Category: Sports

Game #65, Road Game #33, Lakers 109, Minnesota 102

1. Point Guard Roulette

Mike James was the best Timberwolves point guard tonight and it wasn’t even close. James had his best game in a Wolves uniform in at least 6 weeks, going off for 18 points (6-14 FG) and 11 assists versus one turnover and ringing up a gaudy, team-best +15 (sez popcornmachine.net). Meanwhile, starter Randy Foye–taking over for Troy Hudson, back to obvilion with a DNP-CD–had one basket in 4 attempts, one assist and 3 turnovers while going -22 in just 15:03 of play.

Foye should have received the majority of the minutes.

Look, the Wolves started the night needing to leapfrog *4* teams in order to bag the final playoff spot, including the club that whupped them by 20 just 48 hours ago. One reason they are in this position is because Mike James spit the bit during the first two months and a half months of the season. Back in early December when people were grumbling for James’s scalp, I said it was way too early to punt a three-year $24 million investment. But by the time James was finally removed from the starting job in favor of Foye, it was almost a mercy move, legitimately spun that maybe James would get back on track being more of a shoot-first player coming in with the second unit and playing against opposing scrubs. That worked for maybe a game or two and then James was back to clanging wide open three pointers and playing abysmal defense.

The past week or two, James has been almost an afterthought on this squad, demoted to third string point guard with the recent Hudson flirtation. Tonight, Foye gets the starting nod and frankly stinks up the joint, bringing James into the game with 3 minutes left in the first and the Wolves already down 17. In other words, James has absolutely nothing to lose, and he plays like it, going to the hole more consistently and as hard as he has all year–and, as a new wrinkle, looking for people to dish to off the dribble. James still doesn’t play defense very well, but let’s give him his due; he arguably was the best Timberwolf on the floor tonight.

But James has had plenty of chances to do this earlier in the season, and rarely came through. Due patience was exercised. As of now, Mike James ranks as the biggest disappointment in a disastrous season full of disappointments. Here’s what we don’t know: Has James somehow turned a corner, figured things out, settled down, made the transition–pick your own cliche–or does he have the kind of mental makeup that allows him to flourish after little or nothing is expected of him, which seems to have been the pattern his entire career? As I say, we don’t know.

We also don’t know how high Randy Foye’s upside as a point guard can be. Will Foye continue to yo-yo between confident, in-the-flow games and ones like tonight’s walk in the twilight zone? If he has the shot, why doesn’t he stroke it? If he prefers to drive, why doesn’t he penetrate? How does a guy who has 14 free throws coming off the bench Friday not get to the line in 15 minutes as a starter on Sunday?

Two players, two sets of questions. Which set does this organization most want answered? Taking it the way Wittman did tonight and going with the hot hand, the one that gave him the best chance to win, ultimately gives him and the team partial, less reliable answers about both players. Because, unless Wittman and Co. are planning on letting the best performing point guard get the lion’s share of time on a game by game basis over the next three years, it sets up a false construct.

Here’s why I think this team should play Randy Foye over Mike James for the rest of this season regardless of their performances from here on out. One, Foye has a much greater upside. Two, James has had a shot–50 starts at the point versus 9 (plus one at shooting guard) for Foye–and has more of a track record to judge already. Three, because salaries have to be within 15 percent of the person you are dealing for, James can bring a better player in a trade than Foye can if and when the Wolves decide to ease their logjam in the backcourt at the end of this season.

Look at it another way: Say James blossoms and Foye flounders in the remaining 17 games of the season. What are your plans for this ballclub in 2007-08? Now say Foye blossoms and James flounders–what are your plans for next year then?

Now let’s make it really simple. The bottom line is that the Timberwolves are not going to make the playoffs this season. The bottom line is that Foye is the one out of the two who looks like the raw material from which you can create a bright future–not guaranteed by any means, but better odds than James suddenly taking his game to a dramatic new level at age 32. So yeah, if James is going like he was tonight, bump his minutes for that game up to 15, maybe even 20. And if he keeps producing, keep him in that 15-20 minute range, with the promise that he’ll get a chance to compete again for a starting spot in next year’s training camp. But take a good, hard, honest look at Randy Foye, who, by the way, was never a point guard in college and is trying to make the jump as a rook in the pros, on the fly. His play this season deserves a solid 28-40 minutes per game from now until the end of the season, not the measley 15 he got tonight while James logged 33. All that did was further scramble and obscure an already unfocused, hodge-podge situation at arguably the most important position on the court. For those invested in silver linings, it looks like the great Huddy experiment is over.

2. Davis 41:45; McCants 6:15

Apparently Wittman has no doubts about who his shooting guard is. Ricky Davis, whose contract expires at the end of next year, got off for 33 points (11-21 FG) and supplemented it with 6 rebounds and 6 assists. Rashad McCants received a cursory 6:15 (-2), giving Mr. Davis (-5 in 41:45) enough time to catch his breath. Wittman obviously prefers to divvy up the small forward minutes between Trenton Hassell and Marko Jaric, leaving the 2-guard spot between Davis and McCants. Davis continues to leak out whenever possible, catching at least two court-length passes tonight, and making himself eligible for many more. Defense? Sometimes he plays it, sometimes he doesn’t. This is fine with Randy Wittman, as one of his assistant coaches should remind him every third or fourth time he wheels around and furrows his brow and stamps his foot during a game. Those invested in silver linings should note that Mark Madsen (+1 in 14:59) and Craig Smith (+9 in 12:51) combined to get more minutes than Mark Blount (-16 in 25:29).

3. Taking KG Off the Dribble

Kevin Garnett had a marvelous line: 26 points, 15 rebounds, 6 assists and 3 blocks. As J-Pete frequently pointed out, he was manhandled yet again without getting enough calls, a pattern that is only going to intensify if opponents can get away with it. I admire his selfless grit in that regard: One of the few abiding conceits in KG’s career was his constant need to be announced as 6-11 before the game when he is actually closer to 7-1. This, it was once explained a long time ago, was because Garnett did not want to be regarded as a center, or anything resembling a paint-centric pivot man. The dude is a large small forward at heart.

But small forwards have to stay with their man off the dribble, and that was something KG failed to do with a rather alarming consistency tonight. Granted, Lamar Odom is a tough matchup, a legit 6-10 and pretty quick. He also had a legit 16-9-8 tonight and seemed to operate pretty easily in penetration. On other occasions, Garnett seemed out of position in transition. Now, the standard cavaet to all this is I don’t know how the coaches were instructing the team to play pick-and-rolls and quick transition plays, and how they were instructed to play Kobe, who had 50 points tonight, by the way, when Kobe had the ball. On the play J-Pete correctly called the pivotal play of the game tonight, for example, late in the 4th quarter, Odom drove across the lane and KG was temporarily picked by Ricky Davis’s man. KG was fighting through the pick and had every intention of staying on Odom, but would have quickly adjusted if Davis had made the right play and done an immediate switch to block Odom’s path to the hoop. Instead, Davis stayed home, Odom was too quick turning the corner, and KG fruitlessly fouled as Odom laid the ball in. Other times, KG had Odom straight up and Lamar simply beat him to the hoop. Other times, KG jumped out on a man in transition and the man fed the ball by him to a teammate KG once was guarding for an easy hoop.

Put simply, not one of the superstar’s better games on D. But when you play Ricky Davis over 41 minutes, and Mike James 2 seconds shy of 33 minutes, you better anticipate an opponent shooting 52.5% and getting 36 assists (on 42 baskets) and half as many turnovers.

Game #64, Road Game #32, Golden State 106, Minnesota 86

1. Postponing the Obvious

So, did you catch that playoff fever? Heading into last night’s Golden State game, the Wolves only had to defeat the Warriors and have the Clips lose on the road in Charlotte to sneak into that 8th playoff seed with just a titch over a month to go in the season. What did it matter that Minnesota was embarking on a five-game road trip, that they’d lost 12 of their past 13 away from Target Center, including eight in a row, and that the Warriors were undefeated in the four games in which they’d been both healthy and replenished by the talent they’d obtained in the Indiana steal?

Naturally, it mattered a lot. The squad got waxed by 20, and it wasn’t that close. Hopefully you’ll notice there isn’t a lot of playoff talk in this forum. It seems more than a little tacky for a team that’s gone 8-20 and stubbornly refuses to see that their most effective lineups and player rotations in the present are precisely those that also best prepare them for the future. That message couldn’t have clearer in the Indiana win earlier this week. It is the focus of the franchise’s sudden media blitz to cajole people into buying season tickets for next year. And, for those with a little patience and foresight, it is actually a fairly exciting prospect–Randy Foye, Rashad McCants and Craig Smith are the answer now, as well as later.

So what does Randy Wittman and the rest of the “braintrust” do as they head into the most crucial five-game stretch of their season? Why, they ride the guys whose attitudes and work ethics have been most questionable, the guys who have been chronic losers for most or all of their careers, the players who have already driven this squad into the latrine over the last two months. Oh, and by invoking this strategy, they double up on the toxicity by discouraging the talented kids who are the only things preventing a rush for the exits by the superstar and any basketball fan with half a brain in this town.

Specifically, what else does Mark Blount need to do to demonstrate that he effectively checked out at the All Star break–take a whizz on the logo at center court? Blount had six turnovers in 16:39 last night, and was a -20 according to popcornmachine.net, meaning the Wolves played the Warriors even in the 31:21 Blount was on the bench. He has consistently sabotaged this team with his shoddy performances since the break, plays so soft that he emboldens opposing big men, makes decisions with the basketball and when to stay in the 3-second area that would be boneheaded for a rookie, let alone a supposed mature veteran, and carries himself with the mien of someone who refuses to let passion invigorate his game–unless there is some personal thing at stake, like his dislike of the Celtic franchise. Mark Madsen and Craig Smith are both woefully undersized, but so what? Both play bigger than Blount. Both play harder than Blount. And both earn way less than half of what Blount is making.

Move on to Ricky Davis. Minus 29 in 33:17 of play. That means the Wolves outscored the Warriors by 9 in the 14:43 Davis sat his ass down. He was 3-14 from the field, but that’s forgiveable–does anyone doubt Davis wants the ball to go in when he shoots? No, what’s repugnant is watching Davis feign as if he is running at his man on defense, already too late to do anything about the wide open J because he didn’t exert the effort earlier. But as he is feigning the D, he is giving himself momentum to start running the other way, in hopes of leaking out for easy buckets. Indeed, most of the time Davis is ducking to avoid the foul as the man shoots. There were two places last night where the Wolves tossed this game–right at the onset, when the Wolves didn’t score a field goal for five minutes and fell behind 3-13, and during the third quarter when Golden State roared through a 16-4 run that put them up 72-50 less than halfway through the period. Davis and Blount were the chief culprits in the opening stasis and Davis’s pathetic defense was the primary catalyst in the third period meltdown, sparked by Stephen Jackson.

It seems pointless (pardon the pun) to pick on Troy Hudson anymore. Suffice to say that he was -14 in 14:49, missed two-thirds of his shots, was not strong enough to guard Baron Davis and not quick enough to guard Monta Ellis. A couple of weeks ago he was suddenly inserted into the starting lineup to jolt the offense into productivity. Last night the Wolves committed a season-high 25 turnovers and scored just 86 against one of the worst, most permissive defensive teams in the league.

If you think Blount, Davis, and Hudson can ever be vital parts of a team contending for a championship, Forbes Magazine has a subscription form they’d like you to fill out.

2. Once More, With Feeling: The Kids Are Alright

According to popcornmachine.net, Rashad McCants was a team-best +3 in 19:57 of play. He had trouble locating Mikel Pietrus, the super-athletic French import, during the second quarter, but otherwise McCants continues to demonstrate a refined grasp of how to play the game. Perhaps most impressive is his restraint–the McCants of last year would have turned 20-point deficits into 35 or 40 with terrible, selfish shot selection, indifferent defense, and a blame-oriented, dolorous attitude. This year, without his full complement of physical skills, he is defending better both on the ball and in zone and rotation situations, accepting the mundane aspects of running the offense with a dedication that improves its efficiency, boxing out and contesting for rebounds with an added vigor, and maintaining a mostly positive mindset amidst the blizzard of bullshit that has become the team’s normal operating procedure.

Randy Foye shot just 3-9 FG but led the team with 20 points because he got to the line 14 times and sank every attempt. (Quick aside: When a free throw is called for after an opposing technical foul or defensive three-seconds call, it is time for Kevin Garnett to cede the role of free throw shooter to Foye and anyone else whose accuracy from the line is greater.) Foye also led the team in assists with 7 (more than a third of the squad’s 19) and committed just 3 turnovers (less than an eighth of the squad’s 25) in 33:11 of play. Right now if the situation was reversed and Foye was the vet and Troy Hudson and Mike James were the green rooks, and you knew the Wolves had to build for the future, you’d still probably counsel starting Foye and playing him the overwhelming majority of minutes, on the premise that the other two simply weren’t ready and might have their confidence shaken by chronic exposure to a game that overwhelms them.

The notion that starting Foye would put too much pressure on him is obviously rendered moot by the fact that you already have started
him. The notion that he can be more aggressive coming in with the second unit instead of the first ignores the obvious fact that a coach can actually advise a rookie point guard to be more aggressive anyway, and let the other starters adjust accordingly. The notion that Randy Foye or the Minnesota Timberwolves are benefitting in any way, shape, or form from waiting until the team is well behind before bringing him in, is, of course, ludicrous.

In a perfect world, the 19:55 Craig Smith played last night is probably about right for his skill set and role. Smith is a change-of-pace, a mucker with a nice touch around the hoop, an unusual presence because of his ‘tweener size, enhancing the odds of mismatches for both sides. Unfortunately, with Mark Blount ratifying most every nasty thing his critics have ever tossed at him, Smith needs at least 30 minutes, or Mark Madsen needs 10-15 more than he’s currently getting. Because of the relative obscurity he will probably always have to endure because of his limited skills and smallish size, Smith will continue to be jobbed by officials (especially on charge versus blocking foul calls) his entire career. But right now he is the best offensive rebounder and second-best big man overall on this squad. Not bad for a second round draft pick.

3. Pictures Telling A Thousand Words

Kevin Garnett’s whole-hearted endorsement of Randy Wittman and his obvious enervation and distaste when Blount and Davis are doing their mail-it-in thang seem contradictory, given that Wittman is enabling the Boston duo. It is just more evidence that KG would make a lousy GM.

But let’s not forget that the best Timberwolves player on the court last night by a country mile was Kevin Garnett, who was absolutely swarmed every time he touched the ball, was manhandled by players big and small, in large part because there is no quality Big who has his back, and who was absolutely spent late midway through the 4th quarter when he missed two free throws after making his first seven. After Wittman mercifully sat Garnett down in the last three minutes, his stone cold stare at the proceedings on the floor was equal parts fatigue, dillusionment, and ire. Then, just as Jim Petersen and Tom Hanneman were talking the woeful state of the team and how important this stretch of games were, there was a closeup of Hudson and Davis sitting next to each, both flashing big smiles.

Game 6, Home Game 32: Minnesota 86, Indiana 81

1. Nothing To Lose But A Reputation For Stupidity

The Timberwolves story in Tuesday’s Star Tribune, entitled “Wittman still seeks right answer,” went into some detail about how the coach of this franchise had tried everything– “tweaked and re-tweaked the lineup, shuffled the rotation…called the team out and kept it behind the scenes… been upset and understanding” — and yet nothing had worked.

But anyone who has been watching this ballclub with at least one eye open knew that there was one thing Wittman and his associates higher up the corporate ladder hadn’t tried. Not only that, but it was the most logical and unimpeachable thing they could have done in the wake of this team’s methodical meltdown and nonchalant ineptitude since the All Star break: Play the kids. More specifically, play current rookies Randy Foye and Craig Smith and last year’s top draft pick Rashad McCants together with superstar Kevin Garnett. Play them as long as possible, regardless of whether the squad was tied with 1:30 to play or down 40 midway through the third period. Let them discover a common rhythm, sift into roles, and, for all concerned, discover exactly what kind of clay there was to work with before it was too late for anything but recriminations.

The three kids were certainly gushed over by the braintrust. In a suddenly pervasive “Blueprint for the Future” publicity blitz that seemed to coincide with a “never too early to renew your season tix for next year” ad blitz, there was invariably a prominent member of the front office expressing oh so much excitment about the talent and upside glory of Foye-Shaddy-Smith. But then the starting lineups would be announced, or we’d return to the game in progress, and who would we see hogging minutes but Troy Hudson, Mark Blount, Ricky Davis–rarely if ever mentioned in the Blueprint for the Future.

Was the organization hypocritical, stupid, or involved in some sort of massive bait-and-switch? If there was a Blueprint for the Future and the Present Sucked Out Loud, what say we launch into the Blueprint post haste? And perhaps shouldn’t that be one of the possibilities for a “right answer” that poor Randy Wittman, at his wit’s end, might contemplate as a “tweak,” if not a “re-tweak”?

Tonight, with the Wolves down a dozen midway through the third period at home to an opponent that had lost nine straight games, Wittman was still seeking. “We searched. I ain’t gonna lie to you, I was going to search even deeper,” he said after the game. But then he did something really sensible. He put Foye and McCants in the game at the same time, replacing Hudson and a stone cold (1-11 FG, 4 turnovers) Ricky Davis. Three minutes later, he subbed in Smith for Blount. He played the kids with KG, with Marko Jaric thrown in for good measure. This is an undersized but scrappy quintet that, to a man, take pride in their defense, something that most definitively cannot be said of Hudson-Davis-Blount. The Wolves spent most of their time in a zone, a defensive scheme that requires a fair amount of trust and communication and doesn’t make Garnett feel like he has to guard everybody. And for the final 15:32 of the game, those five stayed on the floor–“double or triple overtime, they weren’t coming out,” Wittman later claimed–and outscored the Indiana Pacers 35-21 en route to a 86-81 victory.

Staunch defense has been a real rarity for the Wolves recently. After building a 20-16 record with a D that allowed 95.0 points per game, they have tumbled to 7-19 over the next 26 tilts while yielding 103.6 ppg, or nearly eight points more, while scoring an average of just two points more during those last 26. Tonight, through three quarters, even the decimated Pacers (missing Marquis Daniels as well as O’Neal) were shooting a respectable 45.8%. But with the kids plus KG plus Jaric, that plummeted to 20% in the crucial 4th quarter, in which the Pacers got only 14 points, all but one from point guard Jamaal Tinsley.

Every single one of the five Wolves specifically mentioned defense in the locker room after the game. They talked about trust and communication and hustle and how good it felt. Even if this is really the start of a belated awakening, and the braintrust understands that planning for the future is simultaneously the best chance of producing a unified, dedicated effort that could extend the time in which the Wolves stay within sniffing distance of a playoff spot, there will be many ugly moments. Foye is out of position at the point, McCants is playing on a leg and a half, and Smith is woefully undersized. But defensive intensity and genuine goodwill among teammates can be enough to beat sub-mediocre teams and that’s what happened in the second half tonight. The new quintet was tickled by the novelty, and genuinely relieved that shroud draped over the entire squad as a result of its disappointments and putrid play, was being lifted, even as Indiana felt a tenth straight loss stalking their psyche.

A lot of good things happened in those final 15 minutes, but what I won’t forget is consecutive offensive possessions early in the process, just after Indiana had taken its biggest lead at 46-60 and before Smith entered the game. There was a bit of confusion in the offense, bad spacing and unsure ball control near the very top of the key. McCants suddenly held the dribble, and had room for a long turnaround before the shot clock expired. Instead, he spotted Foye just a few steps away, but facing the hoop, and quickly dished to him as, almost in the same motion, Foye rose up and nailed the 25-foot trey. Less than 30 seconds later the Wolves were in transition, Foye dribbling with the ball at the top of the left lane when he suddenly zipped it up near the hoop, too line-drive oriented for a classic alley-oop, to McCants going hard to the hole from the opposite baseline. As McCants slamed it home, Indiana called timeout, their lead suddenly below double-digits, and a smiling McCants came over and briefly locked arms with Foye.

2. The Steady HandsWhether they start together or arise as a duo off the bench, Foye and Marko Jaric are simply too complementary of each other’s strengths and weaknesses right now not to play together. Jaric has the fundamentals–he understands the floor game–but not the sublime confidence. When he’s feeling okay about his place in the cosmos, he has a nice intuitive feel about when to push the pace in transition and when to hold up; when to drive and dish and when to pick and roll. Yes, he spaces out on defense occasionally but more often he’s doing something smart, and his gambles generally carry decent odds of success. Foye needs to play with a backcourt mate that can dribble, defend, and provide positive role modeling, but not dominate, especially in terms of shooting, and especially not in crunchtime. Foye has the inner arrogance Jaric lacks.

KG is obviously a boon to whatever teammates accompany him to the floor, but as I’ve said before, there is a genuine affection between him and McCants that helps McCants remain patient and within himself, a crucial ingredient in these trying times when McCants doesn’t have the pure athleticism that saw him through last year. Who would have thought even a year ago that McCants would be the crunchtime glue guy, the Hassell/Madsen type doing the little things, but there he was in the 4th quarter, taking only one of his team’s 20 shots but grabbing 5 of their 12 boards and committing three fouls to ensure the Pacers didn’t get anything easy–and Indiana shot 3-15 FG for the period. Foye had 9 points, Jaric 4 assists, Craig Smith jousted with Ike Diogu, and KG commanded all the attention. McCants, he was just there, a +18 in 28:52 of play of a five-point victory.

3. On the FlyGarnett was 3-8 FG without a layup as the Wolves shot 39% and trailed 35-42 at halftime. In the first 5:23 of the 3rd period, before the kids came with the bailout, he hit four layups and scored all his team’s points to keep them in the game. At that point his three teammates other than Jaric–Blount, Davis and Huddy–were a combined 3-20 FG and showed no desire to compete.

In what may become a regular feature as long as he is getting 10+ minutes a game, here is the Troy Hudson defensive dead weight measure for tonight: Indiana scored 28 points in the 12:23 Huddy played and 53 points in the 35:37 that he didn’t.

The Wolves finally cut Eddie Griffin loose before the game. Asked to comment by a media member who spun the question as one less distraction bothering the Wolves, Wittman instead was sincerely sorry to see Griffin go, said he was a good kid at heart, and wished him the best down the road. It was a classy gesture.

In keeping with yet another disturbing recent trend, Minnesota was -9 in rebounding, including an 11-25 disadvantage in the second and third periods. Yet Indiana had only 7 second-chance points (to 16 for the Wolves) and a measley 20 points in the paint (to Minnesota’s 30). Think they missed Jermaine O’Neal?

Finally, Wittman allowed himself to think about being just a game out of the playoffs and going on a five-game road trip after losing 12 of their last 13 away from Target Center. Three of those games–at Golden State, the Lakers and Sacramento–are with teams involved in that scrum for the final three playoff spots. “This is a huge trip for us,” the coach said.

Game #61, Road Game #30, Miami 105, Minnesota 91

1. No Center, No Point Guard, No Chance
The Minnesota Timberwolves do not have a center who can adequately defend the paint. They do not have anyone capable of fulfilling the point guard duties at both ends of the court at even a mediocre level. These are the traditional foundation positions of pro basketball, and while their importance has diminished with the new hand-checking rules, pro basketball teams still need a steady floor general out on the perimeter and a forceful behemoth underneath the basket.

Let’s get specific. The Miami Heat’s dynamic tandem of Shaquille O’Neal and Alonzo Mourning manned the center position for 47:02 tonight. They collectively converted 17 of 21 shots, got to the free throw line 18 times (making 12), and finished with 46 points and 14 rebounds. If you’re looking for a moral victory, the Wolves did force 10 turnovers from the two big men, the only blemish on what was otherwise utter domination. Shaq had a season-high 15 points in the first quarter on 7-8 FG, and finished with a season-high 32 for the game. Mark Blount played 35:55, committed 5 fouls and had 5 rebounds while scoring a respectable 17 points. “Fresh” off a long period of inactivity due to an ankle sprain, Mark Madsen committed three fouls in 3:13 and otherwise has a box score full of goose eggs. Craig Smith had four fouls and three rebounds in 17:29, to go with 6 points. Let’s pretend that none of these three spelled Kevin Garnett for the 8:37 he sat and instead collectively played 56:37 at center only. They still registered only half as many points as the ShaqZo monster, and lost the rebounding battle 14-8 while committing 12 fouls.

Now, Shaq embarrasses a lot of people, and Zo is without question the best backup center in the NBA. But this wasn’t Shaq’s typical game; this was his best game of the season. And even a sub of Zo’s caliber has no business getting 14 points and 5 boards while playing 12:13, which is a possession more than a quarter’s worth of action. Anyone looking at the makeup of this squad at the beginning of this season knew that it was lacking a legitimate banger to relieve the physical and mental wear-and-tear on their finesse-oriented 7-foot superstar. Now we’re in March and while Craig Smith is a pleasant surprise for a second-round draft choice, Blount, Madsen, and the departed Eddie Griffin still leave the squad woefully shy of a bona fide NBA center on defense.

As for the point guard situation, even the most loyal defenders of Mike James packed their tent and skulked away about a month ago. Remember when James was going to be the third leg of the new MV3 stool alongside KG and Ricky Davis? He was the guy who would slip into the Sam Cassell role, make big shots, take the crunchtime triple-teams off of Garnett or punish the opponents who tried it with his long-range bullseyes–remember, he shot 44% from beyond the arc in Toronto last year. Well, the opponents have been flocking to Garnett, and then Ricky Davis, and James has had more wide open looks than any shooter can possibly hope for this year. Clang! How dis-spiriting is it for a ballclub to work the rock around and set up the shooter, open and in rhythm, only to see that long carom jump-start a fast break the other way? The total overall shooting accuracy for James thus far this year is 41.6%, worse than his three-point shooting a year ago. And he has trouble setting up his teammates. And his defense is pathetic. I’m not going out of my way to rip Mike James, who has always been a decent, standup guy in the locker and a heartwarming underdog story for his career arc: I am merely stating facts that seem as ironclad as the multiplication tables.

With James frog-marching his season into the toilet, the obvious course of action for the Wolves was to take their lumps helping top draft pick Randy Foye learn the point guard position on the fly. The Wolves already have an off guard they claim to be very excited about in last year’s top draft pick, Rashad McCants–he’s certainly prominent in the “Blueprint for the Future” publicity blitz the brass has recently launched to try and rationalize their failure and distract fans from the short-term dung heap the team is making of this season. And if McCants is somehow a bust, there is always Ricky Davis, the team’s second leading scorer, leader in assists, and second in minutes played. For that matter, the team’s small forwards, Trenton Hassell and Marko Jaric, are also natural off guards.

Put simply, the team already has a bit of a logjam at off guard and a gaping void at the point. Everybody knows Randy Foye is not ready to be an NBA point guard this season, but he’s smart, he coachable, he’s extremely athletic, and he likes the ball in his hands when the game is on the line–hey, he’s more than 3/4 of the way there in terms of the intangible stuff; now he just needs some fairly painful minutes to make the adjustment. Maybe it will take the rest of this year and all of next year, which was approximately Dwyane Wade’s learning curve, but it is a shrewd, if not sure-fire, gamble–and by the way, a move that would demonstrate to your faithful fans that you actually do have a blueprint for the future. That was the unspoken pact the franchise made with the die-hards about a month or so ago when Foye stepped in for James at the point–it isn’t going to be pretty, but it just might pay off in the long run.

Then three games ago, Foye gets yanked, in favor of often-injured, little-used sprite Troy Hudson, whose onerous contract figures to keep him with the Wolves at least through the 2008-09 season (it expires a year after that) at more than $6 million per season. Any Timberwolves fan who has watched the team for five years knows exactly what Huddy brings to the menu–an incredibly streaky long-range shot, limited court vision, comfort with an uptempo pace, an affinity for where and when Kevin Garnett likes the ball, and absolutely dreadful defense. A year and a half ago, a sabre-hoops guy over at 82games.com, Dan Rosenbaum, sought to put together an adjusted plus/minus ratings calculation to judge the individual defensive prowess of every player in the NBA. His conclusion? “Troy Hudson probably gets the award for being the worst defender in the league…He is playing a game on the defensive end that is not remotely like anyone else’s in the league.”

Utah’s Devon Williams discovered that when he repeatedly posted up Hudson with ease, forcing coach Randy Wittman to snatch Foye from the bench in Huddy’s first extended action a week ago. Delonte West discovered it when he torched Hudson en route to a career-high 31 points in Boston’s double-overtime win last Sunday. Smush Parker discovered it as he rang up 11 points in a half-quarter’s worth of action to start the Laker game on Tuesday. And tonight Jason Williams discovered it after Shaq got bored with dunking and began ceding some of the offense to the perimeter. Williams went 9-13 FG without disrupting the normal flow of the offense, as he also chipped in a game-high 6 assists. Although he played 38:56, he got 16 of his 20 points, and 4 of his 6 assists in the 25:06 Huddy was on the court. All told, the Heat scored 68 points in Huddy’s 25:06 of action, and 37 points during the 22:54 Huddy sat on the bench. This is the guy who is eating into the playing time, confidence, and rhythm of the rook who is supposed to be a cornerstone of the Wolves future.

2. Jaric Being Jaric
With Trenton Hassell waylaid with an ankle sprain, these games matter more to Marko Jaric’s career trajectory than perhaps anyone else on the squad. Ever since Jaric was embarrassed by Chris Paul in Oklahoma City and then eventually deposed from the starting point guard slot about the midpoint of last season, he’s been something of a foster child on the roster, a man without a set position, generally unhappy with his minutes, often either expressing a desire to be traded or being a hot topic on the trade rumor mill, all the while producing tantalyzing glimpses of how he could be a valuable uber-handyman with the right mindset on the right ballclub–and then, over and over, failing to cinch the impression with any kind of consistent play. (How’s that for a run-on sentence? Watch out William Faulkner!)

Tonight Jaric the Janus-masked man was in full bloom. He was the Wolves’ best player on the court during the first quarter, continually breaking down his man off the dribble and dishing to open teammates, amassing 4 dimes and making me wonder why this guy isn’t paired with Foye in a backcourt buddy system. Jaric also has a great knack for swiping at the ball when he’s face-up with an opponent, clogging the passing lanes in both a zone scheme and in transition, and doubling down on the big men in the paint.

Except, as previously mentioned, the Miami bigs had a field day under the hoop, without much bother from Jaric. Was this because Wittman was afraid of leaving James Posey open at the three-point line (Posey was 1-4 beyond the arc, 3-3 from 2-point range), because Jaric wasn’t doubling down quickly enough, or because the rotations never went to Jaric’s side of the court? Jaric did do a lot more harrassing of Shaq in the 3rd quarter, a halftime adjustment that obviously came too late, and set off Williams on Huddy in the process.

But here is the greater problem with Jaric against the Heat: He didn’t have a field goal (0-3 FG, all from 3-point land) or a rebound in 32:24 of play, and only one assist after the first quarter (still good enough for a game-high 5 on the Wolves). After awhile, the Heat simply played off him, denying him penetration passes and daring him to sink a jumper. He only tried when he was wiiiide open and the shot clock was going down–and couldn’t convert. The game gave one renewed appreciation for the little things we always say Trenton Hassell does, like stick that open j, or box out–with Jaric and Ricky Davis as swing men, Eddie Jones snuck in for 11 rebounds and the Wolves were pounded overall on the glass, 40-28.

3. On the Fly
More braintrust follies: In tonight’s “Blueprint for the Future” segment, Personnel VP Kevin McHale says, “we are trying to win with Kevin here…but still trying to win with the young guys…we don’t have a collective soul.” From consistency to chemistry to soulfulness–what’s next, “not enough garlic around our necks under a full moon”? Then Randy Wittman delivers the Wolves’ “keys to the game” which were limiting where Shaq catches the ball for the defense and promoting ball movement on the offense. Well, Shaq led the parade which produced 56 Miami points in the paint, and the Wolves registered only 17 assists on their 36 baskets.

Then we see the new Wolves add for 2007-08 season tickets. It shows an obviously hung-over dude staring into his open refrigerator. He shuts the door and we see Crunch standing there. The mascot has an airhorn in his hand and starts blasting it in the guy’s ear. I think the punchline was “it’s never too early” to sign up for season tix, but, ah, do you really want to liken entreaties for loyalty–without knowing if KG is even going to be around–with an airhorn at the bedraggled and benumbed crack of consciousness? That’s taking truth in advertising too far.

The best part of the telecast was color commentator Jim Petersen, who is starting to understand that discussing the Wolves players will be one long bitchfest and so instead has come up with ways to enlighten us about the game itself. Three examples: His explanation about how refs are looking for fouls above or below the waist depending on where they are stationed during a play; his clarification about how a charge can still be called inside the no-charge circle if a player catches the ball while stationed there and then spins into an opponent; and his note that lane violations get called much more frequently on Shaq’s free throws because players know a miss is more likely and start jousting early for position.

Trying hard versus going through the motions: Yeah, Shaq took the first two months of the season off, along with coach Pat Riley, mailing in the regular season to gear up for the playoffs. But he clearly is focused and at near-prime form now that he smells the post-season, isn’t he? (And apologies/kudos to Peter Weinhold, who I mocked for putting Shaq and KG in the same sentence just a week or so ago.) Meanwhile, nobody hustled harder than Eddie Jones tonight. The best player on the Heat for four season, EJ got dealt and missed the ring on last year’s championship. Bought out by the pitiful Grizzlies, he came back to Miami hell bent on helping the team repeat. If this game is any evidence, he as much as Shaq is providing the bonus play that has enabled the Heat to go 6-2 in Wade’s absence. Now contrast the effort of Shaq and Jones to anyone on the Wolves, from KG on down.

Finally, no network or basic cable TV game in Atlanta tonight, so I will leave any commentary to those who have NBA Season’s Pass (my ever-reasonable wife convinced me to have a smidgen of a life outside basketball by not buying it). Next trey will be Tuesday night/Wednesday morning after the Indiana game.

Game #60, Home Game #31, Minnesota 117, Lakers 107 (2 OT)

1. So Pretty
No Timberwolves player has been ripped as royally by myself and those responding to my treys this season as “Pretty Ricky” Davis, who has been dubbed either directly or by inference as a cancer, a coach killer, a corroder of chemistry, and, more “kindly,” an enigmatic tease who plays when he feels like it and not a moment beyond. I won’t back off my part in those harsh assessments because I remember the performances that prompted them.

But when the fully motivated Ricky Davis steps out of the phone booth, as he did tonight while ringing up 33 points, 10 rebounds, 8 assists, 3 steals and mostly dogged defense versus Kobe Bryant and the Laker crew during a gut-checking 55:50 out of 58 possible minutes in a double-overtime win the Wolves desperately needed, you honor it with a full, throaty huzzah, bow your head and pray to the hoop gods that you see it again real soon.

Put simply, Davis wanted this win. He started cold, hitting just 2-6 FG in the first period, but grabbed three rebounds (just one less than in the entire double-overtime Celtic game Sunday), dropped two dimes and added a steal before going to the bench with 1:06 to play. But he came back quickly due to foul trouble on Marko Jaric (starting for the injured Trenton Hassell) and caught the spark for 12 points on 5 straight two-pointers (he was 0-2 from beyond the arc) and two free throws, essentially negating Kobe Bryant’s 15 points and keeping the Wolves just three back at the half.

But it’s what Davis did after that which makes you want to salute his grit, skill, and savvy–and throw in a snide rejoinder about how haphazardly he puts them all together. In the third and fourth quarters, the shots weren’t falling–not a single field goal converted in four attempts. So Pretty Ricky did what Kevin McHale said he could do back when the Wolves acquired him from Boston last season–drove to the basket and got to the free throw line. There were ten attempts in those two quarters and he made them all, the last two with the Wolves down two, 96-98, with 5.2 seconds left in regulation. Then he stole the inbounds pass to seal the tie with 1.9 seconds left in the 4th quarter. That was after he grooved three passes to his boy Mark Blount, standing outside the arc between the top of the key and the right baseline, and Blount, against long odds, stroked those treys to bring the Wolves back from 6 points down with 2:35 left in regulation.

In overtime the Wolves were down a pair coming out of a timeout with 3.3 seconds left. KG got the inbounds, wheeled into the right paint for an easy, wrist-flick jumper, which rimmed out. Davis tipped it in. On to the second OT. Davis broke a 107 tie with a long jumper and then when Randy Foye committed a silly turnover, Davis immediately stole the ball back. After Jaric had fouled out early in the first OT, the quickness of Davis and KG keyed a zone D that sought to constantly double-team Kobe, a strategy that held him to three points on 1-4 FG after he’d gone off for 37 in regulation.

Told after the game that he’d played ten seconds less than 56 minutes, Davis matter-of-factly replied, “I can go out there and play again. Hats off to my trainer.” And to Davis, who erased at least one or two debits he’s accumulated during this disappointing campaign.

2. Marko and Troy–One Should Remain A Starter
As should have been expected, Troy Hudson’s second start wasn’t quite as auspicious as his first one. The shot wasn’t falling–T-Hud was 2-7 FG, with both of his makes relatively short jumpers off picks that sprung him as he moved toward the baseline–and the defense remained abominable. Even Kobe had to give it up to Smush Parker with Huddy guarding him. Parker had 11 points in the first 6:41 of the game, propeling the Lakers to a 22-11 lead, and Hudson was replaced by Randy Foye less than two minutes later. All told, the Lakers scored 53 points in the 22:53 Hudson was on the court and 54 points in the 35:07 he was on the bench. For those poor at math, that means Huddy would have had to help prevent opponents from scoring for an entire quarter, than permit a made free throw in an extra 14 seconds in order to break even with what his teammates accomplished without him defensively. It is not a coincidence that the only two Timberwolves with a negative plus/minus total on the popcornmachine.net website tally for tonight were Hudson and his fellow point guard Mike James. The odd man in is rook Randy Foye, whose stupendous tip-in off a KG miss bumped the lead from two to four in the second OT and was coach Randy Wittman’s favorite memory of a game chalk-full of vivid imagery. For now and for the future, Foye deserves his starter’s role back. Yes, he makes mistakes–at least two dumb passes and a drive to the hoop that had no chance of being anything but a blocked shot occured in just the fourth quarter and two overtimes alone–but as I’ve repeatedly emphasized, that’s because he’s not a point guard, and on-the-job training at this particular position is destined to be rocky. But if between now and the end of the season the Wolves don’t have a pretty good idea whether or not Foye can be their point guard of the future, it will be yet another item of impeachment to bring against VP Kevin McHale and his mates.

Then there is Jaric, who wrote another chapter in the Marvelous Adventures of Marko subbing in for Hassell tonight. Most of his contributions were subtle, significant, and much to his team’s benefit. When it comes to steals he has the quickest hands and the best timing of anyone on the ballclub, and he’s a tough, rangy sonofagun who knows how to clog passing lanes and deliver a hard foul after he or his teammates have been beaten to the hoop. He also had three blocks in the second half tonight, none more important than lunching seven-footer Kwame Brown before he could go up with 8.4 seconds left in regulation and the Wolves down by one. Letting Kwame score or committing the foul would have been potentially fatal. Naturally Jaric also did something that made you cringe and shake your head, in this case a totally botched inbounds pass right after his monster block, and if Parker had been able to hit both free throws after the Wolves were forced to foul, Jaric would have reclaimed a designation he often carried during his stint in the starting lineup last year–hero/goat, Janus-masked.

That said, Jaric covets starting perhaps more than anyone on the ballclub–he’s like a little kid when he gets the nod, or at least plays quality minutes, and pouts with petulance when he’s ignored. By contrast, Hassell is a consummate pro who can handle any role thrust upon him. It may thus be beneficial to team chemistry to leave Jaric in for awhile and bring Hassell off the bench. More than likely, Jaric will know that a quick hook awaits a mistake-filled early performance and psyche himself out into fulfilling that dire prophecy. But it’s worth a shot. Everyone knows what Hassell can do. The rest of this season should be about solving as many personnel mysteries as possible, and Jaric is on that list.

3. Quick Hits
The legendary Phil Jackson overcoached his way to defeat tonight by benching Andrew Bynum for Kwame Brown with 1:31 left in regulation and the Lakers up 3. The only half-plausible justification was that Jackson wanted a big with a little more mobility on Mark Blount after he rained in those treys. But Bynum was the patently superior player at both ends of the court tonight and the clueless, stone-handed Brown (watching him constantly drop the ball and miss point-blank bunnies at the basket yet again made me rue my endorsement of the Lakers acquiring him last year) wasn’t going to stop Blount any more than the precocious teenager. Bynum is already a disrupter defensively. And Brown is already in danger of becoming a bust.

It’s not hard when watching the game to notice that some players naturally look for and play off each other, with the kinship between Blount and Davis a prime example. After some encouraging performances just before the All Star break, Rashad McCants has had a rough couple of weeks trying to come back from knee surgery, especially figuring out when and where to get his shot off. When Jaric fouled out shortly into the first overtime, the Wolves seemed doomed sending McCants into the game. Jaric had been a key component of the 3/4 court trap and zone defense that had been the brakes on Kobe’s scoring spree after the Selfish One went off for 17 points in about 3 minutes in the third quarter. Although his D has improved markedly since the beginning of last year, Shaddy doesn’t have Jaric’s instincts and defensive acumen. But McCants more than held his own playing the zone (the trap was abandoned). His offense, however, was still shaky. Practically dared to shoot as the Lakers doubled KG and/or Davis and cheated toward Blount on the perimeter, Shaddy’s lone jumper of the first overtime was both short and to the side of the iron–a choker’s miss. But with the Wolves up 4 with a minute to play, KG, a player McCants has venerated from his first day in Minnesota, was drawing a double-team high on the left block when McCants flashed from the weak side toward the basket. KG zipped him the pass, Shaddy didn’t hesitate as he banked the lay-up. It was the champagne-popping basket of the game, the one that sealed the deal, and McCants quietly reveled in it as he came to the bench. Other players might have seen McCants move without the ball and other players might have even fed him–but not as decisively and propitiously as KG, who has his eye out for McCants whenever possible.

Craig Smith had one of those good stat, bad stat games. On the one hand he corralled 11 rebounds in just 17:16, including 7 offenive boards. On the other hand, many of those follow-ups were of his own misses, as he went 2-10 FG. At the beginning of the year, what was impressive about Smith was his composure and maturity; specifically, how calm and collected he was jousting for rebounds with bigger behemoths: timing his jumps, maintaining possession through the turbulance, and then going back up for that little floater over their outstetched hands. Then he hit a trough and looked like crap for about 6 weeks, only to rally by dint of sheer hard work and sweat equity. That’s what is getting him his boards lately, but the composure and fine touch is usually absent. Getting it back will go a long way toward determining if Smith becomes a valuable role player or an afterthought.

Game #58, Home Game #30: Utah 106, Minnesota 83
Game #59, Road Game #29: Boston 124, Minnesota 117 (2 OT)

What’s the Plan: Buck Up? Draw Straws? Haze the Rookies?
The past week has taught us that the Wolves can be casually blown out by a quality NBA team, with consecutive 26-point losses to Dallas and Utah standing as exhibits Y and Z. Today we discovered that the squad with the league’s second-worst record, the pitiful Boston Celtics, can come home to a noon start after an overtime road game the previous day, and outlast Minnesota in two overtimes while giving four guys aged 24 and under more than 30 minutes apiece of playing time.

The players who logged more than 30 minutes for the Wolves include a trio who are 6 months either side of age 31 (Mark Blount, Kevin Garnett, and, in his first start of the season, Troy Hudson), and 27-year old Ricky Davis. Top draft choice Randy Foye played a mere 5:49 out of 58 possible minutes (due to the two five-minute overtimes), and showed that even his bountiful self-confidence is not impervious to getting bounced from the starting lineup–he was tentative and committed two turnovers during his lone stint, the substitution-filled bridge between the first and second quarters. Last year’s top draft choice, Rashad McCants, went scoreless in 27 minutes of action that would have been at least cut in half if Trenton Hassell hadn’t been sidelined for the day after twisting his ankle on the first possession of the game. McCants, who received a whopping 3:09 of PT during the Utah drubbing, likewise is performing like self-doubt is raising havoc with his instincts and equilibrium. The other promising rookie, Craig Smith, joined the team-wide posse that got their rears whupped on the boards, becoming one of seven Wolves players to rack up more personal fouls than rebounds. Smith finished with one basket and grabbed one rebound (no assists, no blocks, four fouls) in 29:05 on the court.

To complete the tragicomedy, the Wolves telecast ran an interview with Jim Petersen and the team’s assistant general manager Rob Babcock, who proclaimed that the future was “bright” and specifically cited Foye, McCants and Smith as a core of young talent that has management excited. While Foye and McCants seem to exhibit very different temperaments, both have loads of raw talent and seem to be motivated by an internal swagger. One is a rookie trying to make the transition from college swingman to pro point guard–an enormous adjustment. The other is recovering from the dreaded microfracture surgery. Put simply, despite their tough demeanors, they are both in mentally fragile situations, and the worst thing you can do is play yo-yo with their minutes based on the inconsistency of their recent performances.

After the Utah embarrassment Friday night, I asked coach Randy Wittman if it was time to play the kids. What do you mean, he wanted to know, inferring that the promising young trio was earning sufficient exposure, when in fact they’d combined for 42:27, or an average of 14:09, in a no-contest game the fundamentally airtight Jazz led by 20 less than halfway through the second period.

Basketball 101 says if you are going to have a chance at making noise in the playoffs, you settle on a set rotation early, and establish individual roles and a team identity by New Year’s at the latest. If it is obvious to all but the most deluded observers that this isn’t your year, you nurture your young talent through a combination of putting them in a position to succeed and exercising patience and counseling when you challenge them outside their comfort level. The Wolves continue to scramble their roles and rotations, have never established an identity, have gone 6-13 after firing one coach for going 20-20, and are now playing head games with their most valuable young assets. Rather than disgrace themselves again by conjuring up some faux injury to Kevin Garnett and Ricky Davis while having their worst outside shooter jack up three-pointers in order to tank the final game of the season, they should sacrificing short-term gain by building for the future in a more noble and intelligent manner. But no; this franchise can’t even lose right.

2. Huddy’s Turn at the Point
The short-term dividends of turning to veteran Troy Hudson were apparent today, as the dude with the dreadlock pony tail went off for 26 points (9-15 FG, 3-6 from 3 pt) and 8 assists in 46:02. More specifically, Huddy teamed with Kevin Garnett for a steady diet of crisp, high-post pick and rolls, which served as the genesis for the vast majority of the Wolves’ half-court offense.

This is pure speculation on my part, but the insertion of Hudson seems like a sop to KG, who has always loved Hudson’s play beyond any reasonable evidence. Longtime Wolves fans couldn’t help but get a sense of deja vu, a pleasant vibe for Garnett as well, no doubt, as he and Huddy reverted back to the rhythms of what I consider perhaps KG’s finest season, 2002-03, a year before he took MVP honors. It was when KG, Huddy and Wally Szczerbiak accounted for nearly 60 percent of the Wolves’ offense with Garnett leading the team across the board–points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks–while Minnesota won more than 50 games and threw a scare into the Lakers during the playoffs. It was a team in which KG orchestrated a cornucopia of open jump shots as drawn up by Flip Saunders. Today, with the raw, tired and poorly coached Celtics as the opponent, and a motivated Ricky Davis as a better Szczerbiak (and Mark Blount pulling 4th wheel Rasho status), Garnett registered a triple-double 33-13-10, while Davis racked up 35 and Huddy chipped in 26, for the second-highest trio total in franchise history (the MV3 had two more, 96, in an overtime win versus Sacramento three years ago).

There is a rub, of course–more than one if you count the battery acid on Foye’s psyche–and that is Hudson’s defense. He was a horrible defender even before enduring all those knee, thigh, leg, and ankle injuries, and if anything, he is more horrible now. How bad? Well, his counterpart, Celtic point guard Delonte West, scored 31 points in 30:31 of playing time during the second half and two overtimes. Huddy defenders might want to point out that West scored 7 of those points in the three or four minutes Mike James was subbing in. But even if we grant that Hudson defends better than James–an analysis that can’t be undertaken without a flurry of cruel, snarky jokes, so we’ll bypass it for now–taking a stand on the evidence of a promising but still mediocre point guard torching you for 24 points in 26 minutes isn’t exactly winning the argument.

The best defender among the team’s three point guards is Randy Foye. The best possible on-ball defender of West available today was Marko Jaric, who had a pair of nice steals but couldn’t hit any of his four shots in 18:50 of play. But Randy Wittman wanted someone who could jump start the offense in the most basic fashion possible, and to that extent, Huddy delivered, picking and rolling the squad to 50 percent from the field, 43 percent from beyond the 3-point arc. Will Wittman allow Hudson to continue grooving the flow for KG Tuesday night against the Lakers? If Hassell’s ankle hasn’t healed enough for him to guard Kobe Bryant, it won’t matter.

3. Absurd Stats and Incomplete Links
Sometimes numbers really can tell you how badly a ballclub is performing. For example, a game after their most inaccurate shooting performance in franchise history and their lowest point total ever at home, the Wolves grabbed their fewest rebounds of the season, 25, against Utah and played such putrid defense in the second period that Utah first miss occurred five seconds before the halfway point. Going up against 6-9 Carlos Boozer, 7-1 Kevin Garnett preferred to shoot from outside and not go hard to rim, a preference for the perimeter that extended to the other end of the court and helped account for him grabbing just 4 boards, or half his previous season low.

Garnett partially atoned today in Boston, snaring 13 rebounds. Given the double overtime, that was less per-minute than his season average but positively Rodmanesque compared to his sorry teammates, who collectively grabbed 14 more. That’s 27 rebounds in all, in 58 minutes, and an incredible 30 fewer than the 57 Boston grabbed–the biggest differential in franchise history. That’s right: When the Celts missed a shot, they were more likely than Minnesota to get it back, outrebounding the Wolves 23-21. At the other end, when the Wolves shot, it was nearly always one and done, with Boston owning the glass 34-6. That, in a nutshell, is why the Wolves lost. I can’t find the final discrepancy in second-chance points, but shortly after halftime it was 13-0 in favor of the Celts. Officially, both teams attempted 88 shots, but that ignores all the times Boston snared an offensive rebound and forced a Minnesota foul on the ensuing putback. Boston doubled the Wolves’ free throw attempts, 46-23, and the 17-point margin in made free throws more than compensated for Minnesota’s higher field goal percentage. A couple games back I asked Wittman if, given Mark Blount’s proclivity for putting himself in early foul trouble (not to mention his indifferent defense and inability to effectively joust for rebounds), Minnesota was considering singing another big man to a 10-day contract. The coach said no, and that Mark Madsen was almost ready to return. So, we’ve got Mad Dog still waylaid and Eddie Griffin never coming back and the team has managed a collective 52 rebounds while yielding 96 in its past two games–and that doesn’t count getting outboarded 54-39 by Dallas a game before that. Today, Blount grabbed 3 rebounds in 36:10 before fouling out. And the team still claims, with a straight face, that it is in a playoff push. “We’ve got to keep fighting,” Wittman says. It is an oxymoronic statement.

Finally, a note of thanks to those who made themselves, and me, at home here at The Rake before I’d even posted anything. I’ve sincerely appreciated all the kind words on my behalf, but now it is time to reset the tone, which is my quick reminder that stupid, one-line, and excessively nasty or personal comments will get doinked. We talk hoops as intelligently as possible, and if someone strays too far from that mandate, even if it’s to flatter me, it won’t get aired. By contrast, it bears repeating one more time that I do this primarily because of the quality feedback I get from you folks–insights into the team and the game itself. Thanks. I will also be beefing up the links on the left–Stephen Litel’s blog and 10,000 Takes are just two local sites I want to publicize, and Bill Simmons at ESPN.com doesn’t need my paltry endorsement but I’m glad to have the chance to offer it. Now if I can only figure out the software….