by a single point, and that’s probably what is being shown on the television highlights tonight. But Garnett’s traveling violation when he didn’t anticipate Roy come down to double on him with 20 second left and the Wolves up 1, and then his (and Blount’s) inability to keep Lamarcus Aldridge off the boards for a tip-in that gave Portland the lead had Garnett pencilled in as the goat of the game without that sweet swish at the end.

I’ve been reluctant to criticize Garnett for not going to the hole over the years (and months, and days), because he has done it more than his reputation would indicate, because even though he is 7-1 and the best rebounder in the NBA over the past 5 years, he is not a paint-oriented warrior, and because it feels like nit-picking compared to all the marvelous things he does do. But the last two games have seen KG especially reticent about going hard to the hoop and drawing fouls. As I mentioned in the Seattle trey, he was almost always double and triple teamed versus the Sonics and still only got to the line once. Today, he tried three finger rolls, the sort of pastry moves that don’t earn you the respect of officials even if you do get wacked a little. Yes he was 10-19 FG, but only got the line 4 times, had but 9 rebounds (a rare non-double-double) and four turnovers. Getting just two calls on the rook Aldridge in 29:15 seems a wasted opportunity.

3. Foye versus Roy

I know there is quite a pitched battle going on in some internet hoops circles about the whole Foye-Roy switcheroo the Wolves pulled on draft day, with many claiming that Roy’s wonderful year coupled with Foye’s inability to immediately grab the point position and make it his own indicates that Minnesota made a mistake and should have kept Roy all along. Color me brightly ambivalent. I’ve been very impressed with Foye most of this season, and likewise really have enjoyed Roy’s game the three of four times I caught him on television. But live, Roy is even better, a tough sonavagun (ditto Foye), simultaneously unselfish and with a nose for the hoop. The Wolves obviously spent a lot of their pregame planning figuring out how to stop him, and frequently displayed a zone with KG at the top of the key to disrupt his playmaking. When it was over, Roy had 22 hard-earned points (9-14 FG), 5 boards and 2 assists in a team-high 35:56, with the two crunchtime turnovers the major blot on his line. (One occurred when Davis and Blount mugged him on a pick and roll that got a no-call from the refs.) Foye had 17 points (7-10 FG, 1 rebound and three assists) in 23:13 and, characteristically, put up 13 points (5-6 FG) in the final period. It may sound like a cop-out, but I honestly think there is no “loser” in this competition–or if there is, we won’t know which for at least another three or four years. I’ll close with this bit of info from Wolves stat guru Paul Swanson on Foye’s crunchtime proclivities.

Randy Foye, 2006-07
* Has scored 319 of his 646 total points in the 4th & OT (49 percent)
* Shooting 47.9% [from 2], 38.7% [from 3] 90.3% [from the line] for the season in the 4th & OT
* Has seven double-digit scoring 4th quarters (four in the last nine games)

Game #68, Road Game #36, Seattle 85, Minnesota 82

1. Listless in Seattle

I realize the competition is stiff, but last night’s travesty is probably the worst basketball game collectively played by the Wolves and an opponent thus far this season. Without their KG-equivalent, Ray Allen, the Sonics showed every sign of wishing to roll over and die in the first period, jacking up long, wayward jumpers early in the shot clock–5 and half minutes into the game they had scored 2 points on 1-10 FG–and defending raggedly. After 12 minutes the Wolves were up, 19-12, and even a mediocre effort commensurate to the mediocre talent on the squad would have had them leading by 15 or more. Both sides were willing to let the other score, and both sides refused to oblige, missing wide open shots. It was dreadful to watch.

I am a stone cold NBA fan over college hoops, but checking out the Elite 8 games in the NCAA tournament on commercial breaks, I can’t for the life of me see why anyone would stick with the Wolves unless they had some kind of daft obligation such as these destined to be increasingly cynical three-pointers. Anyway, here’s what you smart people missed…

Seattle continued to brick shots in mind-numbing fashion, converting less than a third (19-58) after three quarters. But their strategy of constantly doubling (with the center’s man sliding over) and occasionally tripling (with a guard coming down if Garnett was in the low block) KG paid off in holding the score down to a mere 61-54 deficit after three periods (although the Wolves did lead by 14 with about 5 minutes to play in the third). The Wolves moved the ball impressively, but had trouble nailing the open shots they were creating. Mike James and Ricky Davis were a combined 1-6 from three point range and the club’s overall 45% field goal accuracy after three was, given the lack of difficulty, pathetic. Because Seattle’s plan was to shut down Garnett, the team’s two leading scorers after 3 were Craig Smith and Mark Blount, with 13 and 12, respectively. Trenton Hassell was next with 10, with Davis (9), Garnett (7), and James (6) all out of double figures. Blame Garnett for not compelling a single shooting foul against this blanket coverage during the first three periods, and getting one free throw the entire game. The Wolves had only 10 free throws through 3, five by Smith, who made one. That’s how you keep an abysmal shooting team with no superstar and their minds on a better draft pick in the game long enough to steal it in the final period.

In the 4th quarter, the Wolves essentially choked during the last four minutes of the game, blowing a nine-point lead. They were up by 11 with exactly ten minutes left: KG had just completed a three-point play (his lone FT) off a nice feed from Randy Foye. Then Seattle went small, with Chris Wilcox the de facto center and either Rashard Lewis or Damian Wilkins as the power forward. Together, they chipped the lead down to six with 5:30 remaining. That’s when Randy Wittman showed his unerring instinct for making exactly the wrong move, inserting Mike James and Trenton Hassell in for Randy Foye and Marko Jaric.

Yes, James and Hassell had clearly outplayed Foye and Jaric up to that point. But when will Wittman learn not to base his decisions on the last game, the last quarter, the last rotation, the last play? In the last trey earlier this week, I passed on info from the team’s stat guru convincingly demonstrating that the best clutch player on this team over the previous 67 games was Randy Foye, to the point where Wolves announcers Hanny and J-Pete reveled in calling him “4th quarter Foye.” And Jaric has over time demonstrated that he is the best person to be riding shotgun while Foye is trying to guide the offense.

Things got off to a promising start, as Davis (whose passing was superb all night) zipped a dime to Smith for a slam, followed by a James trey to bump the lead to 75-66 with 4:09 to go. At this point, with the Wolves in the 11th playoff position and down by 2 and a half games for the final 8th spot with (at the time) 15 games to go, you might think a nine-point lead with 369 ticks on the clock against a .400 team playing without their superstar would be in the bank. And if it wasn’t, you might finally, finally, begin to think there was something diseased about this ballclub, something that you don’t ever ever want to put on display against the Mavs or Suns in nationally televised games that matter.

The Wolves choked. That sub-mediocre and then crucially depleted Seattle squad proceeded to go on a 16-2 run and put the game away. Mike James? He couldn’t find Seattle point guard Earl Watson with a compass on defense. And on offense, once the Wolves’ lead had completely melted, he became too animated, running around like a headless chicken and jacking up shots with plenty of time on the clock. Yes, on one drive he was fouled and made both free throws. But anyone who wasn’t yearning for Foye–the top draft pick, the clutch closer, the guy who finally snatched his confident personality back just one game ago–is into ensuring that the entire Wolves braintrust looks as absolutely foolish as possible, Randy Wittman foremost among them.

Ricky Davis? He had one turnover in the first 46 minutes, and two ugly ones in the last 2. Kevin Garnett? He caught the ball halfway between the endline and center court with the Sonics trapping and tried to dribble through the opposing team, with predictible results: a three pointer by Lewis that gave Seattle its first lead of the game with 1:41 to play, a lead they never relinquished.

Any talk of tanking is a moot point. Just let this ballclub continue to do what it does, and has done for the past two months. That draft pick will be there, with a pretty bow on the box.

2. Leadership

Much is being made of Randy Wittman’s comments in the PiPress to the effect that the Wolves’ lack leadership in the locker room. Specifically, the coach said, “We don’t have a quote-unquote, leader that’s going to control the locker room. That when stuff’s going on that shouldn’t be going on, that somebody stands up and says, ‘Hey, all right, enough of this.’ I don’t think we have that.” Hanny and Pete mentioned it in passing last night, and Asch had it in a side story in this morning’s Strib. (Credit PiPress beat guy Rick Alonzo with the original story.)

Here’s my take: I don’t know which would be worse, if Witt was clueless or cognizant about the inevitable stain he is putting on Kevin Garnett with this remark. The superstar of a team is the leader of it on the court, in the locker room, and with the general public. In all three milieu, Garnett has, for better and mostly worse, been conflict-averse. But people lead in different ways. For KG, it has always been going hard in every practice, studying every inch of available film, communicating with his teammates, playing through injuries, playing with passion, and remaining loyal to a franchise that has handled his career with seemingly no understanding of what would best complement his game. People who are gritty underachievers new to the Wolves, guys like, to choose a recent example, blogger-bit player Paul Shirley during the preseason, almost invariably come away from being inside the Wolves organization raving about KG’s work ethic and dedication to improving himself and the ballclub.

Last week, Kevin Garnett said that if Randy Wittman wasn’t the coach of the Wolves next season, he didn’t want to be here. At the time, Witt had lost approximately twice as many games as he had won, after inheriting the same personnel that the previous coach had been fired from for coaching them to a .500 record. It was a gutsy show of loyalty, that, given Wittman’s inexplicable decision making and lackluster (to put it kindly) results, was a huge, probably unsolicited favor to Wittman. Yet within days, Wittman is saying that nobody polices the locker room, having to know that the first person fingered for such inaction will be KG–and if he doesn’t know that, it explains a lot about the past 28 games.

How about this: Kevin McHale is the guy who brought in the likes of Ricky Davis and Mark Blount–both seasoned veterans with checkered histories playing for chronically underachieving teams–and Randy Wittman is the guy who plays Davis and Blount at the expense of rookies and second-year men with higher potential upsides. If you don’t have an intimate, nuanced knowledge of Kevin Garnett’s personality–his strengths and weaknesses on the court, in public, and in the locker room after his 12 years with the ballclub, what good are you to the organization? And if you do know him that well, why are you hanging him out to dry for a lack of locker room enforcement? The VP of Basketball Operations is the one who assembled this motley crew, with 47 guards and no quality banger; and the coach is the one enabling the most questionable characters on this team with a substitution rotation that simultaneously tanks the present while retarding the development of a successful future for this team.

Where are Randy Wittman’s stones? Who specifically has been doing “stuff that shouldn’t be going on” and why hasn’t he taken steps to correct it? And if that’s a private matter, why did he make it public? There’s a lack of leadership on the Timberwolves alright. But Kevin Garnett isn’t exactly the first person I’d point to as the culprit.

3. Tick Tock

The Clips and the Warriors both won last night, putting the Wolves 3 and a half and 3 games, respectively, behind those two clubs with 14 left to play. Against Seattle, Rashad McCants played exactly 5 minutes, Foye 19:30.