Game #60, Home Game #31, Minnesota 117, Lakers 107 (2 OT)
1. So Pretty
No Timberwolves player has been ripped as royally by myself and those responding to my treys this season as “Pretty Ricky” Davis, who has been dubbed either directly or by inference as a cancer, a coach killer, a corroder of chemistry, and, more “kindly,” an enigmatic tease who plays when he feels like it and not a moment beyond. I won’t back off my part in those harsh assessments because I remember the performances that prompted them.
But when the fully motivated Ricky Davis steps out of the phone booth, as he did tonight while ringing up 33 points, 10 rebounds, 8 assists, 3 steals and mostly dogged defense versus Kobe Bryant and the Laker crew during a gut-checking 55:50 out of 58 possible minutes in a double-overtime win the Wolves desperately needed, you honor it with a full, throaty huzzah, bow your head and pray to the hoop gods that you see it again real soon.
Put simply, Davis wanted this win. He started cold, hitting just 2-6 FG in the first period, but grabbed three rebounds (just one less than in the entire double-overtime Celtic game Sunday), dropped two dimes and added a steal before going to the bench with 1:06 to play. But he came back quickly due to foul trouble on Marko Jaric (starting for the injured Trenton Hassell) and caught the spark for 12 points on 5 straight two-pointers (he was 0-2 from beyond the arc) and two free throws, essentially negating Kobe Bryant’s 15 points and keeping the Wolves just three back at the half.
But it’s what Davis did after that which makes you want to salute his grit, skill, and savvy–and throw in a snide rejoinder about how haphazardly he puts them all together. In the third and fourth quarters, the shots weren’t falling–not a single field goal converted in four attempts. So Pretty Ricky did what Kevin McHale said he could do back when the Wolves acquired him from Boston last season–drove to the basket and got to the free throw line. There were ten attempts in those two quarters and he made them all, the last two with the Wolves down two, 96-98, with 5.2 seconds left in regulation. Then he stole the inbounds pass to seal the tie with 1.9 seconds left in the 4th quarter. That was after he grooved three passes to his boy Mark Blount, standing outside the arc between the top of the key and the right baseline, and Blount, against long odds, stroked those treys to bring the Wolves back from 6 points down with 2:35 left in regulation.
In overtime the Wolves were down a pair coming out of a timeout with 3.3 seconds left. KG got the inbounds, wheeled into the right paint for an easy, wrist-flick jumper, which rimmed out. Davis tipped it in. On to the second OT. Davis broke a 107 tie with a long jumper and then when Randy Foye committed a silly turnover, Davis immediately stole the ball back. After Jaric had fouled out early in the first OT, the quickness of Davis and KG keyed a zone D that sought to constantly double-team Kobe, a strategy that held him to three points on 1-4 FG after he’d gone off for 37 in regulation.
Told after the game that he’d played ten seconds less than 56 minutes, Davis matter-of-factly replied, “I can go out there and play again. Hats off to my trainer.” And to Davis, who erased at least one or two debits he’s accumulated during this disappointing campaign.
2. Marko and Troy–One Should Remain A Starter
As should have been expected, Troy Hudson’s second start wasn’t quite as auspicious as his first one. The shot wasn’t falling–T-Hud was 2-7 FG, with both of his makes relatively short jumpers off picks that sprung him as he moved toward the baseline–and the defense remained abominable. Even Kobe had to give it up to Smush Parker with Huddy guarding him. Parker had 11 points in the first 6:41 of the game, propeling the Lakers to a 22-11 lead, and Hudson was replaced by Randy Foye less than two minutes later. All told, the Lakers scored 53 points in the 22:53 Hudson was on the court and 54 points in the 35:07 he was on the bench. For those poor at math, that means Huddy would have had to help prevent opponents from scoring for an entire quarter, than permit a made free throw in an extra 14 seconds in order to break even with what his teammates accomplished without him defensively. It is not a coincidence that the only two Timberwolves with a negative plus/minus total on the popcornmachine.net website tally for tonight were Hudson and his fellow point guard Mike James. The odd man in is rook Randy Foye, whose stupendous tip-in off a KG miss bumped the lead from two to four in the second OT and was coach Randy Wittman’s favorite memory of a game chalk-full of vivid imagery. For now and for the future, Foye deserves his starter’s role back. Yes, he makes mistakes–at least two dumb passes and a drive to the hoop that had no chance of being anything but a blocked shot occured in just the fourth quarter and two overtimes alone–but as I’ve repeatedly emphasized, that’s because he’s not a point guard, and on-the-job training at this particular position is destined to be rocky. But if between now and the end of the season the Wolves don’t have a pretty good idea whether or not Foye can be their point guard of the future, it will be yet another item of impeachment to bring against VP Kevin McHale and his mates.
Then there is Jaric, who wrote another chapter in the Marvelous Adventures of Marko subbing in for Hassell tonight. Most of his contributions were subtle, significant, and much to his team’s benefit. When it comes to steals he has the quickest hands and the best timing of anyone on the ballclub, and he’s a tough, rangy sonofagun who knows how to clog passing lanes and deliver a hard foul after he or his teammates have been beaten to the hoop. He also had three blocks in the second half tonight, none more important than lunching seven-footer Kwame Brown before he could go up with 8.4 seconds left in regulation and the Wolves down by one. Letting Kwame score or committing the foul would have been potentially fatal. Naturally Jaric also did something that made you cringe and shake your head, in this case a totally botched inbounds pass right after his monster block, and if Parker had been able to hit both free throws after the Wolves were forced to foul, Jaric would have reclaimed a designation he often carried during his stint in the starting lineup last year–hero/goat, Janus-masked.
That said, Jaric covets starting perhaps more than anyone on the ballclub–he’s like a little kid when he gets the nod, or at least plays quality minutes, and pouts with petulance when he’s ignored. By contrast, Hassell is a consummate pro who can handle any role thrust upon him. It may thus be beneficial to team chemistry to leave Jaric in for awhile and bring Hassell off the bench. More than likely, Jaric will know that a quick hook awaits a mistake-filled early performance and psyche himself out into fulfilling that dire prophecy. But it’s worth a shot. Everyone knows what Hassell can do. The rest of this season should be about solving as many personnel mysteries as possible, and Jaric is on that list.
3. Quick Hits
The legendary Phil Jackson overcoached his way to defeat tonight by benching Andrew Bynum for Kwame Brown with 1:31 left in regulation and the Lakers up 3. The only half-plausible justification was that Jackson wanted a big with a little more mobility on Mark Blount after he rained in those treys. But Bynum was the patently superior player at both ends of the court tonight and the clueless, stone-handed Brown (watching him constantly drop the ball and miss point-blank bunnies at the basket yet again made me rue my endorsement of the Lakers acquiring him last year) wasn’t going to stop Blount any more than the precocious teenager. Bynum is already a disrupter defensively. And Brown is already in danger of becoming a bust.
It’s not hard when watching the game to notice that some players naturally look for and play off each other, with the kinship between Blount and Davis a prime example. After some encouraging performances just before the All Star break, Rashad McCants has had a rough couple of weeks trying to come back from knee surgery, especially figuring out when and where to get his shot off. When Jaric fouled out shortly into the first overtime, the Wolves seemed doomed sending McCants into the game. Jaric had been a key component of the 3/4 court trap and zone defense that had been the brakes on Kobe’s scoring spree after the Selfish One went off for 17 points in about 3 minutes in the third quarter. Although his D has improved markedly since the beginning of last year, Shaddy doesn’t have Jaric’s instincts and defensive acumen. But McCants more than held his own playing the zone (the trap was abandoned). His offense, however, was still shaky. Practically dared to shoot as the Lakers doubled KG and/or Davis and cheated toward Blount on the perimeter, Shaddy’s lone jumper of the first overtime was both short and to the side of the iron–a choker’s miss. But with the Wolves up 4 with a minute to play, KG, a player McCants has venerated from his first day in Minnesota, was drawing a double-team high on the left block when McCants flashed from the weak side toward the basket. KG zipped him the pass, Shaddy didn’t hesitate as he banked the lay-up. It was the champagne-popping basket of the game, the one that sealed the deal, and McCants quietly reveled in it as he came to the bench. Other players might have seen McCants move without the ball and other players might have even fed him–but not as decisively and propitiously as KG, who has his eye out for McCants whenever possible.
Craig Smith had one of those good stat, bad stat games. On the one hand he corralled 11 rebounds in just 17:16, including 7 offenive boards. On the other hand, many of those follow-ups were of his own misses, as he went 2-10 FG. At the beginning of the year, what was impressive about Smith was his composure and maturity; specifically, how calm and collected he was jousting for rebounds with bigger behemoths: timing his jumps, maintaining possession through the turbulance, and then going back up for that little floater over their outstetched hands. Then he hit a trough and looked like crap for about 6 weeks, only to rally by dint of sheer hard work and sweat equity. That’s what is getting him his boards lately, but the composure and fine touch is usually absent. Getting it back will go a long way toward determining if Smith becomes a valuable role player or an afterthought.
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