The Rake Magazine

Author: Britt Robson

  • The Three Pointer: A Big Bad Muddle

    Game #21, Home Game #11: Seattle 99, Minnesota 88

    Game #22, Road Game #11: Minnesota 92, Milwaukee 95

    Season record: 3-19

    1. Draw Straws, Flip A Coin, Plug a Leak. Or Not.

    After the Timberwolves fell to the equally young Seattle Supersonics at Target Center Friday night, I asked coach Randy Wittman if he had any sense of what he could expect from his team from game to game. "It feels like sometime you plug one hole and then another one leaks," Witt conceded.

    After another pratfall against a mediocre opponent Saturday night in Milwaukee, on-the-spot television analysts Jim Petersen and Mike McCollow were voicing similar frustrations. There simply is no consistency, at least as it relates to quality control and some semblance of reliability, on this ballclub. Praise or criticize any member of the team and you’re liable to look foolish within a game or two. Every week seems to contain different goats, players who were valiant heroes during the previous week’s losing cause. At the same time, guys you were discounting for their ineptitude suddenly show a pulse and make their case for being included back in the mix. Meanwhile, the losing continues.

    So sure, for what it’s worth, we can perform an autopsy on the past two games. Seattle’s zone defense totally bewildered the Wolves on Friday, especially Marko Jaric and Al Jefferson. Jaric had three of the team’s 8 turnovers in a 4 and a half minute span early in the third quarter that initiated a tumble from a five point lead (50-45 with 10:40 to play in the third) to a 14 point deficit (55-69 at 3:52 of the period). And once Jefferson was able to get the feed from the perimeter, he seemed to wait before making his moves, the absolutely wrong way to attack a zone.

    The next night, Michael Redd toyed with Corey Brewer at one end of the floor while Marko Jaric and the rest of the Wolves were unable to take advantage of Redd’s notoriously porous defense at the other end until it was too late. The stats will show that the Bucks shot 43% both overall and from beyond the arc, but that is factoring in the horseshit performance of Milwaukee’s bench, which bricked 14 of 15 shots, including all half-dozen treys. The Bucks starters were better than 50% from the field (32-62), and, led by Redd, a gaudy 60% from trey-ville (9-15).

    What a weird game. The Chinese rookie Yi and Craig Smith took turns embarrassing the other’s defense, with Yi finishing with a career-high 22 points on 9-14 FG, while Smith went off for 30 for the second time in 4 games–and a night after he scored just 3–on 12-17 FG. Combined with Al Jefferson’s 11-19, that gave the Jeff-Rhino tandem 23-36 FG, yet during the 26:32 the pair were on the court together, Milwaukee scored exactly as many points as the Wolves. Jaric attempted 3 shots and registered one lousy point in 34:58, during which the Wolves were minus -16. Brewer built the Taj Mahal out of bricks, going 2-13 FG.

    Smith had 12 in the first and 14 in the third. Ryan Gomes had a dozen in the second. Jefferson had 13 in the 4th and McCants chipped in another 12. And yet the Wolves hadn’t cracked the 90 point mark until McCants threw in a meaningless trey at the buzzer.

    I’m not going to pretend to know what it all means.

    Or, better yet, for the sake of sport, I’ll pretend I do.

    2. Foolhardy Analysis

    It probably isn’t a good idea to issue prescriptions for any team as constantly in flux as the Wolves, seemingly duty-bound to flummox logical examination. But what else are we going to talk about; the fact that FoxSports can’t sell ads for its telecasts and are thus giving us commercial-free halftime reports?

    If I were god, or perhaps just Randy Wittman, I’d avoid matching Al Jefferson up with legitimate centers whenever possible. If you go to the 82games.com website, click on Minnesota Timberwolves, and look at their Individual Player Floortime Statistics, you will see that, through December 15, the team’s top three plus/minus performers per 48 minutes are, in order, Chris Richard, Mark Madsen and Theo Ratliff. And you will see that, aside from the hapless Gerald Green and Greg Buckner (BTW, wouldn’t Trenton Hassell have looked fine guarding Michael Redd last night?), the two worst plus/minus Timberwolves per 48 are Craig Smith and Al Jefferson. Now, unless you think that Richard, Madsen and Ratliff are an indomitable trio and the Jeff-Rhino duo are rancid mincemeat, it would appear putting a legit center on the court beside Jefferson (or Smith) is a better idea than turning Jefferson and Smith into a frontcourt mismatch. Against relative bantamweight front lines such as those deployed by Atlanta and Phoenix, Jeff-Rhino is a formidable combo. But otherwise, eh, have you seen Chris Richard play the past couple of weeks? The dude is just 13 months younger than Craig Smith, and actually a month older than Jefferson, and arguably has learned the game as well playing for Florida’s Billy Donovan as Smith and Jeff have under the likes of Doc Rivers and Randy Wittman. And if Richard comes up a cropper, well, there’s Mad Dog and the Pale Rider, and maybe even Theo once the crocuses start to bloom.

    In the backcourt, while we all Wait For Foye with bated breath, it is time to put Marko Jaric and Rashad McCants in direct competition for the off-guard position. Both players possess beguiling strengths and crippling weaknesses in their respective games; both are maddeningly inconsistent, and both seemingly need perpetual outside motivation. To some extent, Wittman is already doing this on a more subtle level. The year’s most pleasant surprise thus far, Sebastian Telfair has earned the starter’s position and, at least until Foye returns, starter’s minutes. I’d continue starting Jaric beside Bassy, but deploy a quicker hook as soon as the need for McCants’s perimeter scoring prowess becomes manifest.

    Too often on a bad team, you wish you could combine the best attributes of two incomplete players into a single dynamite package. So it is with McCants and the offensive instincts of Corey Brewer. One could argue that McCants’ biggest weakness is that he seems to play only when he wants to–allegations of his selfish and inconsistent play have dogged him ever since Chapel Hill in college, and he’s done little to diminish them during his tenure here. Yet there have been recent signs of McCants getting the message: He’s cut down on his turnovers and begun to move his feet more on defense. But a flaw in Shaddy’s game that is seemingly beyond his control is finding a way to regulate  his offense in the normal flow of team play. Put simply, McCants usually performs as if he’s constantly looking for his shot or constantly, very consciously, trying to enable others–there’s no middle ground. His natural tendency is to go for his. The fact that he can be an effective teammate in terms of sharing the ball and fostering a flow attests to his court vision and basketball intelligence. The problem is that there seems to be no blend between the sharing Shaddy and the dynamic scoring Shaddy. Compare that with Brewer, who almost always plays within the flow of the game. Nearly every shot Brewer attempts is a "good" shot on paper, in that he is usually unguarded and set in position when he lets fly…which makes his putrid FG% even more of a concern.

    In any case, after subbing in McCants for Marko, I’d leave him in for as long as either the sharing Shaddy or the shooting Shaddy is paying dividends, and yank him when the doldrums of either behavior are apparent. Maybe he can figure it out. But I think it is fair to say that the potential upside of McCants is much greater than that of Jaric, and fills more of a need among the team’s current personnel. On the other hand, Jaric has shown enough positive flashes, and has at the very least gilded a path for Telfair to gain some rhythm and confidence, to earn good minutes as McCants’s foil. And if he beats out Shaddy fair and square, more power to him.

    At the small forward sl
    ot, the job should be Brewer’s regardless of whether or not Gomes is outplaying him. The reasons for this are plentiful: Gomes’s expiring contract, Brewer’s hefty upside, the pace and synergy Brewer can put into the game, the way he already has established a rapport with Telfair and Richard (two guys I’d be starting right now), and the flashes of glue-guy brilliance Brewer has demonstrated via rebounding, defense, and blocked shots. All that said, Brewer needs to stop shooting quite as much. Yes, as I just said, they’re "good" shots–for most everybody but Brewer. And while you don’t want to suffocate what are clearly well-refined basketball instincts in this precocious rook, the idea of banging the ball down inside to Jefferson–especially Jefferson versus a power forward–needs to be more firmly established. Or, when McCants is on the floor, feeding the Dying To Be Loved dude. Because bad shots from McCants are more likely to go in than good ones from Brewer.

    Off the bench, I think you have to reward the attitude of Antoine Walker, who has tamped down his pride and sucked up his resolve in order to be a positive influence on this ballclub. Right now Wittman is giving ‘Toine nearly all of his minutes at power forward. Since Walker ah, doesn’t defend the 4s very well, what about giving him some burn at the other forward spot? Specifically, I’d like to see what a lineup comprised of Richard and either Jefferson or Smith at the 4, with Walker, Jaric and Telfair on the perimeter, could do. That’s a long unit with the ability to penetrate, bomb from outside and own the boards–and, if Richard and Jaric are playing the roles, isn’t going to be embarrassed too much on defense.

    To sum up then, against teams with a legit center, start Richard alongside Jefferson and Brewer up front (Smith in for Richard if the frontcourt opponents are small enough). Teams may still guard Jefferson with a big, but hopefully Richard’s defense will overcompensate at the other end. (Only Buckner has a worse opponents-scoring per 48 figure than Smith, both because Craig has difficulty defending good 4s and because Jefferson doesn’t defend centers well at all.) Keep giving Brewer 32-40 minutes a game at the small forward slot, and give Walker, and–if fouls and other factors intervene–Gomes the remainder. Set up a backcourt rotation among Telfair, Jaric and McCants, and if McCants and one of the others isn’t playing well, consider kicking Brewer into the backcourt for brief stints and giving Gomes or Walker a little more burn. Green, and to a lesser extent Buckner, are emergency or garbage time subs only.

    3. Wittman On Parole

    Randy Wittman is having a better year on the sidelines than last season’s macabre performance in which he reigned over a horror show that even sapped the seemingly inexhaustible enthusiasm of Kevin Garnett. Having just admitted that this ballclub is incredibly unpredictible and inconsistent, it is difficult for me to "blame" Wittman for the squad’s 3-19 mark thus far, particularly with Foye and Ratliff logging a combined 161 minutes out of the 5280 that were available. Others are more confident castigating Witt, specifically because he can’t generate any positive momentum or patterns with this squad. It’s a chicken-or-egg situation. But if it continues throughout the season, and especially when (if?) Foye returns, the egg will be on Wittman’s face.

    While giving Wittman the benefit of the doubt, however, the doubts are growing. Unfortunately for Witt, the team seemed to start gelling in the three games Jerry Sichting roamed the sidelines, and little things that Sichting implemented–like resting Jefferson near the end of the third rather than the beginning or middle of the 4th quarter–Wittman has belatedly adopted. Some of this may be political, always an underrated hazard that most any coach not named Jackson, Riley, or Popovich must encounter. By contract and every other way imaginable, Wittman’s bosses in the front office, Kevin McHale and Glen Taylor, have planted a wet kiss on Al Jefferson and anointed him the cornerstone of the future. So when the game is on the line, Wittman has to think twice about running a pair of plays that both result in Jaric sinking layups, which is what Sichting called, using the element of surprise to his advantage, in Atlanta. And maybe Jefferson not getting his number called in Atlanta helps explain his shout-out of support for Wittman after he destroyed Amare Stoudemire the very next game. At the very least, Wittman was far more likely to draw up a play that had Jefferson going against Samuel Dalembert–and getting lunched for the fifth time in the game–in the final minute of a loss to Philly.

    Then there is the question of demeanor. A disciple of Bobby Knight, Wittman isn’t usually one to cloak his ire, or even disgust, as the Wolves are floundering. His sideline antics were blatant during the collapse versus Seattle on Friday, complete with quick hooks for lapses in concentration, tongue-lashings for players coming to the sidelines, and all manner of winces and frustrated body-spins and mutterings to himself. This would all be forgiveable, not to mention understandable, if the Wolves responded by righting the ship and learning from the tough love. Instead, Wittman’s second quarter tantrums merely led to more cluelessness and less hope and enthusiasm on the part of his troops as they gift-wrapped the victory ofr the Sonics in that fateful third quarter pratfall.

    The bottom line is that Randy Wittman has a record of 15-51 as head coach of the Timberwolves thus far. That’s close to Jimmy Rodgers territory–a chilly outpost indeed. The excuse of Foye’s injury will buy some time. But if the Wolves continue to play at an 11-win pace for the rest of the season, even as Kevin Garnett angles for a second MVP Award, the revenue streams for this stumbling franchise will increasingly run dry. And that, more than anything else, is what makes heads roll.

  • Abbreviated Three-Pointer: Same Lesson, Another Loss

    Game #20, Road Game #10: Minnesota 94, Philadelphia 98

    Season record: 3-17
     

    1. This Just In: Al Jefferson Has Problems With Big Centers

    The most valuable player in last night Wolves loss to Washington was opposing center Brendan Haywood, who was too much to handle for the tandem power forwards, Craig Smith and Al Jefferson, Minnesota deployed in its frontcourt. Tonight’s most valuable player in the Wolves’ loss to Philadelphia was opposing center Samuel Dalembert, who was too much to handle for the tandem power forwards, Craig Smith and Al Jefferson, Minnesota deployed, albeit slightly less often, in its frontcourt. Believe me, reading those two redundant sentences is less annoying than watching two redundant losses.

    Dalembert had 9 blocked shots, tying a Wolves’ franchise record for an opposing shot swatter. Five of those rejections, including the play that could have tied the game for Minnesota in the final seconds, came on shots by Jefferson, the gifted power forward compelled to play out of position because coach Randy Wittman wants to use his little bucking bronco frontcourt of Jefferson, Craig Smith and Corey Brewer. Against some teams–Atlanta and Phoenix are recent examples–this is a fine strategy. But against those with large, strong centers–the Lakers, the Wizards and now the 76ers qualify–Minnesota is overmatched.

    Jefferson battled all night, finishing with 22 points (10-20 FG, 2-5 FT) and 11 rebounds, 6 on the offensive glass. But once again, the plus/minus stat tonight is a reliable barometer of what really happened. Jefferson and rookie Chris Richard split the center position. In 31:49, Jefferson was a team worst minus -20 in a four point loss. In the other 17:11, Richard was a team best plus +16. He put that time to good use, with a pair a steals, a pair of blocks, and a pair of baskets in a pair of attempts. If only he had been paired with Jefferson once or twice so "Big Al" could have played the position he was meant to play.

    Is this the way it is going to be for the rest of the season? Of the four centers on Minnesota’s roster, Theo Ratliff may be taking millions in insurance not to play on that suspiciously balky knee; Michael Doleac is a journeyman; Mark Madsen is game but undersized; and Richard is a rookie. Nevertheless, it is unfair to Jefferson and to the team to ride the Smith-Jefferson power forward train when seven-footers are having a field day in the paint. Right now, I’d see if Richard’s past couple of weeks of impressive action in limited usage can be extended. I think Minnesota can get by with the two PFs against Seattle and Milwaukee. But when they go to Miami to meet Shaq and the boys, it would seem foolhardy not to go with a center by committee.

    2. Free throw woes

    With 1:15 left to go in the third quarter, the game was tied at 73. For the final 13:15, Minnesota shot 4-8 from the free throw line; Philadelphia was 7-8, according for 3/4 of its margin of victory. For the game, Minnesota had more field goals and three-pointers than the Sixers, but lost it at the free throw line, going 16-25 while Philly made 25 out of 31 attempts. When asked after the game how he would assess his squad’s 64% free throw shooting, Wittman responded, "There is nothing to assess. We’re a good free throw shooting team."

    Um, no they aren’t. Even before tonight’s clanking at the charity stripe, Minnesota ranked 23rd among the 30 teams in FT%, making a hair over 72% when the league average is better than 75%. Similar disinformation appears at nba.com, where Jefferson’s All Star credentials are buttressed with this statement: "Big Al has added a reliable free throw to his arsenal." Okay, if you count 69.1% as reliable. It is better than any of his previous three seasons, and he has shown steady improvement from 63% his rookie year to 64.2% and then 68.1% last year.

     

    Bottom line, despite everything else, if the Wolves make their free throws tonight they probably win the game.

     

    3. Quick hits

    Another double-digit assist outing for Sebastian Telfair, with 11 dimes versus only two turnovers. And Marko Jaric bounced back from an off night in Washington to put up 14 points on only 7 shots (4-7 FG, 6-8 FT).

    The general consensus is that the bench did a great job, and it is true that McCants, Gomes, Walker and of course Richard all had strong moments. But only McCants really seems to have consciously improved his ball movement recently, and even he is prone to egregious lapses where he starts firing away. The beautiful offensive flow of the last three quarters of the Atlanta game and the Phoenix upset has been pretty much absent.

    There’s plenty more to say: Have at it, and I’ll be back with a look at Friday’s tilt versus Kevin Durant, Jeff Green and the Sonics sometime over the weekend.

  • The Three Pointer: Matchup Problems

    Game #19, Road Game #9: Minnesota 88, Washington 101

    Season record: 3-16

    1. Live By the Boards, Die By the Boards

    We’re not in Atlanta or Phoenix anymore, Dorothy. After utterly dominating the rebounding against two teams that don’t play anyone over 6 feet, 10 inches tall, the Timberwolves were mauled tonight, 57-35, by the bigger, stronger, Wizards frontcourt. Washington essentially did what Minnesota executed on its last two foes, getting 20 of the 45 boards on their offensive glass and 37 of 47 at the defensive end.

    The problem is pretty simple. Al Jefferson went off for 32 points and 20 rebounds Saturday against Phoenix. Tonight, Craig Smith had a career high 36 points. But both of these players are indisputably power forwards. Neither is remotely quick enough to play the 3, and neither is really tall and/or strong enough to cope with legitimate NBA centers. Fortunately there aren’t that many such centers around, but the Wizards have Brendan Haywood, and that’s plenty enough to stymie Jefferson.

    The last time the Wolves played Washington on November 16, Theo Ratliff suffered that fateful and mysterious knee injury that may represent his last appearance in a Wolves uniform. At any rate, Jefferson shot 3-6 FG when Ratliff was beside him at center, and 2-10 FG when he himself was forced to play the pivot, usually against the seven-foot, 263-pound Haywood. Tonight, Jefferson shot 5-14 FG and grabbed 7 rebounds. Haywood was 5-9 with 14 rebounds. In the two Washington games, Jefferson has shot a combined 10-30 FG (awful for such a paint-oriented player), has gone 9-10 FT, but has 17 rebounds (3 on the offensive end), zero assists, six turnover and is a combined minus -41 in a combined 75:53 minutes. Haywood is 9-16 FG, just 1-5 FT, but has 25 rebounds, a whopping 12 of them on the offensive end, 2 assists, four turnovers and is a combined plus +28 in a combined 61:02 minutes. The statistics that really count here are Jefferson’s shooting percentage and Haywood’s offensive rebounds. As was proven with Lakers’ Andrew Bynum earlier in the season, Jefferson has a lot of problems jousting with legit centers at both ends of the court. Look at it this way: Tonight the Wolves were minus -23 in the 39:25 Jefferson played, which means they were plus +9 in the 8:35 he was on the bench.

    But to be fair to "Big Al," it wasn’t just Haywood vs. Jefferson. In a television interview after the game, Wizards guard Antonio Daniels revealed that they watched plenty of tape of Jefferson’s monster game against Phoenix on Saturday, and Washington set its gameplan on ensuring Jefferson wouldn’t beat them–a significant factor in Smith’s breakout performance.

    In fact, the subplots on all three front court matchups tonight were fascinating. Could Jefferson handle a big center like Haywood? (No.) Could Craig Smith guard a perimeter-shooting power forward like Antawn Jamison? Well, given that Jamison needed 22 shots to register 22 points (7-22 FG, 2-6 3ptFG, 6-7 FT), and that Smith went off for 36 in just as many FGA, the answer is complicated, and necessarily incomplete. Jamison outrebounded Smith 13-9, and matched him on Smith forte of offensive rebounding (they both grabbed 4), plus chipped in 5 assists to Smith’s donut.

    The other frontcourt matchup was a reprise of Corey Brewer vs. Caron Butler. After the first Minnesota-Washington game, I cited Butler’s manhandling of Brewer as evidence that the rook simply couldn’t guard the bigger, stronger small forwards in the league. But tonight Brewer showed continued growth. Butler got 20 points (10-20 FG), 10 reboundsx and 4 assists, but he’s been doing that against everybody, especially since Gilbert Arenas went down in mid November. Brewer was much more judicious with his shot selection, going 3-5 FG while registering 9 points, 9 rebounds and 2 assists. It could have been worse.

    2. Terrific Telfair and Miserable Marko

    Jefferson wasn’t the only goat of this game. After two or three solid weeks of inspired play, Marko Jaric has a very tough night. There were two crucial tipping points in the game, and Jaric helped swing it toward the Wizards on both occasions. Just 1:21 into the second quarter, Wittman subbed in Jaric for Sebastian Telfair, who’d had a brilliant first quarter with 11 points and 5 assists. The score was tied at 26 with Jaric came back in (he’d sat with 3:38 to play in the first) and was 29-28 Washington when the Wizards brought Deshawn Stevenson in for Antonio Daniels, pretty much ensuring that Jaric instead of Ryan Gomes or Rashad McCants would be on backup point guard Roger Mason much of the time. Mason, an undistinguished 6-5 combo guard, proceeded to score 8 points in less than 2 minutes, boosting Washington’s lead to 6. It was 8 when Wittman finally brought Telfair back in alongside Jaric with 3:40 to play in the half, and 10 at the break.

    Then, in the 4th quarter, Minnesota had cut an 18 point deficit down to 79-85 with a little more than 8 minutes to play. Once again Jaric was operating in the backcourt without Telfair. This time, Marko bricked two jumpers while the Wizards converted at the other end, kicking the lead back to double digits. One problem was that, in trying to get Jefferson some help in the paint, Wittman was playing the offensively challenged Chris Richard. But the other problem was that Marko could neither get the ball to anybody nor get off a good shot.

    Now there are occasions when plus/minus numbers can be misleading, as in merely circumstantial evidence that fingers the wrong culprit or elevates a benign bystander. But check this: In 25:41 tonight, Jaric was a minus -31. In 38:01, Telfair was a minus -1. In the 16:35 they shared the backcourt, the Wolves were minus -18. That means Telfair was plus +17 in the 21:26 he played without Jaric and Marko was minus -13 in the 8:59 he played without Telfair.

    For the game, Telfair dropped a dollar’s worth of dimes versus only one turnover. He continues to work well with Brewer, assisting on two of the rook’s three baskets, and fed Smith three times for hoops in the game’s first eight minutes. Whereas Jaric is more inclined to pick up assists either by dumping it into the low post to Jefferson (with whom he has good rapport) or, increasingly, off dribble penetration, Telfair seems more adept as rifling passes inside or operating the quick, bounce-pass pick and roll, which is where he and Smith were particularly effective tonight. Bassy also shot 5-12 FG, further solidifying that plus 40% accuracy. The news today of more rehab time for Randy Foye gives Telfair another toehold on that mountain he is climbing to become a reliable backcourt fixture in the Wolves’ rotations. Tonight was another significant step up in that process.

    3. Quick Hosannahs and Brickbats

    Yes, the Wizards were focusing on Jefferson, but 36 points from anybody at anytime is worth a closer look, eh? Vexing as it is to have Smith duplicate Jefferson’s power forward slot, let’s dwell instead on what fabulous hands the guy has for such a beefy build. Most of the time he is snagging balls on the move, be it the high pick and roll with Bassy or flashing in from the weak side, or corralling offensive rebounds with people pounding on his back. How often does the Rhino drop a pass? I didn’t see it happen tonight, and there were at least a half-dozen tough chances he handled. Second, after shooting just 62.4% from the free throw line last year, and 17-30 FT to begin this season, he is 17-19 FT thus far in December, indicating that either he is in a marvelous groove or has been diligently practicing–probably both. Finally, although the Jamisons and other perimeter guys still will give him trouble, Smith does seem to cover more range this season, without losing the ability to recognize and execute the right rotations down in the paint. In my NBA season preview this season, I said that Craig Smith’s potential was overrated. I was wrong.

    Rashad McCants had an interesting, mostly positive, night. Joining
    Antoine Walker as the first guys off the bench with 3:38 to play in the first, Shaddy went nearly 12 minutes (11:58) without an official shot, preferring to emphasize ball movement and moving with or without the ball, drawing fouls and sinking 3 of 4 FTs on his only two attempts. But with 5:24 to play in the 3rd and the Wolves down 16, his resolve weakened, and he jacked up 4 attempts in three minutes, making a trey and then quickly taking a heat check by driving in traffic for a miss, enabling a fast break bucket the other way, following that up with a missed trey and commiting a stupid foul that yielded another pair of points. After that spasm, he settled down, and doled out four assists in the next nine minutes, finishing with 6 dimes and zero turnovers along with 5 rebounds, 8 points and a team high plus +4 in 32:25.

    At the same time, color commentator Jim Petersen did a great job of telestrating a play where Shaddy’s lackluster perimeter D plus a belated gamble resulted in a rotation scramble and a Wizards slam dunk. It was a superb, teachable moment by J Pete that just happened to come at McCants’s expense. Then, in the postgame report, the FoxSports desk, particularly analyst Mike McCollow, openly wondered whether Shaddy’s knee was restricting his movement and hurting his ability to get down in his defensive stance and to get back in transition. Frankly, I didn’t notice these things, but do think McCants has done too much reaching on defense at times this year. Then again, he did less of it last season–his best defensive year thus far–and that was when his knee was most problematical.

    Antoine Walker didn’t have it; tried to do too much too soon after returning from ankle problems and hurt the time. Petersen mentioned that the ankle was still bothering him, which prompts the question of why the hell was he playing then–the Wolves have done pretty well with him out of the rotation lately. And the doldrums continue for Ryan Gomes, who clearly was trying to go strong to the hoop with the ball this game instead of settling for jumpers, but his rhythm is still way off and his defense likewise isn’t what it was in the preseason or with the Celts a year ago.

    Finally, Randy Wittman also didn’t distinguish himself in his first game back from back surgery. I understand the dilemma Witt was facing: Jefferson and Jaric were being killed by matchups and both have been warriors both most of the season and in the past few games. Meanwhile, Craig Smith and Sebastian Telfair deserved mucho time in the power forward and point guard spots. In 20/20 hindsight, Witt should have bit the bullet and played a legit center next to Smith more often, instead of giving Jeff an ineffective 39:25. And if having Richard or Doleac in the game more often meant more focus on Smith, then swap in Jefferson with a big and see what happens.

    More intangibly and yet more obviously, the Wolves didn’t seem like they were laying it out full bore for Wittman the way they had for Sichting the past two games. Most likely it was the disadvantageous matchups at work. But Wittman was right to dwell on the lack of effort in his postgame analysis. He just has to hope his presence isn’t a factor somehow in the lethargy.

  • Three-Pointer: Burning The Tired Suns

    Game #18, Home Game #10: Phoenix 93, Minnesota 100

    Season record: 3-15

    1. Sweat Equity

    I’ll let some mathematician figure out the odds of a 2-15 team triumphing over a 16-4 ballclub, as happened last night at the Target Center. But whatever the probability, it plummets when you factor in that Phoenix was not only on the tail end of a back-to-back, but playing its fifth road game of the week. And it drops further when the scrappy underdog outrebounds the elite roadrunners 55-33, contesting nearly every one of its own missed shots (Minnesota had 19 rebounds on its own glass compared to 25 for the Suns) and dominating their defensive boards by a 36-8 margin.

    By the 4th quarter, Phoenix was spent, registering their worst scoring period (13 points) of the season en route to their lowest scoring game. After watching his teammates fail to convert his feeds for much of the third quarter and the first 3 minutes of the 4th, the phenomenal Steve Nash went off for 8 points in 2:13 to bring the Suns within 4 at 91-87 with plenty of time, 6:56, left to play. But Phoenix wouldn’t score again for six minutes, until Grant Hill drove for a layup with 52 seconds on the clock. For the period, Nash was 3-7 FG (2-4 3ptFG) and the rest of the team was 1-13 FG.

    Minnesota also scored 13 points in the final period, meaning the teams combined for more points in the first 6:03 of the game as in the last twelve minutes. After the game, interim coach Jerry Sichting, and players Al Jefferson and Marko Jaric all remarked that the Wolves were run ragged and feeling tired in those first 5-6 minutes, but that blazing pace, combined with the Suns’ recent schedule and the Wolves’ dedicated energy at both ends of the court, simply overwhelmed one of the three or four best team in the NBA.

    2. The New Rotation

    In the past seven quarters of play, Minnesota has outscored Atlanta by 13 and Phoenix by 7, merging a few promising tandems and combinations into a solid and effective rotation. Jaric and Sebastian Telfair have produced enough of a sample size now to demonstrate that they are indeed a synergistic pair together in the backcourt; and Corey Brewer, who has worked well with Telfair all year, has suddenly slotted in nicely in the frontcourt alongside Craig Smith and Al Jefferson. Sichting properly demurred when asked if this starting quintet was together to stay, noting the squad was 3-15 and future tinkering is inevitable. What he didn’t say is that the ballclub remains woefully young and was up against a deservedly overconfident Hawks squad that had come back from 21 to beat the Wolves last month and were up 19 in the first period this time, and a dog-tired Phoenix team who relies on aerobics more than any franchise in the league.

    Okay, enough cavaets. Let’s look at why this group is playing so well. The two pieces that haven’t changed are Jefferson and either Jaric or Telfair at the point. Of the other three spots, those losing time are Rashad McCants, Ryan Gomes, and one of the centers in the committee. Those benefiting from the new world order are Brewer, Smith, and the Telfair/Jaric combo.

    What do these changes create? The first thing that jumps out is rebounding. Brewer’s nonstop motor enables him to defend the perimeter and still slash for defensive boards; Smith is the opposite, a player whose forte is grinding for position on the offensive glass. With at least one sidekick pounding the glass at either end, there is less boxing out of Jefferson. The result is that in the past seven quarters, Minnesota has grabbed 81 percent of the eligible rebounds on its defensive boards and 42 percent of the caroms on their own missed shots. In the past two games, Smith has 12 offensive rebounds, Brewer has 24 on the defensive end and Jefferson has battled for enough of the leftovers to average 14 rpg.

    Second, anyone who has watched the past two games has seen the team penetrate far more frequently, feed the post players far more frequently, and try and dribble or otherwise create space for jump shots far less often. This is not surprising: the two guys whose minutes have been curtailed, McCants and Gomes, were among most likely to short-circuit ball movement by clanging a jumper instead of putting it on the floor and getting a layup or foul. Ditto veteran Greg Buckner, and, to only a slightly lesser extent, injured veteran Antoine Walker. In order, Walker-McCants-Gomes-Buckner lead the Wolves in attempted treys, which only partially explains these horrible overall FG percentages: Walker 41.9%; McCants 42.8; Gomes 38.9%, and Buckner 37.4%. Yup, a notoroious bricklayer like Telfair is outshooting all of them at 43.4%, putting pace in the game to justify his low rate, which is  easily absorbed when playing alongside Craig Smith (58.8%), Jaric (50.4%) and Jefferson (49.1%).

    The obvious exception is Brewer, who continues to stumble along at a woeful 31% from the field, and the offensive flaw in this lineup has been Brewer’s proclivity to shoot–it is almost worth invoking the Eddie Griffin rule that Brewer not be allowed to chuck it unless the shot clock is about to expire or he’s wide open from 12 feet or less. On the other hand, Brewer not only rebounds better than Gomes, McCants and Buckner, but is much better at fostering productive ball movement. His assist to turnovers in 346 minutes thus far this season is 25/14. By contrast, Gomes has just three more assists and nearly twice as many turnovers in 90 more minutes (28/25 in 436 minutes); Buckner is 32/24 in 387 minutes, and McCants is 24/44 in 405 minutes.

    Bottom line, you’ve got a lineup of three guys–Telfair, Jaric, and Brewer–who look to dish and penetrate (in that order), and two guys, Jefferson and Smith, who are pretty much black holes in terms of passing the ball back out (tho’ Jeff is ever so slowly but surely improving on that) but who shoot at a high percent in the paint.

    The result of all this is a lineup that best creates the template for the sort of "smashmouth" basketball Wolves VP of Personnel Kevin McHale envisioned when he razed the team and brought in a majority of new young talent during the off-season. You have guys looking to pound the ball inside to Jefferson and Smith. Those same guys can all penetrate to the hoop. And you’ve got five guys who all like to mix it up to some extent.

    Last night, Jefferson destroyed Amare Stoudemire as completely as I’ve ever seen, going off for a career-tying 32 points, a season high 20 rebounds, 4 steals and even two assists in 42:02, versus Stoudemire’s 16 points, 5 rebounds and 2 assists in 34:08. Meanwhile, Smith cut Shawn Marion’s rebounding total to nearly half his season average–6 boards for a guy who came in getting 11.3 per game.

    The abiding question is, can this group be nearly as effective against less advantageous matchups? Next up is Washington, whose Brendan Haywood gave Jefferson fits the last time they played, and who also have Darius Songalia as a solid backup, plus a power forward, Antawn Jamison, who can make Smith look foolish out on the perimeter. After that, Philly, Seattle and Milwaukee seem like decent but manageable tests, but then Shaq and the Heat are on the docket a week from Monday.

    Keep an eye on Chris Richard. While this site has debated the limitations of Jefferson against viable centers and discussed Doleac versus Madsen as alternatives, Richard has been coming on. Last night he played a season-high 9:41 and more than held his own, registering a plus +5. His affinity with his double-ring teammate Brewer is a definite advantage for both, and he seems to offer a middle ground between Madsen’s frantic but effective scrambling on defense and Doleac’s tall and slow but savvy play. By now, the book has been written on Doleac and Madsen, their pros and cons well documented and not likely to change much. But Richard, well, isn’t putting the barometer on his NBA readiness the kind of thing this season is all about?

    3. No, Don’t Fire Wittman. But Praise Sichting O
    n A Job Well     Done

    An assistant-cum-interim coach successfully filling in for the head coach is probably the closest thing the NBA has to a quarterback and backup quarterback situation. Like most backups who appear to have outperformed the starter, Sichting is probably stirring a little anti-Wittman animus from those who haven ‘t forgotten his rotten performance after taking over the Dwane Casey last year. Personally, I’m not in the mood for it. Sichting came back to Minnesota this season specifically, and almost solely, out of respect and loyalty to Wittman, and he has taken pains to remind everyone that he is in constant consultation with Witt before, during and after practices and games. Al Jefferson likewise lobbied for Wittman by talking about working on the things Witt has harped about, such as passing out of double teams. "I hope he is proud of me tonight," Jeff said of Witt after the Phoenix game. When a player goes for 30 points and 20 rebounds–the only Timberwolf to do so since KG, who last accomplished it against Sacramento in Game 7 of the playoffs–he has ultimate leverage to speak his mind. Jefferson chose to speak his on behalf of Wittman. That counts for something.

    All that said, Sichting has always been an underrated basketball mind and tactician around these parts, and what he has done over the past three games should not go unappreciated. There are the big picture things, such as the implementation of this rotation. It was not very long ago at all that Gomes and McCants were considered vital to what the club was doing. Sichting has promoted Smith and Brewer at exactly the right times. As the interim coach himself has mentioned, Smith had a hard time getting into good game shape after twisting his ankle and then getting only sporadic minutes earlier this season. Sichting sounds as if he was among those goading Smith to work harder on his endurance and quickness–"he was usually one of the last guys to get back on defense" is how he described Smith’s first few weeks in his comments after the upset of the Suns last night. Brewer has been brought along slowly but seems like a guy who needs minutes to find his footing.

    Then there are the little things that signify bigger things. Sichting was more explicit in his criticism of McCants after the Lakers loss, warning Shaddy that he needed to be more consistent. Then, to prove his point, he removed McCants from the starting lineup.

    Then last night, McCants brushed Grant Hill on a breakaway layup that put the Suns ahead and was whistled for the foul at 2:43 to go in the 3rd period. Phoenix called a timeout before Hill’s FT and McCants started bitching at the ref, who barked right back at him and then walked away. As a frustrated McCants strode to the sidelines, Sichting caught his eye and laid into him with as much fervor as the ref just had, the gist of which I assume was, if you’re going to foul the guy, prevent the shot; if you’re not, get the hell away from him. It was a blistering, tough-love exchange. As circumstance would have it, McCants came out of the timeout and banged home a couple of three pointers that permanently swung the game in Minnesota’s favor. But when it came to crunchtime–the Wolves up 4 with 6:22 to play–Sichting lifted McCants and brought in Telfair to play alongside Jaric.

    Before then, the Wolves had come out of halftime flat, watching the Suns turn a block and a steal into 5 quick points in the first 1:14 of the 3rd period, boosting Phoenix’s lead from 1 to 6. Pretty much everyone in the arena figured it was time to Minnesota to defer to the 16-4 juggernaut. But Sichting called a 20 second timeout and just delivered  a tongue-lashing that wasn’t loud so much as passionate and direct. Forty-seven seconds later, the score was tied.

  • The Three Pointer: Heartbreak

    Game #17, Road Game #8: Minnesota 89, Atlanta 90

    Season record: 2-15

    1. Brewer and Smith Lead the Paint Mob

    After 10 pathetic quarters of play–from 1:25 to go in the 3rd against San Antonio until 1:34 to go in the 1st tonight–the Timberwolves found a pulse and fought to retain their diminishing fan base, clambering back from a 26-7 deficit only to lose on Joe Johnson’s last-half-second jumper in what was arguably the year’s most entertaining ballgame to date.

    For Wolves fans, here are the stats that matter: 56 points in the paint. Eighteen rebounds for Corey Brewer in a game-high 44:17. Twenty offensive boards, 7 of them by Craig Smith. And a huge, as yet unposted plus-margin in second chance points.

    Brewer is the king of second chance points, partly because his JV-caliber jumper snuffs so many first chances and partly because his hustle and hellbent for leather crashing of the boards–weakside, strongside, up the gut, it doesn’t matter–enables him to grab so many balls and keep so many others in play. No other Timberwolf has snatched 18 rebounds (14 on the defensive glass) thus far this year, but on the downside, his 3-15 FG is likewise a pretty rare clang quotient for that many attempts. Brewer’s 6 points came on a floor-length dribble and layup after grabbing a defensive rebound, a half-court dribble and layup after a steal, and a putback on the offensive glass. Total combined distance from palm to rim on those three buckets: Maybe 9 inches. Otherwise, he was 0-8 on jumpers, which makes him 3-7 on layups and tip-ins (or tip-outs).

    But there are plenty of reasons to like having Corey Brewer on your team. First of all, his two glaring weaknesses–a horrendous jump shot and a scrawny physique–are among the easiest things for an NBA-caliber athlete to remedy in their early 20s. If he spends the next off-season or two pumping iron, pounding milkshakes and jackin’ jumpers, he’s going to keep getting better. Second, he’s obviously been extremely well coached–a tip of the buzzcut to Billy Donovan. Tonight, Florida Gator Al Horford led the Hawks with a plus +22 in 35:19; Brewer led the Wolves with plus +9 in 44:17, and Chris Richard was plus +4 in 2:50. All play so hard as to appear reckless, and yet they all also play smart and unselfishly. Which brings me to Brewer’s defense, which is very good both on the ball (provided he isn’t up against a much larger veteran) and in rotation (especially when he covers for the Wolves’ sliding bigs–despite going just a buck-85, he’s comfortable mixing in the paint). Needless to say, this was Brewer’s best game of the year.

    By going 9-15 FG, Craig Smith actually lowered his shooting accuracy from the previous five games, when he was above 70%. It is a little disconcerting that Smith is thriving at precisely the time Al Jefferson is being increasingly dislodged from the paint and missing loads of bunnies when he does establish position. And, as is true with Brewer, the Hawks’ plethora of large but undisciplined, scrambling 6-7 to 6-9 swingmen, works to his advantage–both Smith and Brewer thrive on the chaos of loose balls, be they tipped in the air or battered along the floor, and Smith especially knows how to exploit eager defenders.

    But the rhino sobriquet fits Smith well. His nine buckets tonight went like this: Tip-in, layup, putback, baby hook, layup, layup, layup, layup, layup. Every single one of his 20 points were paint-oriented, including the two free throws (he’s improving from the line, BTW). He and Brewer put in so much sweat equity tonight that it seems churlish to point out that the three members of Atlanta’s starting frontcourt shot over 50% and got to the line 26 times (Brewer had 5 fouls, Smith 4, and Michael Doleac 5 in 17:04). The rhino and the gator greyhound are not optimal for stopping paint production. But tonight they dished it out at least as good as they received it, and almost led the Wolves to victory.

    2. The Value of Jaric

    After the Wolves sleptwalked through two consecutive losses, interim coach Jerry Sichting, searching for causes for the lack of intensity, asked rhetorically, "We don’t miss Marko that much, do we?" On the basis of circumstantial evidence, Jaric is indeed a vital cog in this ballclub’s motor right now. With the Lima-boned (sorry, couldn’t resist) Serbian playing the best NBA ball of his life, the Wolves vanquished New Orleans, played Dallas tough, and led the Spurs in the first half. Then he turned an ankle and Minnesota collapsed: That ten quarter drought we opened this trey with corresponds almost exactly to the time Marko was on the sidelines.

    Brewer will appropriately get the huzzahs and generate the warm fuzzies because he’s a current rook and future bedrock, but Jaric was the Wolves’ MVP tonight. His fabulous line–18 points (6-13 FG, 5-5 FT), 9 assists (albeit with 5 turnovers), 8 rebounds, 3 steals, and a plus +7 in 38:42 of a one point loss–wasn’t even quite as good as his actual performance. The way he was setting up Jefferson, Brewer, McCants and Gomes in the first half, he should have had 12 or 13 assists easily. More importantly, the two things that have always plagued Jaric in the NBA–his ineffectiveness and then timidity about penetrating to the hoop, and his crunchtime nerves–are in the process of being rebutted. The key to Marko’s resurgence this past two or three weeks has been his proclivity and prowess at getting to the hoop–and finishing. He’s been more aggressive off the dribble than I’ve ever seen him, and yet it seems to have simultaneously enhanced his court vision, because he’s dishing both off penetration and with pick-and-roll bounce passes, wrist-snap dishes to bigs in the paint and relays around the horn better than ever.

    And tonight, he executed a coup de grace on that "choker" aura that has followed him around like a bad odor since his opening months at point guard seemed to conclusively demonstrate he was the anti-Cassell in the clutch. With the Wolves down a point with 20 seconds to play, Sichting calls a play out of a timeout that has Marko outfoxing Joe Johnson to get the feed off the inbounds and lay the ball in. After Josh Smith twirls for a banker to tilt the lead back to Atlanta with a hair more than seven secs to tick, Marko inbounds to Craig Smith, gets the ball back and drives the right lane, guarded from the foul line in by Josh Smith, who has 7 blocks on the evening already. Shielding Smith with his body, Jaric again lays it in with two seconds to play. If Joe Johnson doesn’t hit that 16-footer with the buzzer going off, Jaric is in the headline of tomorrow morning’s paper. For all kinds of reasons justified and not justified, he’s been a special target of scorn for Wolves fans since soon after his arrival. I’ve done my share of ripping on the guy–and daresay I will again, in the not too distant future. All the more reason to give it up for him right now.

    3. The Other Stuff

    So how did the Wolves hawk up a 19-point deficit in the first 10 and a half minutes of the game? Sichting thought his best swingmen would be glue guys Gomes and Buckner. Nope. They were outhustled right to the bench–Gomes lasting 8:26 before departing at 21-7, Buckner staying two minutes longer for the full 26-7 nadir. Neither one returned. I don’t know how badly the duo lagged in transition, but with 2:50 to play in the half, color commentator Jim Petersen said the Hawks had 21 fast break points and they finished the game with 26.

    Along with the aforementioned Smith and Jaric, Michael Doleac provided a stolid low post presence at both ends of the court and seemed to help staunch the bleeding when he entered the game. Doleac and Mark Madsen are a bit of a push on defense (pun intended), with Madsen quicker and Doleac taller but both understanding help and switches and the need for a hard and/or strategic foul. The difference is that Doleac has a low-post game and can stick the little jumper if he has to.

    And what of the 1-2 scoring punch of Jefferson and M
    cCants? Well, Jefferson’s shooting slump continues–he was 8-25 FG tonight and many of those misses were automatic buckets in the first few weeks of the season. The longer this bricking continues, the more I’ll suspect that his knee bruise is more harmful than anyone is letting on. For whatever reason, he doesn’t seem to be in rhythm, and looks both slower and less crafty than usual around the hoop–he owned Al Horford in their first meeting and that certainly wasn’t the case tonight. He’s also getting pushed out of his favorite spots more easily–it feels he’s put up more jumpers from 12-feet and beyond during the past three games than in the Wolves’ previous dozen combined–and with a marginally better percentage. It is his bread and butter stuff in the paint that is suffering. Oh, and if Jeff goes 75% from the line instead of 1-4 FT, Minnesota wins tonight.

    McCants is the enigma, the talent that isn’t mixing. Coming off the bench, he bombed in a couple of treys that first kindled the notion that the Wolves might actually have a hope of surmounting that 19-point disadvantage. But even with Buckner getting himself banished from Sichting’s rotation for the night, Shaddy only logged 17:33, pushed aside by the success of the backup-point backcourt of Telfair-Jaric and Brewer’s Chinese fire drill heroics (did I mention Corey also had 4 steals, and that plus +9 in 44:17 means the Wolves were minus -10 in the 3:17 he sat?). One disturbing note is that even when McCants is not gunning (he was 3-6 FG, 3-3 FT tonight), his natural wont is to hold the ball and study his options before furthering the play. It’s like having the sniffles while singing in a barbershop quartet (or in this case quintet)–not always ruinous but disruptive and of petty annoyance to the overall blend and musical rhythm. And since McCants has not been especially brilliant on defense or in taking care of the ball, he is slowly playing himself out of the mainstream of the Wolves’ grand plan for progress. On the other hand, his three buckets–those flammable treys and a nifty 4th quarter move when he split the coming double team and slashed to the hoop for a layup + one (which he converted)–again demonstrate that McCants is the team’s premiere scoring threat on the perimeter by a wide margin. Not only is the jury still out on his future, the defense and the prosecution are both making compelling arguments.

    Being in street clothes due to a bum ankle didn’t prevent Antoine Walker from slapping palms, barking advice into players’ ears during timeouts, and otherwise performing as a more sage, more subdued Mad Dog on the sidelines.

    Twice in the last 46 seconds of the game, one of the Wolves’ bigs heatedly called out one of the point guards for not getting them the damn ball when they had great, relatively unfettered positon in the paint. First it was Al Jefferson yelling at Telfair with 46 seconds to go; then Craig Smith let Jaric have it with 20 seconds left. This is both a good and a bad thing. You want your big men not only demanding the rock with the game on the line, but knowing they’ve earned it and (correctly) thinking that’s the identity the team wants to establish. You don’t want that desire to spill over into potentially hurtful bickering when the game’s in the balance, however. Understandable though it may be, Jefferson and Smith need to stow the seething and grow up a little.

  • The Three Pointer: Awfully Casual

    Home Game #9: Los Angeles Lakers 116, Minnesota 95

    1. Losing Reason To Care
    Games like tonight’s undressing by the Lakers and last Saturday’s (blissfully blacked-out from television) pratfall on the road in Memphis are the sort of energy-suckers Wolves’ fans and the team’s PR department feared in the wake of the Garnett trade: That the ballclub would be so bad, and so lacking in interesting storylines and likeable characters while being so bad, that it would inspire apathy instead of anger.

    Succinctly put, the game was a joke. Yes, the Wolves are minus not only Randy Foye and Theo Ratliff (both of which have something strange going on in their knees that modern medicine has yet to adequately diagnose), but turned-ankle Marko Jaric and now back-surgery Coach Randy Wittman. But the Lakers themselves were sans the leviathan shot-swatter Andrew Bynum, energizer power forward Ronnie Turiaf, and Bynum’s backup, Kwame Brown. Before the game, assistant coach Jerry Sichting (the man filling in for Wittman) told his charges of LA’s absences. "I told them I thought it was a level playing field as far as injuries," Sichting noted in his postgame press conference.

    But the players didn’t seem to agree. They rolled up and died, almost from the opening tap. Coming off the embarrassment in Memphis did the opposite of firing them up; it turned them acquiescent to defeat. In the most literal sense, the Wolves had no intention of winning this game. They did not expect to win, and indeed, barely seemed to hope for it.

    And the effort was horseshit. Defensive rotations were slow-footed and dim-witted, creating obvious lanes for passing and driving to the hoop that cowardly instincts and indifferent exertion kept open. The Lakers shot 50% or better from the field in all four quarters, finishing at 54.3% FG (45.5% from beyond the arc), with an assist/turnover ratio of 28/11. The Wolves’ offense was marginally better than their defense, in part because you don’t have to try so hard to achieve minimal success on offense. But they finished with zero quarters at 50% or better and 44.4% FG overall (22.7%–a miserable 5-22, from beyond the arc), with 11 assists and 18 turnovers. There wasn’t any suspense. Anyone could see beyond the first period concluded that the Wolves would get waxed-it was up to L.A. to name the margin. Because they chose to play Kobe Bryant only 28:56 and eased into neutral gears in the second half, they only triumphed by 21.

    2. Roll Call
    Let’s hope Al Jefferson’s knee is still tender, because the rest of his game certainly seems to be during the past two outings. Jefferson followed up season lows in points and minutes on Saturday with second-worsts in points and minutes tonight. Bynum’s size had clearly bothered "Big Al" in the first Lakers game, but with Bynum sidelined, Sichting said he "wanted to see him go inside more often" and told him that, "but he didn’t." Craig Smith did, however, which is why the Rhino had just one less FGM in 8 less FGA and got to the line 6 times in 29:28 versus 5 times for the frequently double-teamed Jefferson in 30:56. Jefferson also didn’t box out very well, and rotated horribly on defense, but that last criticism could be affixed to any Timberwolf tonight.

    Rashad McCants continues to ratchet up his unlikeability factor, jacking up more shots-per-minute than anyone on the team tonight, which seems selfish and disruptive when they don’t come close to going in or are offered up without much energy spent driving to the hoop. For the second straight game, Shaddy put himself in foul trouble (his third occurred halfway through the second period when he swarmed all over Kobe Bryant after Kobe picked up his dribble-what are the odds of him getting the call on the inevitable contact?) and padded his stats when his team was hopelessly behind in the 4th quarter. "Rashad needs to get consistent," Sichting declared, ignoring the point that he has been consistently underperforming lately. "He’s not putting good games back-to-back." I instinctively like McCants, but I’m beginning to think it is against my better judgment. Tonight in the second quarter, Kobe actually got called for traveling, a situation so shocking to him he picked up a technical. The player who shot the technical free throw was McCants, who at the time was 73.3% from the line. Why not Ryan Gomes, who entered the game among the league leaders in free throws at 87.9%? These are weird pecking order things that shouldn’t occur on a ballclub this putrid.

    What dodo once called Ryan Gomes smart and the second-best player on the team? Gomes had zero assists and five turnovers tonight, and three of his four buckets were a variety of a give and go with Jefferson along the baseline-the lone play that seemed to click for the Wolves. He also guarded the easiest of the three swingmen-Luke Walton instead of Kobe or Lamar Odom-and yet seemed plagued by the same torpor as his necessarily harder-working teammates.

    During a Wolves’ timeout in the second quarter, Gerald Green spent the entire time well removed from the circular huddle, where, you know, he might glean some information that would improve on his reputation for not knowing where to go in the offensive and defensive sets. Instead Green was conversing with the injured Ratliff near the end of the bench. Twelve seconds after play resumed, Gomes picked up his third foul and with McCants also saddled with three, Sichting sent Green into the game. Thirty eight seconds after that, Green receives a pass just over center court from McCants for his first touch. Kobe and Lakers’ rookie Jarvis Crittenton immediately sneak up behind Green and knock the ball from his grasp, resulting in a ruthlessly gorgeous, but rather embarrassing to Green, breakaway slam by Kobe. Two or three years from now, Gerald Green will be back in his old neighborhood, alternately bragging about his NBA career and complaining how he got screwed because nobody gave him a chance to play.

    3. Silver Linings
    They are precious few, as you suspect. As the players are about to take the court, Antoine Walker stands in front of the scorer’s table with his arms wide and outstretched to hug McCants before Shaddy plays. It is one of those player rituals that connote affinity and affection on a team and McCants has always been a big proponent of it; working out bows and skits with KG last year, and a series of fists and rolling-dice movements with Craig Smith this season. But Walker’s thing with Shaddy is without the hubbub and flashing lights of player introductions, out in the open at a time when the audience is focusing, and deferential. The vet with the ring is giving it up for the microfracture guy playing for a contract extension. And after that little ceremony, Walker moves down the line, exchanging fist bumps and hand slaps with every member on the bench, a big smile on his face. He did it tonight, a game that Sichting said he personally thanked ‘Toine for playing because he knows "Antoine has a very very sore ankle." As opposed to Theo’s knee, which "doesn’t feel right," Ratliff says. But this point in the trey is "Silver Linings," so we’ll wait until Theo finds a doctor, somewhere, anywhere, who can tell him what wrong before passing judgment on his $11 million disappearing act.

    Sebastian Telfair has exploited injuries to Foye and Jaric to compile a pretty solid sample size of what he can do for this ballclub at the point guard position. He’s averaging nearly 15 points and five assists the past five games, converting more than half his shots and compiling a 23/9 assist to turnover ratio. At the least he deserves some rotations with the second unit when Foye returns.

    Craig Smith missing KG most on defense, but when it comes to putting the ball in the hole, he is deceptively effective. Tonight’s performance, 13 points on six official shots (4-6 FG, 5-6 FT), was typically efficient.

  • The Three Pointer: An Honorable Defeat

    Road Game #6: Minnesota 103, Dallas 109

    Season record: 2-11

    1. The McCants/Jefferson Axis

    The extent to which Rashad McCants and Al Jefferson create synergy on offense is perhaps the dominant storyline for the Wolves in this young season to date, and figures to remain that way at least until Randy Foye returns from his knee injury. I think it is reasonable to say that Jefferson should be the primary option in the Wolves’ half court sets the majority of the time; and that in the current context, McCants should be regarded as the club’s most explosive perimeter threat. Foye may supplant or otherwise skew that designation for Shaddy when he fully recovers. But there is also evidence that if McCants can curb his one-on-one tendencies more often and allow a creative point guard to serve as the fulcrum, he and Jefferson and Foye can build something. Ironically, proof of that occurred during tonight’s torrid second-half comeback in Dallas, with Antoine Walker in the Randy Foye role.

    I’ve already spent a fair amount of time on the McCants-Jefferson dynamic, but it was inescapable once again in the first half. As has been the case the past few games, the first play is run for Jefferson in the low block, and he converts it. And, as with the past few games, the half court offense ground to a halt in the first quarter whenever McCants owned the rock. There are few things more disspiriting for a young ballclub (and the people watching them) than to come off a rousing win where folks shared the ball and see McCants bent at the waist, staring down his defender and probing for lanes to drive with the shot clock ticking down, then finally hoisting up a jumper.

    This has nothing to do with individual statistics, by the way. In tonight’s first half, both McCants and Jefferson had nine shot attempts, with Jefferson making 5 and McCants making 4 but Shaddy getting to the line for 4-4 FT versus Jeff’s one freebie. And both were minus -4 for a squad that was down 13 at the break. But McCants deadened the offense. His teammates stagnated, and he turned the ball over twice with zero assists. Jefferson likewise didn’t drop a dime, but was getting his shots in the context of the offense. And as someone who has defended McCants in previous years against a legion of naysayers, I couldn’t believe how differently he was playing, post-KG, as if he were the man that would make or break the offense on this team. The win over New Orleans less than 48 earlier offered a compelling rebuttal.

    I say all this because McCants comes out for the second half and plays entirely differently, deferring fairly consistently not only to Jefferson, but to the point guard Jaric in terms of re-setting the offense and launching another play. Instead of making the stylish, risky bounce pass into the paint, he was taking a page from ‘Toine and rifling it around the perimeter, creating a flow. The change was so stark that either somebody sent the message at halftime or Shaddy simply made up his mind to do something different.

    But his teammates, including Jefferson, didn’t seem to be able to convert what he was setting up. As that halftime deficit continued to grow, I was beginning to have sympathy for McCants’s dilemma. Halfway through the third quarter, the Wolves had just 7 points for the period, 5 by Jaric and a couple of Jefferson free throws.

    Then Coach Wittman went small and quick, replacing Mark Madsen and Ryan Gomes with Walker and Corey Brewer. And, as often happens with Walker in the game, the Wolves’ spacing in the half court noticeably improved, and without Madsen in the game, the Mavs couldn’t double-team Jefferson in the low block quite so blatantly.

    But two things happened. McCants had generated some ball movement momentum earlier, during the inefficient time, laying the groundwork for the catalysts of Walker and Brewer. And Walker again came in and became the linchpin between perimeter passing and paint penetration, doing a lot of both without a whiff of selfishness. I hope Randy Foye was taking notes. Suddenly the personnel and the philosophy were in sync, and McCants not only deferred, to Walker and Jefferson, but enabled, running potential give-and-go’s by Jefferson along the baseline that dragged his man with him and prevented double teams, and by not holding the ball.

    A minute after Walker and Brewer entered, the lead was 20. Then Jefferson began to find a rhythm in the low block, and Walker started his dipsy-doodle cat-and-mouse schtick that Wolves fans should be coming to love by now. They were too quick for Dallas’s bigs, and the subs Avery Johnson was bringing in couldn’t stem the energy. He replaced Dampier with Diop, and then, rather quickly, changed it back, throwing Bass in for Nowitzki and Stackhouse in for Howard for good measure. Didn’t matter. Both Howard (6-7, 210) and Stackhouse (6-6, 218) are players Brewer could defend with his length, and Jefferson was just owning the slow-footed Dampier down in the paint. By the time Jefferson and McCants left together, the lead was cut to a dozen.

    With Smith and Telfair the new personnel, the Walker-led Wolves kept scrambling. Dallas, which had lost three in a row after winning 67 and then folding in the first round of the playoffs last year, were obviously rattled and started playing to lose. At one point in the fourth quarter the Wolves had hacked the lead back to 3, with 8 and a half minutes left to play. And while Nowitzki asserted himself and Jason Terry hit a big shot down the stretch to ice the win, it was a glorious second half for the Wolves. Jefferson went 6-10 from the field and, even more impressive, earned 12 throws in the second half alone en route to a season-high 31 points and 14 rebounds. McCants didn’t turn the ball over once in more than 19 second half minutes, and managed to get up eight shots that were either in the flow of the offense or wisely aggressive in transition (an attempted left handed slam over Nowitzki on a fast break clanged off the rim). He wound up with 21 points on 7-17 FG and 7-7 FT. And after going minus -9 in the first half, Antoine Walker finished with plus +5, a testimonial to his impact in the second half.

     

    2. Complementary Pairs

    Some guys just play well together. Brewer and Telfair enjoy an affinity, a need for pace and energy and the ability to take advantage of chaos, that was on display this evening. Brewer has been mostly MIA since being disciplined for being late to practice and, perhaps not incidentally, getting roasted by Caron Butler and Peja Stojakovic in his previous two starts. But tonight he was a team-best plus +10 in just 9:07, and, to be more precise, a gaudy plus +8 in the 3:19 he shared the court with Telfair. The rook chucked up five shots in that short 9:07 without sinking any, but it bears noting that two of those were frantic layups in transition after he or he teammates stole the ball from the rattled Mavs. It was exactly the kind of helter-skelter defense you want to see from your backups against a much more talented opponent, and although neither Brewer nor Telfair can be counted on to stick a jumper, they feed off each other’s energy.

    A more pressing problem is finding a front court mate for Jefferson. Theo Ratliff seems convinced that he’s significantly injured despite a number of doctors not being able to find anything, so the search is on, Logic and conventional wisdom at the beginning of the year posited that Jefferson and Craig Smith were redundant low-block loads who couldn’t coexist, but there are signs that the Rhino can make teams think twice about doubling Jefferson with a second big, and both like to bang. Smith has been slowly but surely making a case for himself being more prominent in the rotation–tonight he sank 8-9 FG and missed two of three free throws, and grabbed 7 rebounds in just 20:01. If the Wolves are going to leave Michael Doleac on the bench, Smith is a better sidekick for Jefferson when you want to banish double teams; Madsen the choice if the center and power fo
    rward are both offensive-minded. Tonight was that rare occasion when Jefferson thrived in the center slot, in part because Eric Dampier never met an up fake he didn’t bite on; a tailor-made, cobweb-footed patsy for Big Al.

     

    3. Quick Hits

    After his best three game run as a Timberwolf, Marko Jaric fended off gossip about his Victoria Secret model girlfriend and then played a stat-sheet filled 40:26 that brought him back to earth: 12 points, 7 boards and 7 assists, but 6 turnovers, 5 fouls and minus -5. More significantly, he allowed jitterbug point guard Devon Harris to penetrate at will–Harris had four layups in the first quarter alone, and triggered a 19-4 advantage in fast break points for the Mavs in the first half.

    DNP-CD for Trenton Hassell. Is that a better or worse line than the guy he was traded for, Greg Buckner, who was a game worst minus -10 in 15:23?

    After ‘Toine made one of his mincing-stepped drives to the hoop, announcer Jim Petersen called him Twinkletoes, the single-best laugh out loud line of the year thus far.

    Finally, love the Twins trade, more for the shakeup than the substance. By sacrificing young pitching in exchange for a (at least formerly) troubled outfielder with a potent bat, new GM Billy Smith went against at least two of abiding principles in the Terry Ryan catechism.

    photo by 2007 NBAE via Getty Images

  • The Three Pointer: A Big Easy

    Road Game #5: Minnesota 103, New Orleans 94

    Season record: 2-10

    1. Revolt of the Back-Up Point Guards

    While would-be Wolves cornerstones Al Jefferson, Rashad McCants and Ryan Gomes had performances ranging from disappointing to dreadful, the squad bagged its first road win primarily on the strength of the inexplicably calm, capable, and confident duo of Marko Jaric and Sebastian Telfair. For the third straight game, Jaric went to the hole with authority (a moderate surprise), supplemented it with an accurate outside J (a large surprise) and consistently well-considered decision-making (huge surprise). It was his best performance in a Timberwolves uniform.

    Telfair likewise delivered a performance out of the ether, playing better defense on Chris Paul than Paul’s numbers (31 points, 11 assists) might suggest; exercising excellent shot selection (the biggest surprise of all), putting pace into the game without losing the handle, and sinking his free throws in crunch time to ensure that the wire-to-wire Wolves lead never got too precarious. For the night, Jaric shot 8-12 FG and Telfair was 6-9 FG. Jaric had 6 assists, 3 turnovers and 2 steals; Telfair dropped 8 dimes versus 2 miscues and added a steal. In 38:41, Jaric was plus +9 in a 9-point win; in 36:40, Telfair was plus +13.

    The key stat there is the respective minutes: Jaric and Telfair spent a lot of time together on the court, ranking first and second on the team in court time. Because they are players of complementary strengths, there was logical potential for synergy, but I also think there is something to be said for a couple of back-up point guards thriving by sharing the point guard responsibilities. That Marko didn’t have to guard Paul all night did wonders for his confidence and gave him just enough durability to contribute some (but not nearly as much as the first three quarters) down the stretch. That Jaric is a capable ballhandler who was both burying his J and getting productivity in the paint relieved Bassy of the responsibility of always making something happen and let him settle into more of a natural, "take what they give me" rhythm. For him too, it was his best performance in a Timberwolves (and probably NBA) uniform.

    Unfortunately, it should also be noted that Jaric and Telfair both benefitted from not having to play next to McCants much of the time. The ball movement and general flow of the offense was palpably enhanced when McCants was on the sidelines, unable to hoist shots out of rhythm, commit foolish fouls that retarded the sprightly pace, and look to beat his man either off the dribble or with a sudden jumper, both unsuccessful. Shaddy was 3-9 FG with one assist, two turnovers and 4 fouls in 21:38, during which time the Wolves were minus -2.

    But the biggest goat of the game for the Wolves was Gomes, whose sour play has gone from temporary mystery to odd dilemma to legitimate concern. He started well with a solid couple of games, resurrected himself a bit in the Cleveland loss and has returned to the tank. He remains a shrewd player in many facets of the game. He knows how to move without the ball and get open, for example, but there isn’t a player on this team who has missed more wide open looks thus far this season. After shooting 48.7% and 46.7% his first two years, he is currently at 38.9%. It’s not because he’s shooting more treys either–his long range percentage is over 40 and comprising an increasing slice of his total shots–not a good sign for someone 6-8, 250. But the real bugaboo tonight was turnovers: He had 5, versus one assist, in just 17:37, which is why he registered a whopping minus -11, meaning the squad was plus +20 in the 30 minutes he sat.

    The third of the misplaced cornerstones tonight was Big Al, who was much more productive and conducive to the positive outcome than either Gomes or McCants, but hardly the bedrock commensurate with his talent and contract. Against Atlanta the other night, Jefferson began the night with 18 points on 6-6 FG in the first half and then went 2-7 FG in the second half. Tonight it was 4-6 FG in the first half, with a resounding slam dunk and a nice dish to McCants right out of the gate, and then another 2-7 FG in the second half, beginning with a missed bunny in the paint, a blown crunchtime slam after a gorgeous bounce pass feed from Jaric on a pick and roll (he claimed he was fouled), and a crunchtime bailout on another bunny right in front of the hoop where Tyson Chandler was whistled for the foul (and may indeed have brushed the elbow on the followthrough), but Jeff was hardly going strong to the hoop on the play. The point is, Jefferson was supposed to be the beast in the paint that rendered 4th quarter scoring reliable and we’re seeing less evidence that he can overcome defenses designed to take that away. By the way, he missed those two free throws after the Chandler foul, at a time when the Hornets were mounting a serious comeback, and was a minus -6 on the evening in 32:13 of play. That means the Wolves were plus +15 in the 15:47 he sat.

    I love Al Jefferson’s game. Just not quite as much as I did a week or so ago.

    2. Davis for Walker: A Minnesota Steal

    When the trade with Miami came down just before the season started, it was easy to look at it in terms of Antoine Walker and Mark Blount, in that in order for us to accept ‘Toine’s bloated contract, the Heat had to cart away Blount’s absurd deal, and his carcass besides. But as the season has progressed, it has become plain that the swap in reality has ‘Toine providing more than a few of the things RD used to bring, but with just a fraction of the corrosive bullshit and yo-yo inconsistency.

    When Walker, Jaric and Telfair were on the court at the same time tonight, the Wolves produced by far their prettiest offense of the season thus far. The ball zipped around and yet all three players performed with the confident knowledge that they could take their man off the dribble if things bogged down. But even more than Jaric or Telfair, Walker has the experience and the wisdom to enable his teammates. You can tell he’s enmeshed in a fairly constant internal war over whether to try and take the game over himself (an impulse he resists more effectively than McCants but still succumbs to a fair bit) or not, but I love that he often resolves it by massaging his ego with the notion that he’s the daddy mentor out there, showing the young’uns how to share the ball, spice up the pace, and, above all, compete. The trimphant bellow and fist wave he gave when he drove baseline on the behemoth Chandler, missed the layup short but immediately went back up for a successful tip-in, spoke volumes. ‘Toine knew, and Jim Petersen correctly identified, that it was the pivotal play of crunchtime, enlarging the lead to 9 with just a few minutes to go rather than watching it shrink to two possessions with another unanswered Hornet basket. After the Saturday night choke, that would have been a hairy prospect.

    And you could see it again, in the half-second the camera caught his disgusted grimace when Jefferson missed the two free throws–Antoine Walker is busting his ass. The guy who played a key role on an NBA championship team just 18 months ago and was feted in glitzy South Beach for his efforts. The guy who then got traded as nothing more than a contract equalizer to a woefully inexperienced club picked to finish last in its conference while playing up in the freezing tundra. He’s been something of an all purpose glue guy (with occasional dashes of mustard, relish and catnip, of course). If you can’t appreciate the context and the content of his contribution, you’re either way too cynical or not paying attention. Tonight he had 17 points, 5 rebounds, an assist, two steals and zero turnovers in 30:28, finishing with a plus +11.

    3. More Kudos

    Speaking of fabulous glue guys, how about Greg Buckner thriving under the radar tonight? In 29:25, he garnered a team-high 9 rebounds, doled out 6 assists, and w
    as a game-high plus +18. It brought back memories of Buck’s very strong opening week for this team. What I most remember is him laying a body on Melo Anthony and working him over like his elbows and knees were rubber hoses. Tonight, Peja Stojakovic got similar treatment. Put simply, the other aspects of Buckner’s game seem to elevate a notch when his defensive assignment calls for a good physical scrap. That’s not a bad attribute to have on your bench.

    Tonight was also a reprise of the vintage Craig Smith, the guy who mud wrestled in the paint for offensive rebounds and improbably fluttery putbacks, committed smart fouls and played pick and rolls like Rhino Astaire. (You get the sense that the Wolves had solid bench play?)

    Finally, after numerous telecasts compelling him to paint lipstick (and the rare irreverent mustache) on porcine performances, Wolves’ color commentator Jim Petersen was given a relative embarrassment of riches to detail and not surprisingly nailed nearly every one. Only Buckner’s stealth performance improperly escaped adornment by Jim Pete’s satchel of gold stars. He was lightning quick pointing out the synergy of Jaric and Telfair together, correctly identified the unsung value of Madsen’s defense and communications skills, and, perhaps his best insight, lauded the Wolves’ vastly improved pick and roll defense. Getting a rare quality performance from this diaper squad ballclub is by itself a pleasant surprise. Receiving astute analysis as it happens is gravy that further enriches the experience.

  • Bouncing Around: The Atlanta Choke, the KG Smear, and 4th Q Stats

    There won’t be a three pointer on the Wolves’ dreadful collapse against the Hawks Saturday night. Frankly, it didn’t bother me as much as the pig-headed play and lack of effort that fostered Minnesota’s loss to a thoroughly disinterested Denver Nuggets squad the night before. At least the Atlanta game found the Wolves playing inspired ball for an entire half. What happened in the second half was a team-wide choke, but veteran Wolves’ watchers have certainly seen it before in previous years. As it was, spitting up a 21-point lead was only the third largest edge the team has sacrificed in franchise history. In other words, more talented and seasoned squads than this one have choked on larger advantages.

    Or maybe my outrage meter redlined against Denver and it made more sense to put this sorry squad into perspective again.

    Still, if not a full-blown trey, we should note a few items. Al Jefferson had a stunning 18 points on 6 shots from the field in the first half (6-6 FG, 6-6 FT), plus 11 rebounds. When Atlanta adjusted its coverage and put two or three guys on Jefferson, the Wolves were flummoxed and the offense stalled. Coach Wittman has discovered that his most intelligent offensive player, the guy who can best "make something happen" in the half-court sets, is Antoine Walker. But Witt’s adjustment has been to slide Jefferson over to center and install ‘Toine at the power forward slot. This allignment is deadly to the front court matchups at both positions. As Paul "ikrushsots" so helpfully pointed out with statistics from 82games.com in the comments sections of the last trey, Jefferson’s effectiveness plummets at the center position. And Walker simply can’t guard quality power forwards, like, for instance, Atlanta’s Josh Smith.

    Minnesota’s huge el foldo act isn’t just limited to that substitution. As the Wolves coughed up the lead, Jefferson was rushing his shots, especially on putbacks of offensive rebounds. That would have happened whether he was a "4" or a "5." And the growing backlash against the horrible, and selfish, shooting performances put in by Rashad McCants the previous three games certainly had him reluctant to pull the trigger on his own shot during crunch time (at least I assume that’s what held him back). Finally, the ability of Hawks’ point guard Tyrone Lue to get his teammates involved in the offense dramatizes how crucial heady point guard play can be. And while Marko Jaric had a second good game in a row, and actually went to the hoop with authority, he is not on even the mediocre Lue’s level when it comes to seeing the court and enablign good half court possessions.

    For most of the season, I’ve been pleasantly surprised that Wittman hasn’t been incompetent. That is not to say that he’s been especially competent either, but last year’s 12-30 mark and constant carping about discipline while the inmates still seemed to run the asylum (and yes, Pretty Ricky Davis, I’m talking about you and your boy Blount) set the bar pretty damn low for Wittman. And he’s still above that nadir.

    But without Theo Ratliff on your roster, how do you leave Michael Doleac in street clothes? Doleac is a larger body than Mark Madsen, and, while not as quick, bangs very well. More importantly, he can pop out for a little 12-15 footer and nail it 50 percent of the time. That’s a good counter to teams who double Jefferson with a couple of bigs. Do you think it is a problem for Atlanta to double Jefferson with Madsen’s man? Me neither. And as I said, Walker at power forward makes for a lousy defensive front line. The statistics indicate that Jefferson suffers at center; so do the eyes of anyone watching these games. Why doesn’t Wittman see it; or, if he does, why doesn’t he respond?

    Here’s another criticism of the coach. He strongly lamented the inability of his ballclub to penetrate to the hoop for most of the second half. He seemed mystified that it would happen. During the postgame press conference, I mentioned that Marko seemed to be penetrating well, and the coach jumped in before I finished my sentence, saying (and I paraphrase because I wasn’t taping): Yeah, in the first half, and on the first possession of the third quarter. But not after that. We stopped penetrating until we had given up the lead and there were two minutes left.

    Okay, fine. What is the one attribute that Wittman was cited for as the reason to keep him on board this year? His ability to run a tight ship, to discipline his players, keep them on the same page, eliminate the bullshit. So why wasn’t he able to emulate Gregg Popovich (a much better example than Witt’s mentor, Bobby Knight) and simply call a timeout, sit across from the players and tell them if they didn’t start fucking going for points in the paint he was going to bench their asses and find people who could? Because that’s what Pops says when his squad isn’t playing defense to his liking. And he backs it up by sitting them down. Instead, Witt watched it happen for what he claims was almost all of the second half, a 24-minute stretch when the squad scored 24 points after getting 63 in the opening 24 minutes, and couldn’t stress how important penetration was to the game; either wouldn’t, or couldn’t, get through to them. And this happened, by the way, in the immediate wake of Wittman telling the press that Rashad McCants didn’t take bad shots in his 1-15 performance against the Nuggets the night before; a game in which Shaddy consistently jacked it up from outside rather than engaging in dribble penetration.

    On to another thing that has my undies in a twist. As those of you who read the comments know, I have been a little peeved at the ill will expressed toward KG’s new ballclub, the Boston Celtics, both in terms of observers disliking and underestimating the accumulation of talent on the team. There is a Garnett backlash happening, and I imagine it has to do with owner Glen Taylor’s interview with the PiPress’s Rick Alonzo, and even with my comments in an interview on Dan Barreiro’s radio show, where I pointed out how Garnett was two-faced about his support for Flip Saunders and his disdain for Kevin McHale.

    I stand by those comments–just as I did when I originally wrote them, both back when Flip was fired, and when KG went off on McHale at the beginning of either last season or the year before. And I also believe KG was a lousy general manager with respect to his advocacy of Troy Hudson and Mike James. Garnett isn’t perfect, by any stretch. But man, his positive impact on the Timberwolves is larger than any one player’s impact on any one franchise that I can come up with in all of team sports. And, it should be remembered, it was management’s decision to trade him. Now, for reasons I have stated, I endorse the trade, and by now I’m sure KG endorses the trade, if he didn’t at first. But this backlash business is bullshit.

    The latest example is a column in today’s Strib by Jim Souhan, a writer I happen to like better than most of the people I talk to about him (or maybe bitching about the Strib guy is just the nature of the business for most folks). First a little background. On Thanksgiving Day, Souhan wrote a piece about Torii Hunter signing with the Angels, entitled "An unhappy adieu, but a wise decision." As the subhed indicates, the thrust of Souhan’s column was that "it didn’t make sense for the Twins to pony up the money to keep him." Funny, that was the argument I was making with Souhan on the radio this summer, and he was forcefully disagreeing, going so far as to say it would be preferable to trade Johan Santana and keep Hunter if one or the other must go.

    Anyway, having agreed with Hunter’s departure, Souhan felt the need to balance it by paying tribute to the Twins’ longtime center fielder two days later. And he allowed his fondness for Hunter’s sunny disposition to besmirch his perspective in a significant way. Here are his first three paragraphs:

    "Tori Hunter’s departure creates more than a void in the Twins lineup– it creates a void
    in Minnesota sports.

    "In the past decade we’ve heard Latrell Sprewell complaining that a three-year $21 million contract wasn’t enough to help him feed his family. We went through the Love Boat scandal. We watched Sam Cassell dog his way out of Minnesota, and Randy Moss make even a team desperate for star power and talent eager to dump him.

    "We’ve watched Kevin Garnett sulk while playing under the terms of a record-setting contract, watched Kyle Lohse take a baseball bat to his manager’s door, watched A.J. Pierzynski talk his way out of town. [emphasis mine] Through it all–and since he first signed with the Twins back in 1994– Hunter made himself our model athlete by bringing to life all the cliches about persistence, perseverence and passion."

    That’s right: To better glorify Torii Hunter, Souhan lumps KG in with, in order, Sprewell, Fred Smoot and the Love Boat crew, Sam Cassell, Randy Moss, Kyle Lohse and AJ Pierzynski. Apparently Garnett did not bring to life "all the cliches about persistence, perseverence and passion." He was too busy sulking.

    It just so happens that the very same day that this tripe appears, Sid Hartman also had a column in which he quotes at length a recent interview he had with Hunter:

    "Had the Twins’ three-year offer for $45 million been five years for $75 million, he might have considered it, Hunter said, but on the other hand he wanted to play with a winner. He said he doesn’t think the Twins are going to have the talent to win in the future.

    "…’I was going to get what I was going to get. I just wanted to make sure I was with a team that wants to win, that’s going to try to win day in and day out…I just didn’t feel the Twins were that ballclub.’

    "It will be hard for the Twins to attract free agents, Hunter added, because the new stadium lacks a roof.

    "’People aren’t even thinking about this,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t play in Minnesota unless my career was at an end and I had to go to Minnesota to play the game…People think that’s not true–that’s 100 percent accurate. This is coming from a player, so I’m telling you.’"

    See, all the talk about wanting to remain with the Twins, and especially being able to finish his career playing on that wonderful grass in the new outdoor ballpark, that was Hunter’s passion–not to mention his persistence and perseverence–coming through. I mean, at least he wasn’t like that sulker Garnett, who took less money than the market would pay him so that his local franchise could go out and sign better players. If he made that challenge to management, I’m sure Hunter would have backed it up the way Garnett did, by going out and earning the MVP Award when management stepped up and got those players. And Hunter certainly would have been his same old honest, effervescent self if he’d then watched the franchise make a series of disastrous personnel moves and cost his squad any chance of competing for a championship three years running. I mean, just because he took a poke at Justin Morneau the last time the Twins didn’t make the playoffs and he didn’t have an expiring contract for his escape doesn’t mean the guy would sulk in that situation–at least not the way that bad Garnett sulked. Isn’t that what you remember about his 12 years in town?

    Later in Souhan’s piece he offers up these pearls of wisdom:

    "What do we ask of our best athletes? To play hard. To play hurt. To recognize how lucky they are to be wealthy, to take care of their families and invest wisely. To be a good teammate. To work on their craft. To show a little joy. To care about winning

    "Hunter did all of that."

    If Souhan doesn’t realize that KG also did all of that, while performing at a level beyond Hunter’s grasp, then he ought not to write about things he doesn’t understand. Like hoops. And human character.

    Finally, in memory of the Wolves latest collapse, I present some typically compelling info from stat guru Paul Swanson (apologies for what I’m sure will be a somewhat garbled transfer):

     

    2007-08 4th Quarters
    (through November 24)

    NBA Wolves Wolves
    Average Offense Defense
    ——- ——- ——-
    Points 24.5 21.2 26.7
    FG Pct 44.0% 34.7% 46.6%
    3Pt Pct 35.6% 41.8% 37.5%
    FT Pct 74.9% 75.0% 79.0%
    FT Att 7.8 7.3 9.1
    Off Reb 2.8 3.6 3.3
    Def Reb 7.6 6.3 8.6
    Tot Reb 10.4 9.9 11.9
    Assists 4.7 3.6 4.4
    Steals 1.7 1.5 1.8
    TOs 3.6 3.5 3.3
    Blocks 1.2 1.2 1.5

    *

    2007-08 Minnesota Timberwolves
    Individual 4th Quarter Statistics
    (through Nov. 24)

    Player Min FGM-A FG% 3FG-A FTM-A Reb Ast Stl TO Blk Pts
    Jefferson 92 17-42 .405 0- 0 11-14 30 4 3 8 2 45
    McCants 63 11-29 .379 6-14 8-10 8 3 3 4 0 36
    Jaric 61 7-19 .368 2- 5 8-10 5 6 3 2 2 24
    Gomes 57 5-17 .294 4- 8 10-12 7 4 1 2 0 24
    Walker 81 7-30 .233 4-13 5-11 20 5 1 5 0 23
    Telfair 68 9-26 .346 3- 6 2- 2 5 7 1 3 2 23
    Brewer 65 4-11 .364 0- 2 7-10 10 4 1 2 2 15
    Buckner 61 4-13 .308 3- 5 3- 4 8 2 2 5 0 14
    Green 33 6-12 .500 1- 2 0- 0 4 4 1 4 1 13
    Ratliff 24 3- 4 .750 0- 0 3- 3 6 1 0 1 3 9
    Smith 46 1-12 .083 0- 0 3- 4 6 0 1 1 1 5
    Richard 7 1- 1 1.00 0- 0 0- 0 0 0 0 0 0 2
    Doleac 2 0- 0 .000 0- 0 0- 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
    Wolves 75-216 .347 23-55 60-80 109 40 17 38 13 233
    Opponents 97-208 .466 21-56 79-100 131 48 20 36 16 294

  • The Three Pointer: Blown Opportunity

    Road Game #4: Minnesota 93, Denver 99

    Season Record 1-9

    1. Time To Get Angry

    Okay, that’s about enough patience, enough leeway for a basketball team that is playing with stupidity as well as incompetence, and showing very little character in the process. During the off-season, Kevin McHale remarked that any team that really plays hard and within themselves can win nearly forty games a season just by picking up a dozen or more victories left lying around by opponents that for one reason or another don’t bother to show up. Well, Denver didn’t show up tonight. The Nuggets knew they had allowed themselves to get down by double digits in the Wolves’ season opener in Minnesota and still managed to tuck the game away in the second half. And so they played without respecting the Wolves; jacking up a lot of dumb shots from the perimeter, not defending with vigor, and generally lazing around until there was 2:45 left and the Wolves were up by 3. Then, after plopping himself on the bench like a somnambulant toad for the entire game, Nuggets coach George Karl called a timeout and presumably told his squad that it was time to expend the requisite energy to put this sorry Minnesota squad where it belongs, cluelessly flying back home with a .100 winning percentage.

    It was all Fox Sports analyst Mike McCollow could do not to blatantly rip the Wolves; the disgusted look on his face and his accurate statement that Denver "laid an egg tonight," said it all. And if it didn’t, the postgame interview with Denver’s Eduardo Najera–who has more grit than any three Timberwolves combined–sealed it. "We came out flat; I don’t know what it was," Najera said with a grin and a shake of his head. "Maybe we ate too much for the holiday." He was apologizing for the six-point triumph.

    Let’s start calling people out. Rashad McCants played like a punk, like a kid who, despite all evidence, refuses to believe he’s not the best thing on the playground. McCants shot 1-15 from the field, a stat uglier in reality than it is on paper. His only make was a waltzing, uncontested layup after a teammate made a steal and delivered him the ball while Denver conceded the hoop. Of the 14 misses, maybe 3 or 4 were in the paint, and at least one of those was a stumbling toss-up prayer after McCants drove expecting a foul that never came. That leaves about ten jumpers, the sort of chemistry-corroding shots that would have had his teammates irked at Wittman for not sitting him if McCants hadn’t benched himself with a series of fouls. He got to the line just three times; once after a technical foul on Denver, and once on the next possession after Wittman explicitly instructed his squad during a timeout that they needed to take it to the hoop. Otherwise, nada.

    Since his 33-point breakout against Sacramento, Shaddy has converted 15 shots (in 57 attempts) and committed 16 turnovers. Over the last three games, he has mounted a 8-41 brickfest–less than 20% shooting. His defense tonight was actually good in spots, but his offense game was so ugly, so selfish, that it is hard to give him credit for that positive contribution.

    Al Jefferson is an easy player to love for his precocious footwork, realistic self-assessments of his foibles, and strong work ethic. But aside from his low-post offense, Jefferson remains woefully inconsistent. He can be a bulldog on the boards for two possessions and a negligent terrier the next. He can flash hard on the pick and roll two out five times, and bollocks it up the other three. He can spot open teammates out of the looming double team two or three times per period, but might as well be wearing blinders 60-70 percent of the time. On top of all that the recent injury to Theo Ratliff has further exposed him as being a converted power forward instead of a center when he’s forced to play the pivot. Despite all the good things he does and the admirable way he acts, there is a reason why he was a game-worst minus -14 tonight and the Nugs’ center Marcus Camby was a game-best plus +16.

    Neither Sebastian Telfair nor Marko Jaric can be a starting point guard on a successful team–it just won’t happen. There is a point guard gene missing–a different one in each player. Telfair can provide pace and a probing spirit with his passes; Jaric has marvelous hands and good anticipation on defense, and was one of the precious few Timberwolves that heeded Wittman’s admonition to penetrate into the paint. But past failures have fed the demons in both of their psyches, and there are glaring flaws in each of their games that inevitably buzz kill their most painstaking efforts at kindling some personal momentum. Put it this way: You don’t want either one of them bringing the ball up against a zone trap, and you don’t want either one of them with the ball in their hands in the closing seconds of a game with their team down a deuce. And that, folks, are precisely the two situations when point guard play is most crucial. The Nuggets deployed a full court press that coughed the ball from Telfair twice late in the first half, likely robbing the Wolves of a double-digit lead at intermission. Jaric, as I say, actually played one of his better games, but he’s been in the league long enough to know what you’ve got and it’s not enough to fortify this callow squad. There are roles for both Jaric and Telfair, but all the opportunities that Randy Foye’s injury have provided dramatize that those roles should be smaller than the ones they currently occupy.

    2. The Better Gomes

    Ryan Gomes also belongs on the "disappointing enough to be pissed at him" list thus far this season, but it took one of his vintage games tonight to remind us of how far he’d out of our consciousness. Before the season started, I expected Gomes to be the Wolves’ second-best player behind Jefferson. He fulfilled that promise for the first time in more than two weeks by toting up 18 points in less than 25 minutes simply by flowing in the course of the offense–moving without the ball, and seeking out seams in the opposing defense in a way that Flip Saunders would salivate over and utilize to the tune of 20 points per game if he had him. Or maybe not, because Gomes has clanked way too many wide open jumpers this year. Tonight he made 7-13 FG, including 4-5 from beyond the arc. His defense on Melo Anthony game but only partially effective–Melo’s 31 points on 22 shots were boosted by a hot hand early (6-7 FG on mostly contested jumpers in the first period) and trips to the line late (11-11 FTs for the game).

    Which Gomes will we see over the next few games? The Wolves desperately need it to be the Good Gomes, because the the schedule ahead is road-wearying and folks who "play the game right" are at a premium.

    3. A Plus and a Minus

    For about the fifth or sixth time in this brief season, Antoine Walker demonstrated more competitive spunk and both blatant and subtle court savvy than anyone else in a Wolves uni. One might even think the dude is playing to earn himself a ticket to a contender later in the first few months of 2008. It is probably poetic justice that ‘Toine must endure McCants’s pig-headedness, having had his own bouts on many occasions early in his career. Even tonight, his 15 point first half bore an interesting stat within the stat–1-5 from outside the arc, 5-5 shooting two-pointers. It should also be noted that Walker is getting a lot of his points and rebounds using his half-court quickness against opposing power forwards, an advantage that is quickly reversed when the big boys take him into the paint at the other end of the court. Kenyon Martin more than doubled his 7.9 ppg average with 18 tonight.

    See the theme? Walker at the 4 and Jefferson at the 5 are both overmatched on defense, but Walker is one of very few Wolves who can not only get his own shot, but create one for a teammate in the half court, especially because he understands how opponents will concentrate on Big Al and space himself accordingly.

    Yes, it is true that Minnesota really misses Foye and Ratliff, and the failure of players to fill those voids is valuable, if depressing, information for the future. But it must also be said that this squad is *not"–repeat *not* making progress, a fact dramatized by the opening night opponent playing demonstrably worse in their Game 10 rematch and winning just as handily. Almost any NBA player can jump up and have a good game, or two or three good games over a 10 game span. But the glimmers of consistency, the slow but steady signs of progress, are what this 2007-08 must be all about.

    And where are they? Did Corey Brewer get a mere 2:04 tonight because Gomes were going well, because he’s now missed four free throws in a row, because that late to practice stunt still has him in Witt’s doghouse, or because the past two opponents have been LeBron and Melo? Why is Mark Madsen a better bet to start versus Camby than Michael Doleac, who is larger and has more range on his jumper (which is to say he can shoot one)? Has anybody yo-yo’d in minutes and productivity like Craig Smith, who led the Wolves with a plus +8 tonight and had 5 rebounds to go with his 7 points (3-6 FG) but only got 15:52 (likely another victim of the Walker-Jefferson tandem)? Is McCants going through a rough patch or going down for the third time? What do we really know about this team other than they have won once in their first ten games and let an indifferent opponent that had contempt for their ability loiter through the motions and then, after the coach finally sounded the alarm, tromp down the throttle and outscore them 15-4 in the final 2:45?

    It’s not cute anymore.