Regular Season Game #77, Home Game #38: Toronto 111, Minnesota 100
1. The Kids Are Alright, Part 729
For a variety of reasons I wasn’t able to make it to the Target Center until 4 minutes were left in the third period tonight and the Wolves were up four. Since there was no television coverage, this will be an abbreviated trey. Comments are welcome, and for a change of pace I’ll use point three to address some of the questions from respondants in the previous post.
Shortly after I’d arrived and was straining to catch up with the ongoing flow and nuances, all the things that accrete when you see the whole game (which is why it’s so important to catch it from tap to buzzer), there was a moment that made me feel good about the future. Craig Smith and Rashad McCants were fighting each other for a defensive rebound and contested the ball out of bounds. An exasperated Smith sternly told McCants something to the effect that, “I was telling you I had it!” and was about to launch into a second sentence when McCants just casually put out his hand in apology. Smith just as casually grabbed it for a second, stopped talking and let it–the hand and the subject–go. The very next possession, Davis was on the low left block (the KG spot, except he was on the bench) and Smith cut baseline and got the feed. At the time, Smith was 8-9 FG and having a marvelous game, so the Raptors bum-rushed his baseline penetration from all angles. Smith teased it right until he was under the hoop–and then zipped a pass to a wide open McCants in the corner, who promptly buried the three-pointer.
Neither Smith nor McCants are perfect players. Tonight, and increasingly throughout the season, Smith has become a drama queen when he believes he isn’t getting calls from the officials (as if an undersized rookie who is fond of drawing charges and using his big butt for textbook box-outs is going to have it easy with the refs). For McCants’s part, he was scoreless until 1:24 remained in the 3rd, and then erupted with a series of impressive drives and jumpers (for their strength, agility, and savvy) to rack up 11 points over the next four minutes. But during and shortly after that marvelous spurt, he played some of his worst defense of the year, frequently forgetting to close out his man in the corner (ditto Ricky Davis–Trenton Hassell was the only one who did, although I didn’t see any of Marko’s minutes). I’m hoping that as McCants retrieves his sublime athleticism, he doesn’t forget the superb D that has made him so valuable despite not being 100 percent physically. But seeing the way Smith and McCants handled their little misunderstanding, that was a comfortable sign of mutual maturity.
2. Sam Mitchell Would Make a Nice Timberwolves Coach, eh?
When the final horn had sounded and the Raps had rung up 38 points in the final quarter to beat the Wolves for the sixth straight time under Sam Mitchell (he has never lost to his former team), Wolves owner Glen Taylor scurried over and gave Mitchell a warm handshake and spoke with him for a minute or so.
It would be nice to start a rumor that Taylor wants Mitchell to come run the Timberwolves. After all, Mitchell is a free agent after this season, and had to endure lots of speculation about how he would be gone by Christmas this season, if not before, pushed out by new Toronto GM Colangelo, who would obviously want his own man. People remembered Mitchell’s run-in with Rafer Alston and his hard, abrasive ways with last year’s team. They figured he was on his way out. Now Mitchell will get some consideration for coach of the year, having guided the injury-wracked Raptors to 45 wins and counting, with a favorable matchup with the depleted Wizards a distincts possibility in the playoffs. It is Mitchell’s time to call the tune in Toronto and it might be delicious to take a lucrative deal somewhere else… like in his old stomping grounds of Minnesota, guiding his most renowned protege, Kevin Garnett, who frequently cites Mitchell as an invaluable mentor when the two were teammates.
It almost certainly won’t happen, of course. This franchise seems committed to Randy Wittman, Mitchell knows and likes his current team after a tumultuous first couple of years, and Mitchell and former Raptors GM (and current Wolves assistant GM) Rob Babcock weren’t the best of buddies during their stint together up north. But one can dream…
Anyway, I hadn’t talked to Mitchell since he came to town in his rookie year as coach two seasons ago, and then only briefly, so I figured I’d skip the Wolves post-game and shake his hand and offer my congrats on his stellar season. I do my best not to feign friendships with millionaire athletes because I loathe jock-sniffers and also worry about it compromising my coverage. But I’d covered Sam Mitchell’s long tenure with the Wolves for all but the first year he was in town, and, like everybody else, had a pleasantly contentious back-and-forth with the guy over the way I’d ask questions or apprach the game. And he had a habit of confirming suspicions or theories I had about the internal workings of an often dysfunctional franchise without actually coming out and saying so–he was a smart and good source. Besides, there was another sportswriter who wound up being very good friends with Mitchell, to the point where Mitchell was the best man at his wedding. And on two occasions, including a Roy Hargove gig at the Dakota, we all went out and socialized.
Anyway, Sam came out and gave a gracious postgame media chat, praising his team for sucking it up in the fourth quarter of a back to back, and indicting the Wolves perimeter D by lavishly lauding his own players, TJ Ford and Jose Calderon: “TJ and Jose: 29 points, 17 assists and 3 turnovers from the point guard spot. What can I say?”
Then the Q&A was over and Sam offered hearty greetings to Tom Hanneman and sports columnist Larry Fitzgerald, and Terrell, the former PR liaison for the Wolves who had stopped by, and former Raptors assistant coach cum Fox Sports commentator Mike McCollow. A couple of times his eyes flitted my way, almost enough for me to extend my hand and congratulate him, ask him how the kids were doing, the usual. But it soon became obvious to me that Sam couldn’t place me; that he might be having this nagging feeling he knew who I was, but had forgotten at least my name if not the entire context by which he might know me, and just thought it better to ignore me. And I was trying to figure out how to still congratulate him without embarrassing the hell out of the both of us. I got my chance shortly after Mike James (who played for Mitchell last year) and his wife came by and had warm, playful words. I just stuck out my hand, said, “Britt Robson, Sam, and I just want to congratulate you on your season,” and split.
Every now and then it is good to get your ego deflated a little bit, so you’ll remember who exactly you are, as compared to the famous athletes and coaches you rip or praise, and glean a smidgen of notoriety by association from along the way. I’m serious. It helps you concentrate on the things that matter, the passion and quality of what you have to say. So, it was awkward, but I don’t have to be buds with, or even recognizable to, Sam Mitchell to admire what he did as a player and what he has done as a coach. Congratulations, Sam. Wish you were here.
3. Comments and Queries
Shawn in Rochester asks if I think KG and/or Wittman agree with me that “KG + the kids” is the team’s best lineup. I think Garnett does. I suspect Wittman does. I know that Dwane Casey used to go crazy behind the scenes about Ricky Davis and yet still play him copious minutes. Davis has been even more inconsistent under Witt than he was under Casey. For instance, tonight he was fabulous, not only leading the team in scoring and assists, but warning KG that he had to go cover the baseline shooter in rotation–and sure enough, a Raptor squeezed off a trey a split second before KG arrived there after heeding Davis’s words and flying over. The part I don’t know is whether anyone within the franchise can see the forest for the trees after 77 games.
Right on cue, Nate asks why the organization show more “tough love” on Davis. You’re preaching to the choir with that question, Nate, and it baffles me too. But maybe the answer is that RD is what he is, and you have to accept it. After all, he’s been dealt three times already. I know there is a large segment of fandom in Boston who really like Ricky’s game, and I daresay a similar, though perhaps smaller, throng of folks feel that way here. Maybe Davis isn’t teasing with his inconsistency–he’s just one of those guys who explode in a good way every now and then, and if you think there can be anything more, you’re deluding yourself.
Born To Be Hated….(a name obviously connoting a McCants lover, since it is Shaddy’s tattoo saying) wants to know what kind of off-season moves this squad will make, and helpfully chimes in with the notion of getting rid of Mark Blount and getting something for Trenton Hassell. Quick answer is, I don’t have a clue what the franchise can do. First off, find out whether or not you have a draft pick. Second, find out, right after the final game, whether KG is still committed to the franchise, and, if not, how uncommitted he is–in other words, is making moves to placate him a doomed strategy? The draft pick and KG are two variables that determine every other move.
Bottom line, Blount is untradeable but this squad cannot go another season without securing a reasonably good banger, whether or not KG stays. Hassell could fetch a decent player in return, and probably should go, unless Jaric is more highly valued. Finally, a decision has to be made on whether Randy Foye is this franchise’s point guard of the future or not. If so, maintain a crash course and stop supplementing him with shoot-oriented points like James and Huddy; get a quality mentor either on your roster or your coaching staff. If the conclusion is that Foye can’t be enough of a quality point guard to hold down that position, then either he or McCants need to be dealt and a point needs to be acquired. Time is a-wastin’ and KG isn’t getting any younger.
Patrick thinks we’re playing the vets to showcase them. I think scouts are smarter than that. I firmly believe that Davis, James and Blount are all worth much less right now than they were on opening day. And I don’t think all the minutes in the world will appreciably boost their stock, and may very well hurt it.