Game #61, Road Game #30, Miami 105, Minnesota 91
1. No Center, No Point Guard, No Chance
The Minnesota Timberwolves do not have a center who can adequately defend the paint. They do not have anyone capable of fulfilling the point guard duties at both ends of the court at even a mediocre level. These are the traditional foundation positions of pro basketball, and while their importance has diminished with the new hand-checking rules, pro basketball teams still need a steady floor general out on the perimeter and a forceful behemoth underneath the basket.
Let’s get specific. The Miami Heat’s dynamic tandem of Shaquille O’Neal and Alonzo Mourning manned the center position for 47:02 tonight. They collectively converted 17 of 21 shots, got to the free throw line 18 times (making 12), and finished with 46 points and 14 rebounds. If you’re looking for a moral victory, the Wolves did force 10 turnovers from the two big men, the only blemish on what was otherwise utter domination. Shaq had a season-high 15 points in the first quarter on 7-8 FG, and finished with a season-high 32 for the game. Mark Blount played 35:55, committed 5 fouls and had 5 rebounds while scoring a respectable 17 points. “Fresh” off a long period of inactivity due to an ankle sprain, Mark Madsen committed three fouls in 3:13 and otherwise has a box score full of goose eggs. Craig Smith had four fouls and three rebounds in 17:29, to go with 6 points. Let’s pretend that none of these three spelled Kevin Garnett for the 8:37 he sat and instead collectively played 56:37 at center only. They still registered only half as many points as the ShaqZo monster, and lost the rebounding battle 14-8 while committing 12 fouls.
Now, Shaq embarrasses a lot of people, and Zo is without question the best backup center in the NBA. But this wasn’t Shaq’s typical game; this was his best game of the season. And even a sub of Zo’s caliber has no business getting 14 points and 5 boards while playing 12:13, which is a possession more than a quarter’s worth of action. Anyone looking at the makeup of this squad at the beginning of this season knew that it was lacking a legitimate banger to relieve the physical and mental wear-and-tear on their finesse-oriented 7-foot superstar. Now we’re in March and while Craig Smith is a pleasant surprise for a second-round draft choice, Blount, Madsen, and the departed Eddie Griffin still leave the squad woefully shy of a bona fide NBA center on defense.
As for the point guard situation, even the most loyal defenders of Mike James packed their tent and skulked away about a month ago. Remember when James was going to be the third leg of the new MV3 stool alongside KG and Ricky Davis? He was the guy who would slip into the Sam Cassell role, make big shots, take the crunchtime triple-teams off of Garnett or punish the opponents who tried it with his long-range bullseyes–remember, he shot 44% from beyond the arc in Toronto last year. Well, the opponents have been flocking to Garnett, and then Ricky Davis, and James has had more wide open looks than any shooter can possibly hope for this year. Clang! How dis-spiriting is it for a ballclub to work the rock around and set up the shooter, open and in rhythm, only to see that long carom jump-start a fast break the other way? The total overall shooting accuracy for James thus far this year is 41.6%, worse than his three-point shooting a year ago. And he has trouble setting up his teammates. And his defense is pathetic. I’m not going out of my way to rip Mike James, who has always been a decent, standup guy in the locker and a heartwarming underdog story for his career arc: I am merely stating facts that seem as ironclad as the multiplication tables.
With James frog-marching his season into the toilet, the obvious course of action for the Wolves was to take their lumps helping top draft pick Randy Foye learn the point guard position on the fly. The Wolves already have an off guard they claim to be very excited about in last year’s top draft pick, Rashad McCants–he’s certainly prominent in the “Blueprint for the Future” publicity blitz the brass has recently launched to try and rationalize their failure and distract fans from the short-term dung heap the team is making of this season. And if McCants is somehow a bust, there is always Ricky Davis, the team’s second leading scorer, leader in assists, and second in minutes played. For that matter, the team’s small forwards, Trenton Hassell and Marko Jaric, are also natural off guards.
Put simply, the team already has a bit of a logjam at off guard and a gaping void at the point. Everybody knows Randy Foye is not ready to be an NBA point guard this season, but he’s smart, he coachable, he’s extremely athletic, and he likes the ball in his hands when the game is on the line–hey, he’s more than 3/4 of the way there in terms of the intangible stuff; now he just needs some fairly painful minutes to make the adjustment. Maybe it will take the rest of this year and all of next year, which was approximately Dwyane Wade’s learning curve, but it is a shrewd, if not sure-fire, gamble–and by the way, a move that would demonstrate to your faithful fans that you actually do have a blueprint for the future. That was the unspoken pact the franchise made with the die-hards about a month or so ago when Foye stepped in for James at the point–it isn’t going to be pretty, but it just might pay off in the long run.
Then three games ago, Foye gets yanked, in favor of often-injured, little-used sprite Troy Hudson, whose onerous contract figures to keep him with the Wolves at least through the 2008-09 season (it expires a year after that) at more than $6 million per season. Any Timberwolves fan who has watched the team for five years knows exactly what Huddy brings to the menu–an incredibly streaky long-range shot, limited court vision, comfort with an uptempo pace, an affinity for where and when Kevin Garnett likes the ball, and absolutely dreadful defense. A year and a half ago, a sabre-hoops guy over at 82games.com, Dan Rosenbaum, sought to put together an adjusted plus/minus ratings calculation to judge the individual defensive prowess of every player in the NBA. His conclusion? “Troy Hudson probably gets the award for being the worst defender in the league…He is playing a game on the defensive end that is not remotely like anyone else’s in the league.”
Utah’s Devon Williams discovered that when he repeatedly posted up Hudson with ease, forcing coach Randy Wittman to snatch Foye from the bench in Huddy’s first extended action a week ago. Delonte West discovered it when he torched Hudson en route to a career-high 31 points in Boston’s double-overtime win last Sunday. Smush Parker discovered it as he rang up 11 points in a half-quarter’s worth of action to start the Laker game on Tuesday. And tonight Jason Williams discovered it after Shaq got bored with dunking and began ceding some of the offense to the perimeter. Williams went 9-13 FG without disrupting the normal flow of the offense, as he also chipped in a game-high 6 assists. Although he played 38:56, he got 16 of his 20 points, and 4 of his 6 assists in the 25:06 Huddy was on the court. All told, the Heat scored 68 points in Huddy’s 25:06 of action, and 37 points during the 22:54 Huddy sat on the bench. This is the guy who is eating into the playing time, confidence, and rhythm of the rook who is supposed to be a cornerstone of the Wolves future.
2. Jaric Being Jaric
With Trenton Hassell waylaid with an ankle sprain, these games matter more to Marko Jaric’s career trajectory than perhaps anyone else on the squad. Ever since Jaric was embarrassed by Chris Paul in Oklahoma City and then eventually deposed from the starting point guard slot about the midpoint of last season, he’s been something of a foster child on the roster, a man without a set position, generally unhappy with his minutes, often either expressing a desire to be traded or being a hot topic on the trade rumor mill, all the while producing tantalyzing glimpses of how he could be a valuable uber-handyman with the right mindset on the right ballclub–and then, over and over, failing to cinch the impression with any kind of consistent play. (How’s that for a run-on sentence? Watch out William Faulkner!)
Tonight Jaric the Janus-masked man was in full bloom. He was the Wolves’ best player on the court during the first quarter, continually breaking down his man off the dribble and dishing to open teammates, amassing 4 dimes and making me wonder why this guy isn’t paired with Foye in a backcourt buddy system. Jaric also has a great knack for swiping at the ball when he’s face-up with an opponent, clogging the passing lanes in both a zone scheme and in transition, and doubling down on the big men in the paint.
Except, as previously mentioned, the Miami bigs had a field day under the hoop, without much bother from Jaric. Was this because Wittman was afraid of leaving James Posey open at the three-point line (Posey was 1-4 beyond the arc, 3-3 from 2-point range), because Jaric wasn’t doubling down quickly enough, or because the rotations never went to Jaric’s side of the court? Jaric did do a lot more harrassing of Shaq in the 3rd quarter, a halftime adjustment that obviously came too late, and set off Williams on Huddy in the process.
But here is the greater problem with Jaric against the Heat: He didn’t have a field goal (0-3 FG, all from 3-point land) or a rebound in 32:24 of play, and only one assist after the first quarter (still good enough for a game-high 5 on the Wolves). After awhile, the Heat simply played off him, denying him penetration passes and daring him to sink a jumper. He only tried when he was wiiiide open and the shot clock was going down–and couldn’t convert. The game gave one renewed appreciation for the little things we always say Trenton Hassell does, like stick that open j, or box out–with Jaric and Ricky Davis as swing men, Eddie Jones snuck in for 11 rebounds and the Wolves were pounded overall on the glass, 40-28.
3. On the Fly
More braintrust follies: In tonight’s “Blueprint for the Future” segment, Personnel VP Kevin McHale says, “we are trying to win with Kevin here…but still trying to win with the young guys…we don’t have a collective soul.” From consistency to chemistry to soulfulness–what’s next, “not enough garlic around our necks under a full moon”? Then Randy Wittman delivers the Wolves’ “keys to the game” which were limiting where Shaq catches the ball for the defense and promoting ball movement on the offense. Well, Shaq led the parade which produced 56 Miami points in the paint, and the Wolves registered only 17 assists on their 36 baskets.
Then we see the new Wolves add for 2007-08 season tickets. It shows an obviously hung-over dude staring into his open refrigerator. He shuts the door and we see Crunch standing there. The mascot has an airhorn in his hand and starts blasting it in the guy’s ear. I think the punchline was “it’s never too early” to sign up for season tix, but, ah, do you really want to liken entreaties for loyalty–without knowing if KG is even going to be around–with an airhorn at the bedraggled and benumbed crack of consciousness? That’s taking truth in advertising too far.
The best part of the telecast was color commentator Jim Petersen, who is starting to understand that discussing the Wolves players will be one long bitchfest and so instead has come up with ways to enlighten us about the game itself. Three examples: His explanation about how refs are looking for fouls above or below the waist depending on where they are stationed during a play; his clarification about how a charge can still be called inside the no-charge circle if a player catches the ball while stationed there and then spins into an opponent; and his note that lane violations get called much more frequently on Shaq’s free throws because players know a miss is more likely and start jousting early for position.
Trying hard versus going through the motions: Yeah, Shaq took the first two months of the season off, along with coach Pat Riley, mailing in the regular season to gear up for the playoffs. But he clearly is focused and at near-prime form now that he smells the post-season, isn’t he? (And apologies/kudos to Peter Weinhold, who I mocked for putting Shaq and KG in the same sentence just a week or so ago.) Meanwhile, nobody hustled harder than Eddie Jones tonight. The best player on the Heat for four season, EJ got dealt and missed the ring on last year’s championship. Bought out by the pitiful Grizzlies, he came back to Miami hell bent on helping the team repeat. If this game is any evidence, he as much as Shaq is providing the bonus play that has enabled the Heat to go 6-2 in Wade’s absence. Now contrast the effort of Shaq and Jones to anyone on the Wolves, from KG on down.
Finally, no network or basic cable TV game in Atlanta tonight, so I will leave any commentary to those who have NBA Season’s Pass (my ever-reasonable wife convinced me to have a smidgen of a life outside basketball by not buying it). Next trey will be Tuesday night/Wednesday morning after the Indiana game.
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