Regular Season Game #74, Home Game #36, Cleveland 101, Minnesota 88
1. An Unlikeable Basketball Team
Unlikeable is putting it mildly. If you still care about this edition of the Minnesota Timberwolves, they are infuriating and aggravating in the extreme. Looked at objectively, it is plain that they lack the integrity to even properly go through the motions in the final weeks of a miserable season. And everyone among the “braintrust” is either stupid or lying.
Strong words, maybe, so let’s back them up. Kevin McHale fires Dwane Casey for a 20-20 record and a bottom-rung playoff position because the team is “inconsistent.” Randy Wittman flounders to a 11-23 record and every indication is given that he will be rehired next year.
Tonight, Wittman bemoans the fact that the team gets off to slow starts, especially at home, at beginning of both halves, the first and third quarters. He actually says, “I don’t know why that is.” Well, let me give you a hint, coach: You’ve playing three veterans who don’t respect you, the team, the game, or themselves, at the expense of three kids who you claim are your blueprint for the future. The vets are chronic losers who are playing you and anyone who cares about this franchise for a fool, and you are going along because your personnel guy bartered away a draft pick that you desperately need and the only way to ensure you keep it is by playing this smug, pathetic trio.
Again, let’s back up these strong words. The Timberwolves were outscored 23-14 during the first 8:28 of the game. Only then did Wittman yank Mike James and Mark Blount in favor of Mark Madsen and Randy Foye. After another 2:11, the team had been outscored 4-2 to trail 27-16 when Wittman pulled the third contemptuous sleepwalker, Ricky Davis, and inserted Rashad McCants. With all three on the bench for the next 6:59, the Wolves outscored LeBron James and the Cavs 18-15, to cut the deficit to 10. With Davis playing the final 6:12 of the half but the other two sitting, they lopped another two points off and trailed by 8, 55-47, at the break.
Rookie Randy Foye is leading the team in scoring and assists, and rookie Craig Smith is third in scoring and second in rebounds, but Mike James and Mark Blount once again take the floor to start the third quarter. This time Wittman is a whole two seconds faster in giving James and Blount the simultaneous hook after 8:26 and deficit bumped from 8 to 14. When McCants comes in for Davis 1:26 later, the margin is 18 points.
At the third quarter buzzer, Minnesota is down 20, 80-60. James, Blount, and Davis are a combined 4-20 FG. They collectively have grabbed 2, count ’em, 2 rebounds in a combined 60 minutes and 31 seconds of play. They have doled out 4 assists and committed 5 turnovers. Individually, Bount has 4 points, 1 rebound and 1 assist and is a -15 in 16:54 of play. James has zero points, 1 rebound, 1 assists, and 2 turnovers and is likewise -15 in 16:54 of play. Davis has 7 points, on 2-10 FG, zero rebounds, 2 assists and 3 turnovers and is -21 in 26:43 of play. And none of them played defense worth a damn.
Meanwhile, Wittman does not play a group I only half-jokingly refer to as the Fab Five, a lineup that statistics reveal to be their best unit: Garnett-Jaric-Foye-McCants-Smith. It includes a superstar who is trying to figure out whether or not he wants to exercise his opt out close at the end of next year, a hungry ‘tweener signed through 2011, and the team’s top three drafts picks from the past two years. Now, truth be told, this unit did not play well together in very limited time during Sunday’s win in Orlando. But that isn’t why Wittman has watched his sorry excuse for a team half-ass its way to a 84-60 deficit with 10:58 left to go in the game–premature garbage time–and *then* decide to play the quintet. No, he’s either purposefully tanking with vets or he’s afraid of standing up to them by appropriately penalizing their lack of effort and absence of pride.
By the way, the Fab Five immediately went on a 15-4 tear over the next 3: 38 to cut the margin to 13 with 7:20 to play. Cavs coach Mike Brown was nervous enough to reinsert starters Larry Hughes and Z Ilgauskas into the game (and no, he wasn’t totally played scrubs during this stretch–LeBron was in the entire time).
2. More Verbatim Posturing
After the game, Wittman said, “They just kicked our rear ends on the boards. There is no other way to put it.” But does anyone expect him to start Madsen, or, god forbid, Smith, instead of the 7-foot Blount next game?
“Kevin can’t get every rebound. Our guards have to get involved too; instead they stand and watch,” Wittman continued. But does anyone expect him to start Foye, who outrebounded James, or McCants, who outrebounded Davis in five fewer minutes?
“We had no alertness. That’s what it boiled down to. We didn’t have that sense of urgency we had in Orlando. It is like we were two different teams,” Wittman said. Well, Ricky Davis was the best player on the court in Orlando, going off for 36 points. Is Wittman perplexed or surprised that Davis followed that up with this turd of a game? Does he not know at this late juncture that turning the ballclubs he plays for into “two different teams” is a Ricky Davis specialty?
When I asked him what he was trying to accomplish and what the meaning of these final games of the season would be, Wittman replied, “I’m trying to lay the foundation of how we’re going to play next year…and it’s not one guy dribbling the ball 11 times, 13 times…We’ve laying the groundwork of how we have to play and they are showing me who wants to play that way and who doesn’t; who can be counted on in tough times when we do get into the playoffs, and who can’t.”
So if the Boston Bobbsey Twins of Davis and Blount, along with 13-dribbler Mike James are still with the team next year–let alone making any kind of contribution to it–we’ll know this is just more meaningless posturing from the hapless head coach. Meanwhile, the franchise will continue to give you back the stub on your full-priced ticket for the five belly-flops remaining on the Wolves’ home schedule.
3. And Two More Bronx Cheers
Although he certainly looked good by comparison and put forth a mostly admirable effort, Kevin Garnett was also frequently abused on backdoor cuts, baseline maneuvers, and muscular tip-ins from Drew Gooden and company as the Cavs outscored Minnesota 40-28 in the paint.
Last and probably least, Wittman has decided that of all the players on the roster, Trenton Hassell is the most deserving scapegoat for the team’s month-long doldrums. Yes, Hassell has had a pretty lousy stretch of play recently. But why he has played a grand total of 6:50 over the past 11 quarters while the BoTwins and 13 bounces continue to get regular burn probably says more about Wittman and the braintrust than it does about Hassell.
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