Game #66, Road Game #34, Phoenix 108, Minnesota 90
1. The Last To Know
Do the Minnesota Timberwolves have any idea how silly they are appearing to fans who have watched them play this entire season? Right now this team has a choice: Give the young group of players you have been touting for the last two or three weeks meaningful minutes beside your superstar in preparation for next year, or try to come up with something so special, so lightning-in-a-bottle-like, that you not only surmount the four teams ahead of you in the playoff race for the 8th seed, but will be playing well enough so that such a first round matchup with either Dallas or Phoenix isn’t so pathetic that every columnist from coast to coast is wailing either about how badly the Wolves braintrust has failed Garnett, or how KG isn’t enough of a superstar to elevate his team. That’s the choice: Build for the future or take such a dramatic step forward that you aren’t cutting off your nose to spite your face by prolonging the season.
The Timberwolves are going for it, making the leap, all the while proving the absolute absurdity of that decision. They are shunning their young talent, giving them mop-up minutes, which have been plentiful only because the supposedly mature veterans playing ahead of them waste so little time leaving the game in tatters, in creating mop-up garbage time. The coach and the VP of Basketball Operations and the owner are screwing with the mindset of Randy Foye and Rashad McCants in particular–even as they sell their promise in an effort to secure next year’s season ticket sales! They have lost 22 of their past 30 games. They have no, repeat, no identity because they appear to be a different team, with different starters, strengths, and weaknesses, from game to game. They are sacrificing key development time for Foye, McCants, and Craig Smith on the assumption that they have the talent and the know-how to dramatically improve. And with every loss–their last win on the road was January 27!–the folks in charge seem more and more like they are in some collective fever dream, strategizing on the basis of mirages.
This has been the rather overt subtext of my last three or four treys, and I claim no great wisdom–I am only stating the obvious. And yet, for the third straight game the Wolves started a different point guard, with none of the changes related to injury. These are games 64, 65, and 66 of an 82 game season and the squad is still shuffling the deck on who sets up and runs the offense.
Here’s a little exercise for Glen Taylor and Kevin McHale. Imagine trying to sell season tickets on the premise that Mike James will return as the starting point guard next season. Or Troy Hudson. If sooner or later it isn’t Foye, and preferably sooner, then questions abound: Why have you jerked Mike James’s chain the past six weeks? Who is the odd man out at shooting guard, Davis, McCants or Foye?
Yes, Foye has taken a step backward lately, but that’s because the coaches are simultaneously trying to change his intuitive habits and instinct for the game *and* screw with his minutes and role in the rotation. Two months ago, the kid seemed so mentally tough and inwardly confident that he projected a sense of safety and stability about him–not even Marbury had that his rookie year. Remember, the night he went into the starting lineup, he got arrested by the cops because his cousins were fighting, and he handled it perfectly with both the media and the authorities. Now watch Randy Foye play ball and tell me he’s having fun. He went 2-10 FG tonight, with one assists and zero rebounds and zero free throws in 20:26 of play. All so Troy Hudson and Mike James can keep pounding it into the heads of the honchos who run this squad that they aren’t leading them to the playoffs in this or any other year they have the keys to the offense.
To wrap things up on this point, the lineup that pulled out the Indiana game and provided a glimmer of hope that the braintrust actually had stumbled upon a young, complementary, cohesive unit–KG-McCants-Foye-Smith-Jaric–got nada playing time together tonight. The closest was a stretch of 7:10 in the 4th quarter when Davis was the fifth man instead of Jaric. During that time, the Wolves went -1. In the other 40:50, they went -17.
2. For Whom The Bell Tolls
There has been some discussion in this forum recently about, for lack of a better terse explanation, the difference between narcissim and selfishness when it comes to Ricky Davis. Can a guy who leads the team in assists really be a selfish player? And why do people keep hating on a guy who obviously exhibits a decent amount of hustle on numerous occasions and goes off every now and then for huge numbers, leading his team to victory?
Two plays in the third quarter offered a clear distinction of what bothers me about Davis’s game. With 7:35 left to go in the quarter and the Wolves actually down only two, 58-60, Davis and another player almost succeeded in poke-checking the ball away from Raja Bell. A split second after Bell regained possession, Davis was on the floor with him, his arm bending Bell’s head back a bit as he tried to portray it as a jump ball situation. Instead, it was ruled a Davis foul. Nevertheless, everyone watching saw Davis successfully separtate Bell from the ball briefly, and then dive on the floor in an attempt to either get the steal of salvage a jump ball out of it. Just 41 seconds later with the score the same, the Wolves had actually managed to play good enough defense to put the Suns in danger of a 24-second violation. With two seconds on the clock, Bell caught the ball just outside the free throw line, facing up on Davis. He noticed how little time he had, did a simple crossover dribble, blew by Davis and tossed up an 8-foot running, with the shot clock horn sounded as the ball was in the air. The basket was good and the shot was deflating for the Wolves, kicking off a 22-5 Suns run that essentially decided the outcome.
The point is, if Davis can almost make the steal and then dive on the floor, why can’t he also realize how little time is left on the clock and simply move his feet and deny Bell any penetration for two seconds? Bell went on to score 16 points in the third period, en route to a team-high 22 points, 7 more than his average. All 16 were scored with Davis in the game and usually guarding him.
Comments were also made about Rashad McCants being somewhat lackluster thus far this season. Tonight there was certainly evidence that McCants is nowhere near back to full maneuverability, especially when it comes to springing off his legs. His lone basket in six attempts was a lefty slam dunk after his man bit on a baseline feint, but two other shots were blocked, his long-range treys hit front iron, and Leandro Barbosa was simply too quick for him to contain.
But McCants had three steals and a couple other deflections that almost turned into steals tonight. He was merely a -3 in 21:12 of play, and while some of that was garbage time, it still was a significantly better ratio than most anyone else on the team. The point being that when it comes to Pretty Ricky and Ugly Shaddy, appearances aren’t always reality.
3. Praiseworthy Stats
Thirty points and 16 rebounds for Garnett tonight, including 8 trips to the free throw line. Unfortunately, all those charity stripe tosses occurred in the first half, when KG was at 20 points and a dozen boards. Trying to defend the Suns’ ball movement can wear you out, and Garnett once again looked spent in the fourth quarter, finishing with a team high 38:07 of playing time that was actually truncated from his norm because of the blowout.
Marko Jaric erupted for 9 assists versus only 2 turnovers but continues to have trouble with his shot, going 2-7 FG, a trend that has him below 34% over the last 13 games.
Craig Smith finished with 14 points (second only to KG on the team) and 5 rebounds and got to the line 9 times in 19:23, but also committed four turnovers and was a team-worst -14.
Leave a Reply Cancel reply