The Rake Magazine

Category: Sports

  • The Three Pointer: Ongoing Progress

    Copyright 2008 NBAE (Photo by Garrett W. Ellwood/NBAE via Getty Images)

    Game # 47, Home Game #23: Houston 92, Minnesota 86

    Season record: 10-37

    1. Telfair and Jaric Stake Their Claims

    It may be a long time before Randy Foye earns the starting point guard position. The blueprint has it that Foye will be at the point just as soon as he works himself into game shape from that truculent knee injury that robbed him of more than half a season. For two games in a row he has been the first player off the bench and the plan is obviously to install him as the floor general for this ballclub as soon as possible.

    But that doesn’t mean he will *earn* the job, especially given the disparity between Foye’s stumblebum narcissism and the perspicacity with which the current PG incumbent, Bassy Telfair, performed tonight in a close loss to Houston that was well-played by both teams. It was perhaps Telfair’s best game of the season, right up there with the Indiana blowout and the near upset of the Celtics. He consistently dribble-penetrated through the tall trees of China (Yao Ming) and Spain (Luis Scola) and at least four of his dozen dimes were highlight-reel quality, the kind that lift a team’s offensive confidence the way a block or a steal lifts a defense.

    My personal favorite was the last of those 12 assists, occurring with 3:31 to play and the Wolves down 4, 78-82. Starting out at the left key, Telfair took a near baseline angle on his drive to the hoop, and Houston’s entire defense, accustomed to his artistry by now, coalesced around both the dribbler and the two big men in or near the paint. And so Bassy just kept going, beneath the hoop and apparently headed toward the corner, the place where he’d fed Ryan Gomes for a trey on the previous possession. But then he suddenly hooked back upward in a tight circle toward the foul line, getting about two steps and four dribbles before sending a bounce pass across the paint to a driving Craig Smith, who laid it in while being fouled by Shane Battier. These are the kinds of moves that make you happy you are watching hoops–so simultaneously splashy and selfless and filled with David vs. Goliath imagery, and happening in such a flash that the collective roar of the crowd is what most ratifies the fact that you have just seen it.

    And in fact we have not seen it very often in the history of the Timberwolves, where even successful points like Sam Cassell and Terrell Brandon didn’t exactly glide in for that flash, or polish up the feed on quite so shiny a silver platter. (That’s why Stephon Marbury was always regarded as the Judas of Wolves’ Camelot for bugging out on KG–and yes I just mixed about a half-dozen historical metaphors.) Hell, Telfair doesn’t do it that often, but tonight he made impartial observers wonder why you’d want a replacement–at least until he missed the jumper Houston dared him to shoot (he was 3-7 FG overall) with the Wolves down one with 51 seconds left to play.

    Foye was horrible. Most of his passes were benign, around-the-horn types delivered either from a standing dribble or after he’d already picked up the ball, not off penetration. He wasn’t quick and he wasn’t smart and he was foolishly too confident for his incomplete recovery to game shape. His lone assist, versus four turnovers, occurred when he fed Al Jefferson at the foul line and Jefferson took a jab step to feint out his opponent and then sailed in off the dribble to slam it home–in other words, an assist that was generously awarded. Yeah, I know that Foye can be special, that he likes the pressure, scores most of his points in the fourth quarter, etc. etc. But people forget that last year he shared half-court sets with some pretty fair passers who demanded double-teams when they got the ball–Kevin Garnett and Ricky Davis. You could run the entire offense through either one of them, and in fact the Wolves did so on a variety of occasions when Foye was the "floor general." The other day, Foye told the media that everybody would know he was back and fully recovered when he had "a big game." I got the distinct impression that he meant 30 points a lot more than he meant a dozen dimes. Anyway, he now has five assists and nine turnovers in four games since his return.

    Then there is Marko Jaric, owner of the team’s most bloated long-term contract, and tarnished by the unfortunate circumstance that he cost Minnesota not only Cassell (who had to go), but a still-to-be-sacrificed first round draft pick. At the beginning of the season, the Wolves could have "disappeared" both Jaric and Telfair and the faithful would have nodded their heads knowingly and figured it was an inevitable part of this rebuilding mop-up. Tonight each inspired in his own way. For Jaric it was chasing around sharpshooter Tracy McGrady until his uniform was sopped and nearly all the color (which wasn’t much to begin with) was drained from his Serbian face.

    This was particularly stirring during the yeoman third period when Houston ran Jaric through innumerable picks and McGrady was given license to take a five-point halftime lead and parlay it into comfortable double-digits, if not an outright blowout. T-Mac yo-yoed on the perimeter, straining Marko through the screens, ever testing for penetration, or angling to get him aloft with an up fake. When the quarter was over, McGrady was 2-8 FG in those 12 minutes, and held scoreless from the jumper he hit at 10:59 to the free throws he made at 2:59. During those eight minutes Jaric was not marvelous or magnificent so much as unrelenting and tunnel-visioned, winning the third period battle even after McGrady’s trey put Houston back on top by 3 in the quarter’s final 67 seconds.

    Although coach Randy Wittman gave Jefferson his first blow of the second half with 8:40 to go in the fourth quarter, he was appropriately loathe to replace Jaric with another defender on McGrady. But when Houston swelled the lead to 10 with 7:10 to play (with McGrady held scoreless in the 4th but with two assists), Witt needed more offensive firepower and subbed in Gomes for Jaric, sliding McCants over to guard T-Mac. McGrady promptly nailed a jumper from just inside the three-point line, then got into the paint (something that almost never happened with Jaric on him) and dished over to Bonzie Wells for a trey that negated two dime-initiated baskets by Telfair and kept the lead at 9. After that, McCants gathered himself and played pretty staunch defense. But McGrady jab-stepped left and nailed a 17-footer to give the Rockets back a one-point lead with 1:10 left to play, then essentially iced it with a trey with 31 seconds remaining to boost the Rockets’ lead to 4. Afterward, Wittman had the answer to my question about Jaric or McCants on T-Mac going before I could finish it, noting the lead that was widening, crediting both players with fine D on a very talented shooter, and saying that the plan had been to get Jaric back in the game at some point. But it didn’t happen.

    2. Shaddy’s Snit

    With 4:37 left in the second period, Rashad McCants was whistled for a charge on one of those calls that could have legitimately gone either way. But McCants was pissed and complained to the officials as the Wolves called timeout. After this extended harangue, Wittman caught Shaddy’s attention as he was headed toward the bench and harshly told him to get over to the sideline. McCants angrily threw his hand up in Wittman’s direction, turned his head away and yelled something on the order of "get fucked" as he went and sat down.

    When play resumed, McCants was obviously still seething. After a trey by McGrady, Shaddy nailed a step-back jumper, but then Rafer Alston hit a three, boosting Houston’s lead to a game-high 10. McCants’ pass was then stolen by Wells, but Corey Brewer stole a McGrady pass in turn a
    nd the Wolves headed down the court. When Jefferson fed the ball to Brewer for a jump shot, McCants was standing in the corner, first calling for the ball and then putting his hands on his hips and delivering a malevolent gaze at everyone. Shaddy’s fury was not lessened by the fact that Brewer hit the jumper and when Houston subsequently called timeout, he stalked to the bench in high dudgeon, yelling and screaming, presumably at the injustice of not getting the ball. Dressed in street clothes, Theo Ratliff came over first and tried to console him, or at least get him to pipe down. The coaches were still conferring with each other away from the sideline but the players couldn’t help but notice McCants going batshit and stole glances, mixed with a few sour looks, his way. When Witt and company came to the sideline and Wittman pulled out his chalkboard, McCants sat down to his right side. His back was to where I was sitting at this point, but it was obvious that his tirade was continuing because Mark Madsen (also in street clothes), a man of infinite patience and goodwill, got a dark look on his face and yelled out something, again presumably to quiet McCants. Finally, Wittman turned to his right, glowered at McCants, and hollared, either "get out of here" or "get the fuck out of here," but in any case, the way McCants’s shoulders kept moving, I assume he kept talking, until Wittman finally hollared again, "Shut up!" and then started to work on the upcoming play.

    When the players broke the huddle, McCants was no longer in the game. McCants continued to talk while on the bench, no longer quite so angry but demonstrably making his case beside Foye, who looked like he simply wanted the whole episode to be over. Shaddy’s teammates likewise regarded his actions as annoying during this entire time. I honestly wondered if there would be a significant blowback. Up in his seats at halfcourt, VP Kevin McHale clearly had a notion as to what was going on and just as clearly didn’t look very happy about it.

    Yet two minutes after the benching, Wittman called for McCants to re-enter the game with 52 seconds left in the half. And during the second half, McCants was given almost exactly the same minutes as in the first half, in almost exactly the same substitution pattern. So, on the surface at least, no hard feelings. When I asked Wittman about the "tiff" after the game, he asked what I meant by tiff. I repeated the "shut up!" part of the conversation and he said, with a good-natured smile on his face, "That’s coaching. When you tell a guy to shut up, it is time for him to shut up." And since it was already near the close of the post-game press conference anyway, he chose that point to walk away from the mic and end it there. McCants was already gone when I got to the locker room.

    3. Honorable Mentions

    Ho-hum, Al Jefferson had 33 points and 16 rebounds, although the four turnovers were a blemish. Meanwhile, unless Ryan Gomes is going off for 35, as he did against Golden State, or zero, as he did in the first of the back-to-back with Chicago, it is very difficult to know whether he has scored 6 or 25, because he gets them so efficiently in rhythm with the flow of the game. Tonight he had just two at the half, but posted ten more after the break, five in each of the third and fourth quarters, while outplaying his doppelganger Shane Battier, who was held scoreless in the second half and finished with just 5 points and 6 rebounds in 33:43.

  • The Three Pointer: Cruise Control

    Copyright 2008 NBAE (Photo by David Sherman/NBAE via Getty Images)

    Game #46, Home Game #22: LA Clippers 83, Minnesota 104

    Season record: 10-36

    1. Two Matchup Switches

    Sebastian Telfair was in the torture chamber that is Sam Cassell’s offensive bag of tricks. The first two times Cassell called his own number in Friday night’s game, the 6-3 motormouth was backing the 6-foot Bassy down in the low block, then missing the makeable turnaround J’s. After that, he stopped missing, hitting four of his next five shots in the period, plus three FTs that saddled Telfair with two fouls. When Randy Foye subbed in for Telfair, Cassell broke Foye’s ankles with a court-length dribble-layup–consider how back you have to be on defense for ancient Sam to do that to you–then fed Cuttino Mobley for a jumper.

    It was the Clips’ only assist in the period. They were too busy creating their own shots off dribble penetration, as evidenced by their 55% accuracy (11-20 FG) for the period. When an opponent shoots 55% with one assist, they are either pounding one huge matchup or the entire team is breaking down. For Minnesota, it was a little of both: Cassell alone had 13 points, 5 boards and that dime, but the other Clips weren’t too shabby at 6-12 FG as the Wolves were down seven at the period buzzer. Coach Randy Wittman glowered, spun, stamped his foot and hollared at his troops heading to the bench during a timeout.

    But it didn’t get any better in the first half of the second quarter. The Clips were 5-11 FG and coaxed 8 free throws from the too-late Minnesota D, while the Wolves themselves drew nada from the charity stripe. For a five-minute stretch, Minnesota’s offense boiled down to: get the ball to McCants and get the hell out of the way. At least that’s the way McCants saw it. Consigned to the bench apparently due to remnants of a flu that caused him to miss the previous game, he then saw Foye become the Wolves’ first sub. You think he was a little perturbed, perhaps ready to show the world a thing or two? Here is the total sum of the Wolves’ shot selection over a period of 4:17 of the second period:

    11:24: McCants, layup shot missed

    11:22: McCants, tip shot made

    10:46: McCants, jump shot made

    10:16: McCants, driving reverse layup shot made

    9:37: McCants, layup shot missed

    8:31: McCants, driving layup shot made

    7:54: McCants, fadeaway jumper missed

    7:07: McCants, 3pt shot missed

    Twelve seconds later, McCants picked up his third foul of the period and headed for the bench. Those in the pro-Shaddy camp will approvingly note that he made four of those eight shots, which was a damn sight better than the 34.6% Minnesota shot in the first period. Another positive is that five of those eight shots were in the paint–four layup attempts and a tip-in. And if you were there, it was a pretty conclusive demonstration that Rashad McCants can get his own shot pretty much whenever he wants against a decent NBA defense not specifically geared to stop him. But those same people saw that McCants had eyes for nothing but the hoop–his teammates might as well have been trading high-fives with Mad Dog. The three fouls likewise were no coincidence. When Shaddy is trying to rule on the offensive end, he has a tendency to overhype his defense–faux effort, in that he’s not thinking ahead anticipating his man’s move and he’s not moving his feet, at least not as pretty as those traipses through opponents when he’s the one with the ball. Bottom line, the Wolves were down 7 when he began his shooting spree, and down 12 when he grabbed some pine.

    It got as bad as 15, at 30-45 with 5:59 left to the play in the second period, when Telfair likewise picked up his third foul, joustling Cassell, naturally, and joined McCants on the bench. Then, because of two huge matchup switches, the game flipped, flipped hard, and never re-reversed itself.

    The first thing that happened was that Marko Jaric was sent back into the game to replace Telfair–and guard Cassell. What Sammy soon discovered was that Jaric was too large to fit inside the torture chamber. After getting 15 points with one assists and zero turnovers in 12:56 before Jaric came in for Telfair, Cassell registered just two more points, two assists and four turnovers in 14:50 after that.

    The second thing was that unheralded Josh Powell picked up his third foul trying to stop an Al Jefferson layup just 18 seconds after Marko switched in for Bassy. It was just the second bucket of the game for Jefferson, and afterward both Wittman and Jefferson said that was Jefferson’s fault, that he wasn’t being aggressive enough trying to get to the hole. I say they are being unfair to Powell, an undrafted kid in his second year out of North Carolina State who is already on his fourth NBA team and was busting his hump trying to deny Jefferson first the ball and then position. So with Powell’s third, in comes Aaron Williams, who is 6-9 like Powell but 15 pounds lighter at 225. With Elton Brand out all season with a shoulder, Chris Kamen sidelined with the flu (ditto free throw machine Corey Maggette), and Powell on the bench in foul trouble, Aaron Williams was choice #4 to match up with Jefferson. He should have been #5. Jefferson scored 9 points over the next 2:20 and the Wolves were down only 4, 56-52, at the break.

    "Run roughshod" is a good cliche for the second half. The Clips had nothing, shooting 10-34 FG and getting only 27 points in the entire 24 minutes. For the second half of the final quarter, they had a backcourt of 5-10 Brevin Knight and 6-0 Dan Dickau. Wittman called it the best 24 minutes of perimeter D he’s seen this season, but I think all but the final minute–the collapse, in other words–against the Celts in the second half was better, because the opposition was a JV team. I mean, Al Thornton, that stupidly trendy pick for ROY before the season started, was 1-15 FG. Meanwhile, Craig Smith himself had 19 points in the second half, on 8-10 FG.

    2. The Backcourt Jumble

    So what did Jaric’s stellar stopper performance on Cassell–he was plus +24, with 8 assists and but a single turnover–do to enhance his place in the crowded backcourt picture? And what about Shaddy, the Mad Bombadier? Well, the tea leaves on the second question are easier to answer than the first. After the game, I asked Wittman if McCants might have freer rein to let fly when he’s a sub coming off the bench versus when he is a starter. "Yeah," the coach acknowledged, looking down at a stat line that had McCants attempting a dozen shots in 13:36. Then he added, well, how often was he in there with Al, or Gomes?

    And right there you realize that if you’ve got a low block stud in the game alongside a sage, keep-the-ball moving teammate in the frontcourt, *and* a shoot-first point guard just returning from injury but expected to be a pillar for your future, the best place for a protean swingman who can almost always get his own shot might be coming off the bench while those previous three take a breather. Translation: Jefferson and Gomes are two-thirds of any frontcourt allignment from here on out. Sooner, rather than later, Foye will be the point guard. With those three in the game, what you need most is passing, defense, and, especially if it is Witt’s smallball outfit, a little more length. That’s Marko.

    How well McCants takes to this is fairly predictable–not well. His demeanor and behavior have indicated thus far this season that starting matters to him. Will having the opportunity to be the gunner without a conscience compensate at all for this perceived slight?

    When I naturally followed up Witt’s inference by saying, so the idea will be to bring McCants off the bench for instant offense, the coach gave a "we’ll see" reply. But it is hard not to see that’s wha
    t he had in mind. When McCants was jacking up 8 shots in 4 minutes, the man giving him the ball and waving goodbye to the rest of the play was Foye. *That’s* not going to happen too many games in a row. Lest we all had forgotten, Foye has a pretty large ego too. In his postgame comments Friday, he reminded folks that the team is 2-1 since his return, that he is indeed a point guard much more than a two-guard–"it’s the way I play, the way I do things"–and that "You’ll know when I’m back: I’ll have a big game and play more than 24 minutes." Friday’s tote: 2-5 FG, 2 assists, one turnover with a pair of steals. He had more shots and half as many assists as Telfair; only half as many shots yet just one-quarter the assists of Jaric. Stay tuned.

    3. Jefferson to Brewer…

    At least three times on Friday, Al Jefferson set Corey Brewer up for a perfect layup. At least two other times, Jefferson’s pass provided Brewer with a wide open jumper. Brewer finished 2-9 FG, and Jefferson was credited with but two dimes, one of them to Brewer. In other words, Brewer hurried the bunnies Jefferson was pulling out of his hat for him, going too strong on a pair of layup attempts and not assembling the sort of silky flow on practically any of his jumpers that elicit confidence that the ball is going to go in. For the season, Brewer now has 95 makes in 271 attempts, or 35%. The hard part is that he’s missing good shots.

    Now let’s look at the good news in this exchange. Jefferson’s growth at finding the open man when teams collapse on him is becoming manifest. Seriously, Jefferson deserved at least five assists, in just 29:58 on Friday (he didn’t play the entire fourth quarter of the blowout). On Monday, the team that gave the Wolves their worst whupping of the season–the Houston Rockets–come to Target Center. Don’t be surprised if Michael Doleac gets a few Jefferson feeds for midrange jumpers when Houston comes with the double-team. And don’t be surprised if Corey Brewer is on the bench.

  • Abbreviated Three-Pointer: Chicago Split and the Return of Foye

    Copyright 2008 NBAE (Photo by David Sherman/NBAE via Getty Images)

    Game #44, Road Game #24: Minnesota 85, Chicago 96

    Game #45, Home Game #21: Chicago 67, Minnesota 83

    Season record: 9-36

    1. Legitimately Respectable

    Flirting with the flu, I decided to avoid contaminating Target Center last night and catch my second straight Bulls-Wolves tilt on the tube. And as both teams renewed their clankfest of the previous evening, it struck me how precipitously fortunes can flip in the NBA. A year ago before the playoffs, I had the Bulls as the likely choice to reach the Finals. This preseason, I figured them for a #2 seed. After watching 96 minutes of head-to-head competition, I like the Wolves’ situation better for both the near and long term future. Chicago is paying Ben Wallace twice as much as the Wolves are paying Al Jefferson. Both Luol Deng and Ben Gordon can be unrestricted free agents after next season. Unless Deng and/or Gordon can be coaxed to stay, Kirk Hinrich and Andres Nocioni will be the backbone of this team, with Thabo Sefolosha and Yoakim Noah–both very good, underrated glue guys–and Wallace filling out the lineup.

    In Minnesota, Jefferson keeps getting better. The Strib calling him the "New KG" on its front page the other day simply made that declining newspaper look all the more clueless, and the gabfest on FoxSports last night universally lauding the KG-Jefferson deal continues the frantic spin cycle before Garnett comes to town a week from tomorrow. Perhaps if the "Old KG" was still around, FoxSports wouldn’t have to show Sweetwater Jones 73 times per telecast or have Jim Petersen and Mike McCollow roll up their shirtsleeves and literally go through the motions on its postgame in lieu of paid advertisements.

    But I digress, and it is not fair to Jefferson, who needs no false comparisons to announce his value. One of the few things he and Garnett have in common is an uncommonly dogged work ethic, and watching the budding low-post stud parse and fathom the game but aging Wallace on the tail end of the back-to-back should warm the hearts of the Wolves’ faithful. After going 4-5 FG in the first quarter Tuesday night and 6-9 FG for the half, Jefferson was taken out of his rhythm by Wallace in the third quarter, shooting 1-5 FG. The Bulls extended a one-point lead with 10:16 to go in the third up to 11 points with 7 seconds to play in the period and that was essentially the ballgame.

    Last night, Jefferson wore Wallace out. Once again, the two big men played only when the other was on the court. After shooting 3-10 FG in the first half, Jefferson went 9-14 FG in the second. Through the first six quarters of their matchup, Jefferson was minus -34, Wallace plus +34. In the last two quarters, Big Al was plus +13 and Wallace was minus -12 before interim Bulls coach Jim Boylan finally threw in the towel and sat him with 2:32 left to play. Sometimes the most basic numbers tell the story most eloquently. This was one of those gritty, ugly 83-67 ballgames. And the man Ben Wallace was guarding went off for 26 points and 20 rebounds.

    Without belaboring the point, as Jefferson raised his offense from a B+ to an A over the past week or two, his defense has been elevated from a D to a C. Sure, some of this is two games against Ben Wallace, who will make any defender well with his nonexistent O. But after showing little genuine interest in denying points to the other team, Jefferson does seem to be more engaged in deterring penetration, rotating over to the opposite block and, albeit less successfully, showing on the pick and roll. It’s coming.

    Not coincidentally, the Wolves are slowly but surely turning into a respectable basketball team–not good, or perhaps even mediocre, but a threat to snatch wins when given the opportunity. Last night provided the perfect example of Kevin McHale’s dictum that you can win a dozen or more games simply by making a consistent effort against teams that don’t bother to show up.

    2. Foye’s First Two

    We’ll get more into #4 when I’m feeling better and there is a larger sample size, but what most struck me about Foye’s first two games is that his offense was way ahead of his defense and that he most definitely fits the mold of a shoot-first point guard. That’s an indirect compliment to Bassy Telfair, who has accustomed us to a point guard who prioritizes ball distribution and proactive passing (as opposed to the more passive perimeter tossover or the dump into the post). Foye had 10 shots and zero assists in 21:16 last night after going 4-8 FG with 2 dimes in 17:43 Tuesday. That’s 18 shots and two assists in 38:59, and aside from a Gerald Green or Shaddy-like flurry of 3-3 FG to open Tuesday’s second quarter, he was 4-15 from the field. If this keeps up, Foye will be robbing time from Shaddy, GG, and Jaric more than from Telfair. Here’s hoping as Foye gets settled in that there will be less spangles and more glue to his all around game.

    3. Small vs. Large Update

    Ryan Gomes was too classy to say he was playing out of position on Tuesday night, blaming his own lack of aggressiveness for his scoreless evening, But did we really need to watch Jefferson-Gomes-McCants play head-up against Wallace-Noah-Nocioni for very long before deciding it wasn’t going to be pretty? How often do the Wolves get outrebounded 4 to 3 (48-36)? When last night’s starting lineup had Brewer in for Shaddy, I assumed it was a height thang rather than a virus on McCants.

    Anyway, I thought two stints really changed the nature of last night’s game. The first was when coach Randy Wittman finally went big, putting Michael Doleac and Antoine Walker in so that Gomes was kicked down to small forward at the beginning of the second period. The Wolves were plus +8 over the next 5:40. The second tone-changer was when Boylan subbed in guard Chris Duhon for the seven-footer Noah with 5:38 to go in the third. The Bulls were minus -11 for the rest of the period. That’s a total 19-point swing in a combined 11:18, and it happened when the Wolves went big and then when the Bulls went small.

  • The Three Pointer: A "W" With Character

    Copyright 2008 NBAE (Photo by David Sherman/NBAE via Getty Images)

    Game #43, Home Game #20: New Jersey 95, Minnesota 98

    Season record: 8-35

    1. Carried By Jefferson

    For three quarters tonight, the Timberwolves were more of a one-man team than in any competitive game they have played this season. Al Jefferson had 33 points, more than half of the Wolves’ team total of 64. Rashad McCants was the only other Timberwolf in double figures, with 13, Jefferson had 13 rebounds, nearly half the team’s 27, with Ryan Gomes second with 4. Jefferson had gone to the free throw line a dozen times, making 9. No one else on the team had visited the charity stripe.

    Yet heading into that fourth quarter, Minnesota was down by double-digits, 74-64. Jefferson was obviously dominant; just as obviously, productive complements were hard to come by.

    In that final, game-changing period, however, the Wolves’ reared up and outscored New Jersey 34-21 to steal this game. What’s more, the theft was legit–this was the fifth straight quality game for Randy Wittman’s ballclub, and the Nets came into the Target Center already having lost eight in a row. Minnesota claimed this W the "right" way: With grit and ingenuity, and confidence, the ingredients of character and resilience. A new dynamic took hold: Jefferson scored only 7 of those 34 points, and made only 1 of the 8 field goals of that period. After scoring 31 points in the game’s first 36 minutes, the non-Jeffersons racked up 27 in the final 12.

    We’ll get to those vital contributions in a moment. This first point appropriately belongs to Jefferson. Five times tonight Big Al muscled the ball through the hoop while being fouled in the paint. Every single time he nailed the free throw to complete the three-point play. Only four of his 13 baskets were jumpers; two were tip-ins and 7 were lay-ups. A whopping 19 of his career high (and Wolves’ season high) 40 points were a direct result of his 8 offensive rebounds. In other words, on his on, Jefferson registered five treys and 19 second-chance points.

    True to form, he started badly on defense. His failure to box out led to an easy Richard Jefferson putback, then good-looking rookie Sean Williams slammed home a pair of dunks in which Big Al was a step slow. Teammate Rashad McCants picked up his second foul and went to the bench just 2:37 into the game covering up what appeared to be another blown Jefferson assignment.

    But even here, Jefferson’s game showed steady improvement. It helped that Williams, while incredibly talented, is still raw; that Josh Boone boasts the skills of a certified journeyman; and that Jason Collins doesn’t look to shoot. Nevertheless, Jefferson became increasingly active as the game went along, both is bodying up his man down low, rotating over in the paint, and deterring penetration (his pick and roll defense is still suspect). Throw in a couple of blocks, a steal and three big assists, and you’ve got an all-star caliber performance. They haven’t been as frequent as Wolves’ boosters claim, which is all the more reason to celebrate the ones that do occur.

    2. Anatomy Of A Comeback

    One of the key turning points in this game actually occurred just four minutes into the second half. Tired of watching McCants get roasted by New Jersey’s Richard Jefferson, Wittman used the occasion of Marko Jaric’s fourth foul to go with a larger lineup, subbing in Craig Smith for Jaric, a move that slid Ryan Gomes down to small forward to guard Jefferson and McCants down to shooting guard to cover Vince Carter. At the time, Richard Jefferson had 27 points in 18 minutes of action, including 10-14 FG. He scored just a single point (0-3FG, 1-2FT) the rest of the third quarter. Gomes’s entire third quarter line looks like this: one foul in 10:28. And yet he was plus +4, devoting himself to shutting down New Jersey’s biggest threat. The ability of the Wolves to negate one Jefferson while the Nets couldn’t negate another Jefferson played a centra role in this comeback.

    Meanwhile, freed of getting schooled by Jefferson and with Vince Carter now guarding him, McCants immediately erupted for 7 points in the first 1:27 after Wittman changed the lineup. The Wolves hacked a double-digit deficit down to 2 with 4:30 left to go in the third before Jason Kidd temporarily filled the void left by Richard Jefferson being shut down, nailing three treys in the next 2:44 (nearly the entire amount of his 11 point game) to boost the lead back to ten heading into the final quarter.

    No matter: The tone had been set. Jefferson went 1-8 FG for the game after Wittman went big. And on offense, the kamikaze 34 point final period was sparked by a pair of differently-styled swingmen, Corey Brewer and Gerald Green. I have ripped on the latter more than a little, but with the possible exception of the Indiana game, this is the best he’s looked in terms of his all-around contribution to a victory thus far this year. You expect two treys every now and then from the offensively volatile GG. The bonus here was a pair of steals from someone who has been a perpetually befuddled defender, not to mention some tenacious on-ball coverage of both Jefferson and Carter. Wittman often goes to a zone to protect against Green’s lapses on D. But when Gomes came in for GG with 5:04 to play, Green’s performance at both ends of the court had helped whittle a 13-point deficit down to 6 in less than six minutes’ time.

    Brewer likewise had something to do with that surge, while delivering his second impressive game in a row–especially in the 4th quarter. The comparison to last year’s top draft pick–"4th quarter Foye"–is apt in that, even in light of his disastrous 5-second out of bounds violation against Boston, Brewer is not rattled by crunchtime pressure. On the contrary: Like Foye, playing in a tight game down the homestretch seems to trigger confident memories of his successful college program, and his leadership role in it. Playing against a squad renowned for a lightning-quick trio now past their primes–Jefferson-Kidd-Carter–Brewer simply outhustled everyone on the floor; snatching offensive rebounds and twice flying down the court in transition fast enough that New Jersey had no choice but to foul him. On a night when Vince Carter frequently burned him on high pick-and-roll jumpers, it was Brewer’s offense that redeemed him, specifically three offensive rebounds and 6-6 FT that gave him a team-high 8 points in the final period. He also led the way in terms of raw passion, thrusting his fist out in triumph after getting fouled or when rugged scrums he helped initiate enabled the Wolves to secure another possession on the ball going out of bounds.

    Yet despite the heroics of Green and Brewer, the Wolves were still down 7 with 1:19 to play. *This* is where the character showed, where a callow team finally gelling after nearly three solid months of embarrassing ineptitude snatched the game from a group of desultory vets who weren’t very determined to halt their long losing streak.

    McCants hit his 4th trey of the game from the left side of the arc, making it 95-91 with 1:15 to go. Then something remarkable happened: Jason Kidd made a stupid decision. After Richard Jefferson had cooled off, the Nets’ bread-and-butter offense in the second half had been the high pick and roll with Kidd, dishing to Carter who would work the play with a big man. Needing just another bucket to likely seal the win, the Nets logically looked to be setting up the same play as Kidd dribbled to his right. But suddenly Kidd reversed field away from the pick and roll confluence and zipped a pass beneath the hoop to the relatively open center Jason Collins. But Collins wasn’t so open that he couldn’t be fouled by Al Jefferson, which is exactly what happened. And coming into the game, Collins had converted just
    10 of 30 free throws–he was the Wolves’ equivalent of Mad Dog Madsen. Not too surprisingly, he bricked both free throws with 56 seconds left to play.

    On the ensuring play, Sebastian Telfair kept his cool, refused to pick up his dribble against pressure, and found an open Gomes standing in the corner. Gomes, who had shot a putrid 9-41 from outside the arc over his past 16 games, let it fly….swish. It was now 95-94 with 40 seconds to go. Vince Carter then clanks a too-long jumper on a stilted possession for New Jersey and the Wolves rebound with 21 seconds to go. Witt calls timeout and inserts McCants in for Brewer as part of the offensive-defensive platoon he’s running between the two as much as circumstances permit. Shaddy decides he’ll be the man, but his jumper is a tad long time–only to be corralled off the carom by Al Jefferson–remember him?–he gets fouled before he has a chance to go back up. In the classic crunchtime free throw situation–down 1, two shots, 11 seconds to play–Jefferson doesn’t flinch, sinking his 18th and 19th second chance points of the game to put the Wolves in the lead for the first time since the first 90 seconds of the game.

    Last gasp for New Jersey. Richard Jefferson gets position but his six-foot jumper on the baseline hits the front iron and doesn’t creep over. Al Jefferson grabs his 19th rebound of the game, the Nets foul and Al cinches it with two more free throws to register his first-ever 40 point game.

    3. Cause For Optimism

    Foye and Ratliff are on the mend. Brewer, Jefferson and Telfair are all playing with enormous confidence. After a home-and-home with the underachieving Bulls (I’ll do my next trey on both of them together on Thursday), the Wolves play nine of the next ten games at home.

  • The Three Pointer: Best Beats Worst By One

    Copyright 2008 NBAE (Photo by Brian Babineau/NBAE via Getty Images)

    Game #42, Road Game #23: Minnesota 86, Boston 87

    Season record: 7-35

    1. KG In A Nutshell

    During the twelve years Kevin Garnett spent with the Timberwolves, a debate steadily escalated over his true value and place in the annals of the all-time great NBA players. KG supporters could point to his unprecedented versatility, his unbelievable endurance, his unyielding work ethic, and his infectious competitive spirit. Critics carped that there was a level of greatness to which KG’s character and temperament could not ascend: The ability to put a team on his back and deliver the goods when it mattered most; the seizing of the onus that he would be The Man when a Man was required.

    Garnett boosters point to the longest consecutive streak of at least 20 points, 10 rebounds and 5 assists–7 years, nearly all of them buttressed by KG’s place on the league’s all-defensive team. His detractors would point to one measly year in which the Wolves made it past the first round of the playoffs, and three straight years in the prime of his career when his squad didn’t even make the postseason.

    Most Wolves fans are intimately familiar with the debate, which prompts eye-opening claims on both sides. Detractors like to say that Garnett is merely a great sidekick, that he needs a more dominant personality on the team in order to be truly effective, a Pippen to someone else’s Jordan. Strib writer Jim Souhan and KFAN jock Dan Barreiro have both voiced this view, with Souhan recently dubbing Garnett the "world’s greatest complementary player." By contrast, Celtics’ color commentator Cedric Cornbread Maxwell was the latest to big-up Garnett by naming him the second best player in Celtics history, behind only Bill Russell and ahead of Larry Bird, among others. Maxwell didn’t flinch from the predictable outcry, saying that KG’s huge edge on defense tipped the scales in his favor.

    As one who is closer to Maxwell’s view than Barreiro’s and Souhan’s–I have actually taken the Garnett position in KG vs. Bird debates, although I go back and forth on who I think is a better player–it was a sincere pleasure watching the greatest Timberwolf there likely will ever be in my lifetime going against the Timberwolves when it counts (meaning a non-exhibition game) for the first time in his career last night. And it was a curiously nostalgic feeling to be marveling in his myriad gifts on the court and then being compelled to remember again his "flaw of unselfishness" that is necessarily part and parcel of his many virtues.

    101 seconds into the game, when KG vanquished a triple-team near the corner baseline by feeding to his point guard Rajon Rondo for an easy layup, I realized how very little that has occurred on the Wolves this season, and how deeply ensconced such a play was in the DNA of any Wolves fan who watched the team in the KG era. Ditto when Garnett sealed off penetration with his interior rotation and his help with teammate Kendrick Perkins guarding Al Jefferson.

    But after going 4-4 FG and registering a game-best plus +7 to lead the Celts to a three point halftime lead, Garnett stubbornly continued to take only what the Wolves’ D gave him in the second half. Now that he’s surrounded with the highest caliber teammates of his 13 years in the league, KG is even more inclined to trust his teammates with the open look–something Wolves’ fans always admired and cursed during his stint in Minnesota. If four shots in 16:29 seems like injurious modesty for a 7-1 gazelle being guarded by Al Jefferson and/or Ryan Gomes, consider that Garnett deigned to offer up exactly one shot in 14:35 of second half action, with Antoine Walker as one of the prime defenders.

    Yes, the Wolves (obviously wisely) chose to constantly at least double and often triple team him. But how many bricks does Ray Allen have to toss before you realize it just isn’t his night? For all you folks who watched the game–how many times to KG dish out to the perimeter to an open Ray Allen; five? Six? Eight? Do you know how many times Garnett assisted on an Allen bucket? Zero. Allen going 1-9 FG in the first half should have been a clue. Then 1-4 FG in the third quarter. Then he got "hot" and went 2-5 FG in the final period. That’s 4-18, with five turnovers to boot.

    Meanwhile, after doing a marvelous job of breaking down the Wolves with dribble penetration in the first half–he was 1-5 FG but had 6 dimes and 4-4 FT in 20:06–Paul Pierce had a surprisingly difficult time with Corey Brewer’s length and quickness and the Wolves’ alternation of zone and deftly rotating man-to-man. Pierce clearly remained a thorn for the Wolves–he finished with 19 points, 9 boards and 8 assists–he Minnesota made him earn it, sending him to the line 10 times (he made them all) and forcing him into a 4-18 FG night with a half dozen turnovers.

    So, to recap: The smaller two of the Big Three for the Celts combined for 8-33 from the field with 11 turnovers. The current favorite to win the NBA MVP was 4-5 FG with 2 turnovers that weren’t his fault. The faithful in Boston are generally smart hoops observers, and probably appreciated how Garnett’s defense quieted Gomes in the first half (5 points and 2 rebouns for someone averaging 16 and 7 for the past few weeks) and helped quiet Jefferson in the second (6 points and 3 rebounds for the 20-12 Big Al; by contrast, Craig Smith had 4 points and a team-high 10 rebounds playing 13:22 of his 14:20 with KG on the bench). Even so, if you’re a diehard Celtic fan, you’re screaming for KG to get the ball and then do something with it in the direction of the hoop. You’re like Doc Rivers, who went bananas on Tony Allen after Allen chose to drive the lane and *then* dish to KG, resulting in a three-second call (the first of Garnett’s two turnovers) rather than immediately feeding an open KG on the low block. Allen, a third year pro currently averaging 6.0 ppg., had as many shots in the 4th quarter as Garnett took the entire game. The problem is that Doc had to speak for KG, who needed to pull a Keyshawn Johnson–as in "somebody get me the damn ball!"–long before then.

    But then it’s crunchtime and many of the attributes that make Garnett a player for the ages come to the fore. After staggering to the sidelines with an "abdominal strain" (replays seemed to indicate that Brewer inadvertantly punched him in the nuts trying to strip him on a drive to the hoop, creating a pain intense enough for Garnett to immediately drop the basketball, which was his second turnover), Garnett went to the dressing room for four minutes of play in the latter stages of the fourth quarter. His trainer advised him not to play again that night. But Garnett talked his way back into the lineup. Amazing ability to surmount all manner of injuries? Check. Which segues into the Celts’ last basket: KG sets the pick that frees Ray Allen for an open layup which Allen promptly blows, but the Wolves are so concerned with Allen-Pierce-KG that Perkins has an easy weakside putback. Faithfully doing the little things that don’t show up on the box score but help the team? Check. Which segues into the final play of the game. KG, the seven-footer, ranges out to the perimeter beyond the three point arc and uses what Flip Saunders calls his Inspector Gadget arms to steal the ball from Sebastian Telfair, diving on the floor with Telfair to push the ball ahead toward the other end of the court as the buzzer sounds, sealing Boston’s one-point win. Freakish athletic versatility and extra hustle in service of defense? Check.

    Which segues into something that is foreign territory for Wolves fans, even when KG was here. Team has a serious chance of contending for the NBA championship? Check.

    2. What About The Wolves?

    They played thei
    r fourth solid game in a row. After the Celtics burned them with a flurry of points in the paint early, they played good-to-great defense in the second half, perhaps their best defensive effort of the season. The bench was especially important here, with Brewer regaining that controlled intensity on defense that has been only sporadic in recent weeks (and don’t overlook the continued accuracy of his much-maligned jumper–he went 4-8 FG tonight), and Walker ball-hawking superbly as well as giving KG a variety of different looks, occasionally fronting him and at other times fighting him for postion. Yes, they concentrated on not letting Garnett, and then Pierce, beat them, and if Ray Allen could have hit the broad side of a barn, that strategy could have easily looked foolish, or soon abandoned. As it was, Perkins was free to cut in from the baseline most any time he chose, which is why he went 8-10 FG with a game-high 21 points. But that’s why the Celts own the NBA’s best record–they have a load of offensive weapons and are playing stout team defense.

    Most nights a game like Brewer’s would have qualified as the most pleasant surprise, but Top Kudo of this tilt has to be Bassy Telfair’s team-MVP performance. Not only did Telfair face up to Boston’s pressure defense–his counterpart Rondo is a superb defender–with six assists versus three turnovers, but he was the most confident Timberwolf on the floor during the 4th quarter, one of the rare occasions that can be said about a Minnesota point guard this year. Knowing him well from his stint here last year, Boston dared him to shoot and so Bassy did–7-14 FG, including 3-7 in a throat-squeezing final period–while playing the entire second half. Along with his team-high 18 points he chipped in 3 steals (Walker had 4, and the Wolves as a team filched a remarkable 13). But most significant was his demeanor. This was a player determined to live up to that cliche of the guy returning home to show his former team they had made a mistake giving up on him. Mission accomplished.

    Some final quick hits about the Wolves this night:

    Great to be reminded that Corey Brewer has a killer instinct. When the Wolves were making their run and forcing the Celts into 6 straight turnovers at one point, you could just see Brewer pouncing on the perceived vulnerability, upping his aggressiveness and looking to do something very proactive at both ends of the court, be it a steal, a daring assist, or a jumper with a flourish. He and Telfair were fearless, trying to dance on a grave in crunchtime. It augured well for the rook’s future.

    For the second straight game, Craig Smith had trouble getting his shot to drop but worked hard on the glass, pulling in ten rebounds. There is no place for Smith in the team’s starting lineup, nor should there be. But in the right situations he can be a valuable reserve on a good team.

    Got to hand it to Gerald Green, who, inserted into the game for the first time in nearly two weeks in the final seconds of the first period, went on one of his little mini-explosions in the second quarter, with 8 quick points. He also played what for him was very good defense (and what for others would be very inconsistent) and obviously seemed happy to be back on a court where he had plenty of opportunity to shine last season. I understand this is condescending, but I can’t help but liken Green being in the game to a child holding a gun with a robber in the house: His family knows somebody is going to get hurt and they just hope they buck the odds and it turns out to be the other guy.

    3. The Unpleasant Shilling of Hanny and Pete

    I have great respect for Wolves announcers Tom Hanneman and Jim Petersen, and when you get the NBA League Pass (it has been free all this week on cable, in an effort to sell the half-season remaining for $99) you hear commentators working games for other teams who usually aren’t up to their standard, particularly in analyzing the game and refraining from blatant homerism.

    But last night was a sorry exception for Hanny and Pete and made the game practically unlistenable. The first problem was when Petersen went out of his way to justify the KG deal as having been a shrewd trade. Now I endorsed the trade at the time it was made, and still think the deal was one Minnesota had to make, given all the financial and attitudinal circumstances involved. But methinks Pete doth protest too much about how Minnesota didn’t get screwed. To do that, he absolutely lionized Al Jefferson, who obviously was the key to the deal, along with the draft picks, for the Wolves. I like Al Jefferson, quite a bit in fact, all things being equal. But when Pete brings up only to downplay the Lakers’ offer of Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom and others, in order to continue praising Jefferson by comparison, it begins to sound fishy. Raving about how Jefferson is such a great low-post scorer at the age of 22 (he forgets Jeff turned 23 on January 4), Pete conveniently omits that Bynum won’t turn 21 until October, averages more rebounds per 48 minutes than Big Al, is two inches taller than Big Al, is already a better defender than Big Al, is shooting 63.6% from the field and averaging more than 13 points per game in less than 29 minutes of action. And gave Jefferson fits in their head-to-head matchups this season.

    I’m not saying Bynum is better than Jefferson; only that it will be an intriguing thing to track as they both mature over the next five or six years. And, more to the point, the same *must* be said about the Garnett deal. Minnesota could very well look very smart round about 2010–or look like fools. As I say, relative to other superstar trades, I think McHale and Minnesota came out pretty well, at least on paper, compared to what, say, Philly got for Iverson.

    But let’s get a little perspective. Boston came into this game with the best record in the NBA–and undefeated against the generally tougher Western Conference (and yes, I know they haven’t played the West’s cream of the crop). Minnesota came into this game with the worst record in the NBA. This is *not* the time to be thumping your chest about how well the Wolves did in that transaction. Petersen can be prone to overselling the Wolves, but generally he stays on firmer ground than this.

    Having invested themselves in praising the blockbuster deal that had so many of the players on the court staring at the uniforms they so recently wore, Hanny and Pete began to root for the Wolves as nakedly as I can ever remember, and it really hurt the quality of their announcing. Petersen moaned about a no-call on Jefferson (hardly the first of the evening–the refs pretty much let them play) but didn’t bat an eye that there was no call on the play that sent KG to the sidelines and prompted a turnover just a few minutes before then. He openly wondered if the five-second call on Corey Brewer–a devastating crunchtime turnover–was a quick count by the ref until the replay demolished that little conspiracy theory.

    Meanwhile, Hanny offered up a series of whoppers. Two of my "favorites," in stiff competition, was first his claim in the 4th quarter that "Garnett has not been a big factor. Al Jefferson has been a big factor;" then, sailing into a commercial, the statement that if the Wolves were to prevail it would be "One of the biggest wins in franchise history." To state the obvious, KG was a big factor in the Celtics win–he already had one of those double-doubles Hanny used to rave about when Garnett played for the Wolves (he finished the game with 16 rebounds), and was a defensive force the entire night. And unless Al Jefferson went off for 82 points on 29-53 FG and 24-33 FT or something, any game that would "up" Minnesota’s record to 8-34 is not, in the grand scheme of things, memorable to any franchise–even the Timberwolves.

    I expect sanity will be restored during the next telecast.

  • The Three Pointer: Two Straight

    Copyright 2008 NBAE (Photo by David Sherman/NBAE via Getty Images)

    Game #41, Home Game #19: Phoenix 107, Minnesota 117

    Season record: 7-34

    1. About That Small Lineup…

    I can argue that three players are operating away from their natural position, that the defense is terrible, that opponents who play fundamentally sound "playoff style" basketball will destroy them, and that this is clearly not the best way to build for the future. But coach Randy Wittman and any other proponent of the small lineup the Wolves have been trotting out lately can offer up a pretty strong rebuttal: With Al Jeffeson at center flanked by Ryan Gomes and Rashad McCants as the forwards and the dual-point backcourt of Marko Jaric and Sebastian Telfair comprising the starting five, Minnesota’s record is 3-3. With every other lineup, the mark is 4-31.

    During tonight’s whupping of Phoenix–the game wasn’t nearly as close as the 117-107 final margin–the Wolves certainly didn’t play "small." They completely dominated the battle of the boards, essentially splitting the rebounds of their own misses (grabbing 22 offensive boards versus the Suns’ 23 defensive rebounds) while owning their defensive glass by margin of 26-3. The backcourt fed the paint: Jaric and Telfair had a combined assist-to-turnover ratio of 18/2, while the frontcourt was merely 6/6, and the Wolves racked up 56 points in the paint (versus 44 for Phoenix) and 26 second chance points (to Phoenix’s 6). Oh, and for the second time in three meetings this season, "center" Al Jefferson absolutely destroyed "center" Amare Stoudemire when the Wolves had the ball.

    More than any game thus far this season, Jefferson played offense with a killer instinct. The raw numbers are pretty revealing: 39 points, 14 free throws, 8 offensive rebounds. Stoudemire was helpless. Or, better put, the Suns starting giving him a lot of help, with as many as two or three others collapsing on Jefferson when he received the rock, and it really didn’t matter. If for some reason Jefferson didn’t succeed at first, he got the ball back and tried again. The dude finished with 29 FGA (making 15) and 14 FTA (making 9) and it didn’t feel like he was hogging the ball. That’s when you know you are having fun.

    A brief pause here, while I drop a fly in the punchbowl. Jefferson’s utter lack of defense was nearly as monumental as his voracious offense. Stoudemire was 14 of 16 from the field and one of his two misses was a meaningless trey chucked with three seconds left in the game. He scored 33 points in the 29:40 that Jefferson was guarding him, which is why Jefferson finished the game with a team-worst minus -4. That doesn’t change the fact that Jefferson was the dominant force in a Wolves’ victory, because he most indisputably was. But it does neatly encapsulate the spectacularly half-assed season Jefferson is putting together. Okay, let’s move on.

    In fact let’s conclude this first point by giving Wittman the chance to explain why he likes the small lineup, in response to a postgame question from the PiPress’s Rick Alonzo. "I just like the spacing with Ryan at the 4 and with having our two ball-handlers in the backcourt, not turning the ball over." Earlier, Witt had opined that flexing Gomes between the 3 and the 4 may have something to do with his current resurgence: "He can get open more easily on the perimeter with a 4 on him, and he can post up more easily on a 3."

    2. Kudos Chorus Line

    However Gomes is stepping up his game, it sure is fun to watch. Wittman mentioned two "huge" shots he made, a left-handed flip from 5 feet out cutting across the lane late in the third period, and a baseline jumper midway through the 4th quarter, both of them after Phoenix had cut the lead to 11 and were threatening to get it beneath that psychologically important double-digit deficit. For me it was the way Gomes mixed it up in the area from directly underneath the hoop out to the sidelines; keeping rebounds in play, chasing after loose balls, making the right interior pass, constantly moving without the ball, and laying a body on his man on defense. It seemed fairly obvious that Shawn Marion mailed this one in–he attempted just three shots and grabbed three rebounds in 32:33–but Gomes’s dogged demeanor successfully encouraged that malaise. Put it this way, when Marion’s matchup outscores him by 7, outrebounds him by 6, and gets just as many steals, blocks and assists, the Suns’ odds of winning drop dramatically.

    Kudos also go out to Marko Jaric, the man I have nominated to head to the bench in favor of a center Chris Richard. Wittman has done exactly the opposite, sitting Marko a grand total of 3:48 *combined* the past two games. And in those two victories, Marko has compiled remarkably similar stats, registering 15 points, 8 rebounds and 10 assists tonight after going for 16-8-10 versus Golden State on Monday. For a man who hates to come out and pouts when he isn’t playing and/or the team is losing, Marko needs to cherish the current harmonic convergence of his Iron Man status (others include superrapper Ghostface Killah and comic book superhero Tony Starks, neither of whom have supermodel Adriana Lima at his elbow) on a team with a winning streak, however modest. Life is good, even when the thermometer says -16.

    Kudos also to the trio coming off the Wolves’ bench, and to Wittman for keeping the rotation down to 8. How many times have we seen the Wolves and their opponent feel each other out, play on relatively even terms, and then have the opponent explode for a 10 or 12 point splurge in the second quarter to open up a formidable gap that essentially dictates the course of the game from there on out? Wasn’t that pretty much what happened when Minnesota travelled to Phoenix less than a week ago? Well tonight it went the other way, the way of the Wolves, and the splurge-makers were the subs, Corey Brewer, Antoine Walker, and Craig Smith.

    I must confess that I still cringe when Brewer goes up for a jumper. But unlike, say, Bassy Telfair, who seems to weigh the validity of his missive on the shot-selection chart even as he is leaving his feet, Brewer continues to play as if he knows damn well what is or isn’t a good shot, and if it’s a good shot in the flow of the game, then he’s going to take it. And guess what? Tonight’s 6-11 FG makes him 38-82 over the last 16 games (a pretty solid sample size), which is 46.3%, or better than the NBA average of 45.3%. Yeah, the fact that he hasn’t hit a trey since Dec. 11 makes that eFG% pretty paltry, but paltry is two or three levels better than the clanging albatross stage when he couldn’t make 30% of his shots for nearly three weeks.

    Just as he put invisible training wheels on Gerald Green’s game when the two shared the court a few weeks back, Antoine Walker is mentoring Brewer in ways large and small lately. ‘Toine knows, even if Brewer doesn’t, that the thin rook’s biggest flaw is shooting, and so tonight he laid at least three or four shots for Corey on a platter, mostly in transition, in the form of dishes for bunny jumpers, or on a drive-and-kick to the corner, and once on a very sweet feed that Brewer, the throttle all the way down, couldn’t help but to rise up and slam through the hoop. Then ‘Toine would twinkle-toes his way back upcourt, secure in the knowledge that the experiences he was generously doling out were accumulating karma points that, in all fairness, should be paid out in the form of a trade to a contender before next month’s deadline expires. The man has done his penance for gluttony, or whatever sins troubled the fevered brow of Pat Riley down in Miami, who, speaking of karma, is currently riding a 14-game losing streak. Anyway, as much as he likes to feign delight in rearing players up here on the frozen tundra, young’uns who were four
    th-graders when he first broke into the league, you know ‘Toine itches for a meaningful hardwood milieu come May and June, perhaps for a playoff team in need of postseason experience who plays in a warm clime, such as Orlando. No doubt he has been a boom-or-bust commodity thus far this season, but when he’s on he can be a maestro, orchestrating the development of potential into performance–Brewer was plus +13 in the 21:40 he played alongside ‘Toine tonight and minus -2 in the 8:15 he played without him. And even when he’s off Walker remains a highly respected presence in the locker room and a good-vibes pom-pom guy on the bench.

    3. Hype On the Horizon

    The next game is the Celtics, in Boston. We have a tendency to focus on Garnett, obviously, but in terms of the Timberwolves, the team’s two best players, Jefferson and Gomes, are going back to the only NBA home they ever knew before this season, and to a rabid fan base that will dole out the love and hate with vigor. The won-lost records offer a strong rebuke to the current worth of Jeff and Gomes, one I imagine they will be very determined to counter. Assuming Witt maintains his version of smallball, that puts Jefferson on Kendrick Perkins, an opponent he surely has faced, and bested, many times in practice; and Gomes on KG, who is larger and faster, etc, etc. How do you match up Marko and McCants on Pierce and Ray Allen? It doesn’t seem like it will be pretty, but then again the C’s have hit a bit of a trough–they lost to Toronto at home tonight–and the Wolves, well, these Wolves are playing better than ever before. Or, as Wittman says, We’ve beaten the best team in the West (at least record-wise) twice now, let’s see if we can beat the best team in the East.

  • The Three Pointer: A Golden Breakthrough

    Copyright 2008 NBAE (Photo by Rocky Widner/NBAE via Getty Images)

    Game # 38, Road Game #19: Minnesota 95, Phoenix 115

    Game #39, Road Game #20: Minnesota 108, Denver 111

    Game #40, Road Game #21: Minnesota 109, Golden State 108

    Season record: 6-34

    First of all, apologies for the near-weeklong absence. I wrote a fairly detailed three pointer on Sunday after the Phoenix and Denver games, only to have it eaten by computer gremlins. Some of what disappeared into the virtual ether needs to be updated or chucked, some of it still stands.

    1. Foul Play

    We’ve got to begin with the whistles. When first Ryan Gomes and then Rashad McCants were sent to the bench with three fouls midway through the second quarter Friday night against Phoenix, the Wolves were down a mere point. By the halftime intermission, the lead was 14 and the ballgame was essentially over. "You saw the momentum change right there," McCants told the Strib. But was he magnifying his own importance or lamenting his shortcomings by once again playing himself to the sidelines due to fouls?

    The next night against Denver, the Wolves lose the game by 3 and the free throw contest by 28, being outshot at the line 43-15 (for made free throws the disparity was 35-12). Al Jefferson got tagged with a technical in the closing seconds arguing an out of bounds possession call. After the game, coach Randy Wittman complained, "All they had to do was yell and get free throws. I guess we still have to teach our guys how to do that." McCants added, "Sometimes we find a way to lose a game. It wasn’t that we found a way. It was kind of taken away from us."

    I have strong feelings on both sides of this issue. First of all, as I mentioned a few treys ago, the Wolves get jobbed by the officials on a regular basis, both due to the relative lack of stars on the team and the relative lack of smart, consistently aggressive play that builds up goodwill on borderline calls. Only one team–Indiana–is whistled for fouls more often than the Wolves, and only one team–Toronto–has its opponents whistled fewer times than the Wolves. Consequently, the disparity of foul calls between Minnesota and their opponent on a per-game basis is +6.15. Six extra fouls, on average, every game. That’s enough to disqualify a player, or automatically land the team in the penalty for a quarter. It’s saddles at least two or three Timberwolves with enough additional "foul trouble" to affect their play, or their playing time. And it is grossly out of line with the other 29 teams in the NBA–Indiana, the team with the second-worst disparity, is just +2.70, or less than half of the onus on the Wolves.

    But the kind of victimization talk voiced after the Denver game is counterproductive for this franchise. The main reasons why the Wolves get screwed by the refs is because they are callow, timid, and inconsistent in their aggression. They reach in with their hands and flap their mouths more diligently than they move their feet, and they simply lack talent. Take Saturday night: The matchups off the starting lineups were Jefferson vs. Marcus Camby, Gomes vs. Melo Anthony, McCants vs. Iverson, Telfair vs. Anthony Carter, and Marko Jaric vs. Linus Kleiza (Jaric was supposedly guarding AI, with Shaddy on Kleiza, but the switches were frequent and appropriate.) There wasn’t one spot on the floor where you could say Minnesota had a lockdown advantage on defense.

    Meanwhile Denver was throwing out two players among their starting five ranked among the NBA’s top ten at getting to the line–Melo and AI. Anyone who saw the Denver game saw that many of Minnesota’s fouls were purposeful, meant to make the Nugs "earn it at the line" after they had beaten the Wolves off the dribble, in transition, or with an interior pass. Yes, there were some tough calls down the stretch–it does seem as if Iverson travelled on a crucial crunchtime possession, for example. But on the three plays that so vexed (and involved) Jefferson–some contact on his strong move to the hoop, a turnover for him stepping on the baseline trying to save a ball, and an out-of-bounds call that earned him the T–were all very close judgment calls that could have gone either way (the drive to the hoop and the confluence of hands on the out of bounds cite) or were correctly called against Minnesota (Jefferson did seem to step over the baseline).

    McCants in particular needs to realize that he either needs to move his feet and commit himself at the defensive end more thoroughly, purposefully avoid either the cheap or, when he’s already in foul trouble, the purposeful, strategic infraction, or resign himself to long minutes on the bench that significantly reduce the Wolves’ chances of winning, and besmirch his reputation. The Denver game is a case in point. He picked up two quick fouls in the first quarter trying to guard Iverson and was sent to the bench. In the second quarter, he played a vital role in sparking Minnesota’s comeback, especially his ability to pass and flow in transition, giving the Nugs some of their own medicine. In the third period, he fouled Iverson again and then Melo, sending him to the bench with 3:20 play in the third period. Then, with 6:32 to play in a one-point game, Shaddy made the wrong pass in transition (he fed to his right, into a defender’s hands, while Gomes was open on the wing to his left), and committed a no-doubt loose ball foul scrambling to atone for the miscue. That sent him to the bench for a crucial three-minute stretch of crunchtime.

    Why was it crucial? Because McCants is a matchup nightmare for the Nugs, having gone off for a career high 34 against them last time the two teams played. He had 23 and was a team-high plus +15 in the 35:05 he stayed on the court. That means the Wolves were minus -18 in the 12:55 McCants was on the bench. Now what was that he said again about the game being taken away from the Wolves? His inference was toward the refs’ bias, but every one of the five fouls that limited his minutes seemed legit.

    Ah, but against Golden State this afternoon, the light bulb finally seemed to pop on in Shaddy’s head. When Monte Ellis beat him off the dribble in the first quarter, Shaddy resisted committing the foul that would given Ellis (a 78% foul shooter) two trips to the line instead of a basket. McCants was also moving more diligently on defense, while continuing his recent offensive contributions–he’s fit into the flow of the team’s offense better than ever the past week or two. Yes, he had some turnover troubles–four, by halftime, after getting four against Denver–but also picked up three dimes and, perhaps most significantly, had the fewest shots of any member of the starting five. And just one foul.

    Got that? McCants was resisting his reach-in temptations on D, and, while being a tad turnover prone, was passing out of the perimeter double-teams Golden State occasionally threw at him and rarely if ever short-circuited the offense by hogging the ball. Despite all this, Randy Wittman still chose to sit him for an 8:22 stretch in the second quarter, When he departed, replaced by Antoine Walker, the Wolves were up ten 37-27, with 10:37 to play in the half. When he returned, with 2:49 to play, the Warriors were up by 1, 48-47.

    Wittman did not learn from the experience, but instead duplicated it in the fourth period. subbing out Shaddy with the Wolves up 4 and 8:42 to play. I figured it was simply a chance for McCants to catch his breath, but Wittman left him on the sidelines until the score was tied and there were just two minutes left. Finally reinserted, McCants zipped a nice pass to Ryan Gomes halfway between the basket and the foul line, forcing Golden State to foul. Gomes made both free throws for Minnesota’s final points of the afternoon, and the difference in the game.

    With McCants demonstrating improvement in key facets of his game–the ability to avoid foul trouble and to foster ball movement–it is
    a mystery why Wittman played the least of any of his starters. Once again, McCants was a team-best plus +15 in 31:39 of play. What that means is that the Wolves have scored 30 more points than their opponents in the 66:44 that McCants has been on the court the past two games, and been absolutely waxed by their opponents, outscored by 32, in the 29:16 he has sat on the bench. While this is a more dramatic outcome than has occurred for most of the season, the fact remains that, relative to their other starters, the Wolves have benefited most by the minutes for McCants pretty much the entire year.

    2. The Mystery of Small Ball

    It is good to see that Wittman and company are belatedly recognizing that the Jefferson-Smith frontcourt pairing is usually not an effective tandem. After playing Big Al and the Rhino together for 6:46 of the first 13:15 of the Denver game–and going minus -9 during their stint–the coach shelved the combo the rest of the game and today’s Golden State tilt besides. It probably seems churlish to mention it in the wake of the competitive loss to Denver and the feel-good win this afternoon, but the next puzzler in the allotment of minutes is the brain trust’s strangely stubborn desire to play Al Jefferson at center.

    According to the 82games.com website, Jefferson is a more accurate shooter at his natural position of power forward than he is at center. He also rebounds better, commits fewer turnovers and fewer fouls per 48 minutes, and has almost exactly the same ratio of blocks and assists. And he dominates opposing power forwards much more than his edge on opposing centers. Not surprisingly then, the Wolves are outscored by an average of 16 points per 48 minutes when Jefferson plays center, compared to being outscored by just 1.8 points per 48 when Jefferson is at power forward.

    If statistics don’t phase you, let’s talk philosophy. What is it that Wolves fans most want to see happen this season? I’d venture that the most popular answer and top priority would involve the ability to evaluate the young talent in challenging game settings as often as possible so determinations can be made on who should be culled, who should be re-signed, and who is or isn’t able to make progress against NBA competition. In other words, this year, the key is to accumulate solid, realistic knowledge on the NBA readiness of the boatload of young players dominating the roster.

    Chris Richard seems to be exactly the sort of player Minnesota would want to toss under the microscope this season. Yeah, he’s just a second round draft pick, but the Wolves aren’t exactly overflowing with quality options among the natural centers on their roster–Michael Doleac and Mark Madsen. It is not like Richard’s ceiling is going to get appreciably higher with patience: He’s already older than four players on the team–Jefferson, Telfair, Gerald Green and his college teammate Corey Brewer–and having stayed in college for three years and two national championships under Billy Donovan at Florida, his overall grasp of the game is precocious, relative to his scant NBA minutes. Indeed, Richard’s greatest flaw thus far–a total lack of offense–would seem best remedied by the boost in confidence some steady NBA minutes would provide, especially if the coaches urged him to look for his shot more often.

    Put it this way: If you are letting Richard languish on the bench *this* year, it is a fairly loud signal he doesn’t fit into the Wolves’ future plans, given the paucity of alternatives.

    But there are at least two other good reasons for putting Richard in the pivot. First, the person you displace from the starting lineup is Jaric, the one player who has been thoroughly vetted by the franchise in terms of his strengths and weaknesses. Is there really that much difference between Marko’s performance this season and what we’ve seen the previousj two years? It is difficult to imagine him changing his idiosyncratic spots this late in his career. Second, sliding Richard in for Jaric in the starting lineup enables no fewer than three Timberwolves currently playing out of position in the small-ball lineup to move back to the place they are most comfortable. Not only would Jefferson go from center to power forward, but Ryan Gomes would become a small forward instead of a power forward, and Rashad McCants would go to the backcourt as an off-guard, where he belongs.

    For those who argue that small ball is the trend of the future, or the best utilization of the Wolves’ current talent, I point to the fast break statistics. Minnesota currently yields more FB points than any team int he league, and ranks 28th, out of 30 teams, in generating FB points of their own. So just because they’re small doesn’t mean they thrive in transition,

    3. Last Thought

    Ryan Gomes takes what the defenses give him, and Golden State gave him a lot this afternoon: Gomes racked up a career high, incredibly efficient, 35 points to go with 11 rebounds, shooting 11-15 FG and getting to the line 12 times while missing the free throw just once. During the telecast, Wolves color commentator Jim Petersen said that over the past six weeks Gomes has been Minnesota’s second-best player. Okay, sure, but for the last month, since December 21, he’s been the best player, period, on the team: Nearly as valuable as Al Jefferson in terms of offensive flow and synergy, and better on defense.

     

  • The Three Pointer: Not Enough Talent

    AP Photo/Jim Mone

    Game #37, Home Game #18: Golden State 105, Minnesota 98

    Season record: 5-32

    1. Low IQ. Low skill level. Low chance of winning.

    All things being equal, the Minnesota Timberwolves without Randy Foye and Theo Ratliff, opposing the Golden State Warriors on a sub-zero January night having already clearly established themselves as the worst team in the NBA, will lose to the Golden State Warriors.

    Well, all things were essentially equal tonight. Al Jefferson and Rashad McCants were off their games a bit, but Antoine Walker emerged from a long slump, Ryan Gomes continued his solid play, and I thought Randy Wittman both coached well and summed up the defeat in a succinct, intelligent fashion from the postgame podium. Or maybe this loss sort of blurs into the other 31 because I’m just not inspired enough to hash out particularly innovative nuggets of wisdom that seem particularly different than the various recaps of so many other games. This wasn’t a special loss in that it was a tough, close encounter or a monster blowout, or that one particular facet of the other team was vitally important or one particular player on the Wolves was the giant goat. So rather than pretend we’re doing depth tonight, let’s just wing it with the impressions and see what happens.

    But first, Wittman’s take. Asked about the large disparity in backcourt performance (Monta Ellis and Baron Davis were a combined 39 points, 6 rebounds, 13 assists, 5 steals and 4 turnovers in 73:34, versus Telfair-Jaric being 16-7-11-2-6 in 70:05), Witt rued the decision-making. "We talked before the game about how they are the number one team for turning turnovers into points," he stated, noting that the Wolves coughed the ball up 20 times, costing them a whopping 31 points, 13 more, in a 7-point loss, than Golden State yielded via its 12 turnovers. His troops were committing the kind of turnovers that result in 3-on-1 breaks in transition, Witt lamented, then shrewdly observed that instead of making the extra, safer pass, "we tried to split the seams with our passes" and the seams weren’t there.

    Without calling anyone out by name, Wittman cited the dumb inbounds pass McCants made that was stolen by Baron Davis in the last 4 seconds of the third period and transformed into a layup by Matt Barnes just before the buzzer. This concluded a sequence where, after McCants drove for a layup to cut the lead to 10 with 1:08 left in the third, the Warriors scored 7 straight points to bump it to 17 at the conclusion of the quarter. Witt also called out the turnover spree after the Wolves had whittled the lead back down to 4, 96-92, with 4:11 to play. McCants had his shot blocked, Walker committed an offensive foul, and Jaric was called for a carry, a borderline whistle after a series of inept calls that prompted Wittman to earn a technical.

    2. The Little Two

    Normally the big two, at least in terms of scoring, Jefferson and McCants both had off nights. Shaddy’s was by far the more obvious. On a day when the Strib had spotlighted his inconsistency in a feature piece,he showcased most of his flaws, including the stupid fouls–ladled with an increasing sense of victimization that is at once partially accurate and conveniently overblown in his own mind and emotions–the holding of the ball in the half-court, the silly turnovers, and the sporadic bouts of energy and lethargy. It all amounted to 11 points in 30:12, albeit with 5 rebounds, 3 assists and a team-best plus-minus of zero, which only makes the time he is forced to sit on the bench more aggravating. When he grabbed his second foul with 3:23 to play in the first, for instance, the Wolves scored a mere 4 points in the next 5 minutes, turning a one point lead into a 5 point deficit in the process before Walker went on one of his handful of personal mini-runs (he finished with 26 points).

    Jefferson had better numbers: 18 points on 7-14 FG, and 14 rebounds, but Wittman didn’t like his lack of aggressiveness looking for his own shot. "Al let them off the hook too much in the first half," said the coach. "No offense to anyone, but if [Al] can get Austin Croshere [guarding him], he’s got to back him down and put it in the basket." Jefferson was a game-worst minus -19, Croshere a game-best plus +17. Actually, Jefferson looked for his own shot more in the first half, when he was 4-10 FG, versus the second half, when, despite 3 offensive rebounds, he only launched 4 shots, making 3. Yes, ‘Toine was rightly the focal point of the offense, but no way Jefferson should be tied with Marko Jaric as the team’s fifth most-frequent shooter in the second half, especially against a paint-challenged squad like Golden State. (For the record, ‘Toine had 9 second half shots, Shaddy and Gomes 7 apiece, and Telfair 6.)

    For what it’s worth, Jefferson ducked the media after the game. He follows the now standard custom of not wanting to conduct postgame interviews until he is fully dressed. He came out, put on his pants, then went back into the trainer’s area. A few minutes later, a Wolves’ locker room assistant came out and scooped up the rest of his clothes. Jefferson still hadn’t emerged by the time almost all the media had gone.

    3. Quick Hits

    ‘Toine’s breakout game was his first bout of productivity in weeks. Because both he and Gomes understand how to play the game so thoroughly, they are fun to watch, but recently only Gomes has been able to take what he sees the opponent giving him–‘Toine simply hasn’t executed. But Golden State’s fly by night D has a tendency to heal all slumps. Playing at the power forward slot, ‘Toine already is a natural floor spacer, causing mismatches either on the perimeter on down low and finding the open man or making a team pay for whatever mismatch they choose. Tonight he shot 4-5 FG from down low, especially little turnaround jumpers spinning baseline on the left block, and 3-4 from beyond the arc. Half of his 26 points came in the fourth quarter, when he went 5-5 FG. He also snatched 10 rebounds, second only to Jefferson among all players on both squads. But zero assists, because, as with Jefferson, the Warriors weren’t emphasizing the double team.

    Corey Brewer may be hitting the proverbial rookie wall, usually judged to begin slightly before or after the midpoint of the 82 game season. Yes, I know Brewer’s minutes have been cut, but it isn’t the game-time lack of energy so much as the constant practicing, travel, level of competition, and, in Brewer’s case, all the losing. A key point in tonight’s game occurred when Brewer subbed in after McCants’ third foul with 6:13 to play in the second and the score tied. Mickeal Pietrus proceeded to school him for a trey, reverse lay-up and alley oop dunk in the next 1:48, compelling Wittman to utilize a quick hook and bring in Greg Buckner. That followed a desultory first quarter stint where Brewer committed a turnover and a foul in his first 70 seconds of action. For the game he had one missed shot, one assist, one block, three fouls, two turnovers and was a minus -12 in just 8:24 of action.

    Asked what happened in the Brewer-Pietrus matchup, Wittman said the difference was "just experience. I would be comfortable putting Corey on him again." But 8:24 proves he was not comfortable with it–and appropriately so–tonight.

    The referees were horrible. The worst display was a no-call on a breakaway layup where Stephen Jackson clearly travelled, but there were a bevy of others. McCants and Craig Smith both got jobbed and then had reason to overreact to all the legit fouls called upon them–there is a reason they lead the team in whistle frequency. But what was also telling is McCants getting whistled for pretending like he was going to fling the ball into the stands, a situation where he seemed as mad at himself as at the refs; versus the veteran Walker screaming at them for no calls during a rebounding scrum and getting only a delay of game for tossing
    the ball away. The terrible crew: James Capers, Scott Foster, and Tommy Nunez Jr.

    While I laughed at Gerald Green running around like a chicken with his head cut off while constantly looking to the bench for instruction on defense, GG went plus +10 during his 8:25 on the court–not coincidentally spent almost entirely with Walker.

    Sebastian Telfair is dinged up, perhaps his back. Teammates took turns holding on to his arms and gently lowering him to the floor (instead of a chair) during his times on the sidelines.

  • The Three Pointer: Bad Loss, Good Loss

    Copyright 2008 NBAE (Photo by D. Clarke Evans/NBAE via Getty Images)

    Game #35, Road Game #18: Minnesota 82, Houston 113

    Game #36, Road Game #19: Minnesota 88, San Antonio 105

    Season record: 5-31

    1. The Emergence of Gomes

    Let’s begin with the good news. In terms of being a complete, synergistic basketball player working to enable his team toward victory, Ryan Gomes has put together the best three-week stretch of anyone in a Timberwolves uniform thus far this 2007-08 season–better than any comparable peak period from Jefferson, McCants, Jaric, you name it. The numbers by themselves are mildly impressive: In the 12 games beginning with the Indiana win on December 21, the 6-7 forward has averaged 14.8 points and 7.2 rebounds per game while shooting 47% from the field and 86.7% from the line (39-45 FT, nearly 4 FTA per game). But three factors bolster the value and context of those figures.

    First, consistency: If you throw out his horrible performance last Sunday against Dallas, Gomes has scored in double figures every game in the past eleven and snagged at least five rebounds in all but one of them (getting just two versus Seattle). Second, role-playing: Gomes is getting his points despite rarely having plays called for him as happens with Jefferson and McCants, and is snagging rebounds despite rare appearances at one of the two frontcourt positions that would ensure him more boards. Third, intangibles: This goes beyond role-playing and addresses basketball intelligence, the trendy way of saying Gomes knows how to play the game. When Gomes was mired in his mysterious doldrums in late November and early December, it was remarkable, and depressing, to see how much the Wolves’ basketball IQ was elevated when long past his prime vet Antoine Walker stepped out on the court. Aside from Walker, the guys with half a clue seemed to be the two Florida rooks, Brewer and Richard, and ‘Toine, despite his admirable spunk in response to the thudding career comedown of joining the Wolves, still was a guy ultimately most comfortable in going for his. Ditto Jefferson and McCants, without the court savvy. And while point guards Telfair and Jaric seem to know how to play, they each exhibit crippling flaws (for Telfair, shooting; for Jaric, lack of quickness in playing the point) that prevent them from executing.

    That’s what has made Gomes so invaluable during this stretch. As mentioned in the last trey, he’s a glue guy, doing the things that don’t always make the stat sheet; not so much an initiator or a finisher in the half-court game as a linchpin between the two, not only fostering ball movement for its own sake, but making the smart, slightly creative, yet still high-percentage pass that exploits the defensive seam in a way that forces adjustments and opens larger seams for open jumpers and layups that generate assists on the next pass. If basketball were scored like hockey, with multiple assists, Gomes would rank just behind the two point guards for dishes. He’s already second on the team in rebounds per game, and fourth in points per game (and seemingly destined to pass Craig Smith in the next few games to be third behind Jefferson and McCants). He rates alongside Jaric, and just ahead of Brewer, as the most versatile defender on the team, committing fewer stupid fouls–a huge Wolves bugaboo–than anyone getting regular minutes. Now all he has to do is stop jacking up treys: After shooting 44% (15-34) from behind the arc in November (while clanking from two-point range; which I believe was the psychological catalyst for the overall deterioration in his game earlier this season), Gomes has been wretched from outside. Take away his 10-36 performance from treyville since 12/21 and he’s hitting 54% from the field (54-100 FG).

    Unfortunately, there was a glaring gap between Gomes and everyone but plugging center Michael Doleac in terms of consistent aptitude on the Wolves roster during the two losses this weekend. He was the only Wolves player with a pulse in the first half of the blowout Friday night in Houston, tying for the team lead in rebounds with 4 and the sole Timberwolf converting more than half his shots–Gomes went 4-7 FG while the rest of the squad was 8-28 FG–as Houston rumbled to a 61-31 lead at the break and transformed the entire second half into garbage time.

    Last night in a much better team effort against San Antonio, Gomes was again Minnesota’s clearcut MVP. Responding to the Spurs’ opening gameplan of denying McCants and Jefferson easy looks, he burried a couple of open jumpers, then, as the perimeter players began closing out on him, fed McCants for a pair of treys to knot the game at 24 in the first period. By halftime he had a game-high 6 rebounds, was second only to Jefferson in the game with 11 points (again on 4-7 FG), and committed no fouls nor turnovers in 19:14 of action. Yes, he was on the court for most of the second half as the Spurs outscored the Wolves by 18 points, and contributed to that deficit by not responding quickly enough to the Spurs inside-outside offensive ball movement (at 250 pounds, rapid defense from paint to perimeter in the half court is not Gomes’s forte). But anyone watching the game would acknowledge that the Spurs’ full court pressure on defense and ability to score (or provoke mismatches) inside were the two biggest factors in their win.

    For the game, Gomes had 21 points (9-15 FG), second only to Jefferson’s 24 (on 10-18 FG) and a game-high 9 rebounds. As color commentator Jim Petersen noted two or three times, he continued "taking what the Spurs gave him" in the Wolves’ half-court offense and added a pair of opportunistic baskets in transition to close out both the second and third quarters on a strong note.

    It is a long season, of course, and even a consistent three-week run by Gomes doesn’t guarantee that his role or his performance will continue unabated on a team that has a surfeit of unproven performers it must cull through before next year’s draft. Wolves’ stat guru Paul Swanson has informed me that Gomes is a *restricted* free agent at the end of this season, meaning the Wolves can match any offer, a vital distinction not indicated in the salary figures for either hoopshype.com or shamsports. Even if the Wolves feel compelled to take Michael Beasley as the top talent in the NBA draft–who, folks tell me, clones the best of Gomes and Jefferson–Gomes is exactly the sort of smart, consistent player that will always be a valuable commodity.

    2. Jefferson: Spelled with an O, no D

    On a ballclub without stars, it is difficult not to love Al Jefferson, who turned 23 last week, and is already giving the team 20 points and 11 or 12 rebounds per night by dint of mucking hard in the paint. Throw in his acceptance of a longterm contract that certainly could have been higher had he waited a year–and screwed the Wolves by signing elsewhere–and he’s a feel-good story and burgeoning cornerstone on a ballclub crying for a public identity in the post-KG era.

    But here’s the rub: Nearly halfway through his fourth NBA season, the evidence continues to mount that Al Jefferson is a lazy defender. Perhaps what damns him most of all in this regard is the huge disparity between his doggedly refined low-post game on offense and his frequent willingness to get undressed on defense. When the Wolves set up in the half court, Jefferson’s precocious footwork, vast array of shots (jump hook, funky push jumper, up-and-under scoop, beneath-the-rim baseline banker, and well-calibrated wrist flick), cunning in avoiding predictible patterns on his moves and fierce determination to go up and finish in traffic already make him a top ten NBA scorer in the paint. To develop such multi-faceted skills takes dedication and intelligence. Neither of those virtues are apparent, to put it charitably, at the other end of the court.

    Yes, Jefferson has been yo-yo’d between his natural power forward spot and center all season since the injury to Theo Rat
    liff. And it seems that physically he is a ‘tweener on defense–lunched by leviathians such as Andrew Bynum yet zipped past or feinted to a faretheewell by small, savvy post performers like Houston’s Luis Scola on Friday. But how does that excuse all the times he shows too hard and can’t recover on the pick and roll (or, conversely, allows the p+r shooter an open look on the switch), or is caught napping on an interior pass for an easy layup, as happened twice with Francisco Oberto last night? He also doesn’t get back in transition very well, and his rotations are adequate at best–and inferior to Michael Doleac or the undersized Craig Smith.

    Again, what is especially aggravating about these consistent lapses is that Jefferson continues to improve on offense–even on weak spots such as passing out of double teams, or raising the accuracy of his midrange jumper–while the fundamentals of his D remain fundamentally flawed. It bespeaks of ignorance to that part of his game, and diminishes his otherwise well-earned rep as a blue-collar stalwart. I understand the incentive for such imbalance in a league where Vince Carter is a fan favorite for dunking at one end while tanking at the other, and where no one wants to talk about how the universally lauded Yao Ming is totally ineffective on defense against a half-dozen NBA teams, and couldn’t guard relative lilliput Carlos Boozer when a playoff series was on the line. But despite Jefferson’s gaudy offensive numbers and my overall admiration for what he has accomplished, albeit only when his team has the rock, I don’t believe he deserves to be an All Star this season. Let’s not start handing out carrots to a young player with a marvelous upside who is currently staging perhaps the most impressive half-assed season in Timberwolves history.

    3. Hosannahs and Brickbats

    After alternately arguing for first Doleac and then Richard to be slotted in at center beside Jefferson, this weekend’s performances had me agreeing with Doleac’s starting assignments and Richard trading in his uni for street clothes on Saturday. As well as Richard recognizes rotations and hustles on defense, he simply abandons any pretense of offense–he’s even more unbalanced than Big Al. Twice on Friday his teammates,against all odds, bothered to pass him the ball, simply because he was so wide open. The first time Richard fumbled it; the second time he sent a carom so strong off the glass and rim it would have flown to half-court if not rebounded. Hard to say whether it is nerves, overdoing the self-effacing defensive-oriented role, or simple lack of talent at that end of the court, but Richard isn’t such a stud on defense that he can afford to let everyone take him for granted on offense.

    Meanwhile, Doleac showcased that midrange jumper I kept harping on while arguing for some playing time for the Pale Rider earlier this season. He also knows how to commit the hard interior foul that prevents "and 1" from happening when someone loses their man in the paint. He play at both ends of the court was obviously bedeviling the Spurs on Saturday, as they ran multiple plays right at him after he’d picked up his 4th foul. Finally they were able to draw the fifth infraction with 5:50 left in the third period, sending Doleac to the bench for Smith. San Antonio promptly extended a 58-55 lead to 73-60–a 15-5 run–over the next 4:42 and that was essentially the ballgame. Word is that Theo Ratliff will be in the lineup soon. A Ratliff-Doleac platoon at the 5 gives the Wolves a fighting chance–and consistent minutes for Jefferson where he belongs–against squads with legitimate big men. Let that happen with Foye at the point and then we can finally see what we have on this roster.

    Ah yes, the point guard spot. It is becoming more and more dramatically obvious that Telfair’s future will be determined by his ability to hit an open jump shot. Houston and San Antonio both gave Bassy a wide berth out on the perimeter–to the extent that it was almost 5-on-4 with the other players–and Telfair shot 1-10 FG in a combined 69:58 of play. That’s one shot every 7 minutes, or less than 7 per 48, a huge reluctance when the opponents are daring you to score–and yet, as Telfair’s wayward aim demonstrated, a wise reticence on his part. Meanwhile, brickmeister Bassy got the minutes because Marko Jaric may as well have been sidling in quicksand against the likes of Tony Parker, Rafter Alston, Jacques Vaughn and Aaron Brooks. Jaric himself shot 1-3 FG in a combined 39:06, fewer FG per minute than Bassy. Hmmm, maybe it is time to spot McCants in at the point every now and then, with Brewer, Gomes, Jefferson and Doleac. It would give the ego-laden tattoo aficionado incentive to distribute the rock and perhaps prompt him to be more turnover conscious. A gamble, yes, but the current alternatives aren’t exactly delivering dividends.

    Even when he was going 7-9 FG in the meaningless second half against Houston, Brewer’s form is enough to give Fred Hoiberg an ulcer. Can he make NBA defenses respect him with that mid-air flailing? Well, Telfair certainly looks pretty going up, and the ball doesn’t go in. But the burden of proof to turn that mess into points is squarely on Brewer.

     

  • The Three Pointer: Off the Schneid

    Game #34, Home Game #17: Miami 91, Minnesota 101

    Season record: 5-29

    1. The Importance of Glue

    Other players scored more points, grabbed more rebounds, doled out more assists, and generally exerted a higher-profile on tonight’s rare Wolves victory than the two glue guys I consider to be most crucial to the win, Ryan Gomes and Marko Jaric.

    For that matter, Gomes himself has had games, especially recently, where he’s shown off more obviously than he did tonight. But this Miami game is what I had envisioned when I penciled in Gomes as the team’s second-best player at the beginning of the season. It wasn’t just that his versatility enabled coach Randy Wittman to get away with a daring lineup switch. He was also the calming agent on a squad dripping with flopsweat at crunchtime, the one who took the hands away from the Wolves throat when it looked as if the team was going to choke away what was once a 19-point lead to the second-worst team in the league.

    We’ve all seen it before from this ballclub: the rote perimeter passes and faux-aggressive dribbling accomplishing nothing but wasting time. Then, tick-tick-tick, the spin-dribble in traffic, or the forced lean-in trying to draw the foul, or the shot taken almost deliberately off balance for no ostensible reason, or–at long last–the now-gallant chucking up of a prayer because the 24-second clock is expiring. These are the crunchtime moves of performers angling to hedge their choke against extenuating circumstances. It’s a mentally frozen team psychologically preoccupied with not looking stupid or of being the goat, which of course dramatically increases its chances of looking stupid and being the goat. That’s the way the Wolves played most of their half-court sets in the 4th quarter tonight. But Gomes was a prominent exception.

    When I mentioned Gomes’s ability to remain unruffled during an otherwise rocky crunchtime, coach Randy Wittman didn’t entirely agree, inferring that Gomes, too, turned down a couple of easy shots he should have taken–and given that Wittman was understandably both ebullient and relieved by the win, and in a mood to slather credit on his troops, he might be right. But the coach then identified two of the three plays that had me pinning gold stars on #8, and correctly called them "the big shots" of the game.

    First the one Wittman didn’t cite: With nine minutes to play and the Wolves lead dropped to 8, Gomes faked a jumper, dribbled to his left and nailed a 17-footer. For most of the season Gomes has been a catch and shoot guy, and for him to vary the script and still go up easily and in rhythm was body language telling everyone he wasn’t feeling any pressure. Fifteen seconds later, Jaric committed a foul and the Wolves were in the penalty with 8:51 to play, against a player, Dwyane Wade, who had 16 fourth quarter FTs against them in Miami. The heat, if not the Heat, was on.

    But with 8:02 remaining and the Wolves up 9, Jaric found Gomes in the corner for a trey and again he didn’t hesitate, went up smoothly, and buried it. At a time when the Wolves’ offense was clearly floundering, this was a big basket; and a signal they wouldn’t fade under the expected barrage of free throws Miami was going to be shooting. Then, with 2:36 to play, Miami cut the lead to 6–closer than they’d been since midway through the first period. The squads traded misses until, with about 90 seconds to go, Gomes got the ball and drove down the left lane, suddenly dumping it off to Jefferson for a lay-up that put the Wolves up by more than two possessions with barely over a minute to play. Huge basket.

    The preceding paragraphs are also an abject lesson in why you don’t go chapter and verse about glue guys. Describing subtle contributions, or steady play in relatively dramatic moments–and watching the Wolves tighten up as their lead eroded on their most winnable game of the month was, unfortunately, dramatic–still can’t do them justice.

    Anyway, Gomes was also crucial to Wittman’s decision to shake up his lineup by replacing Craig Smith with Rashad McCants. That put Gomes at the power forward slot, opposite not Udonis Haslem, who guarded Al Jefferson much of the time, but Heat center Mark Blount. Now all Wolves fans know that Blount is a shrinking violet in the paint. But it’s still notable that the 6-7 Gomes was trusted with the assignment of containing Blount, which he did mostly by fronting him, but occasionally playing behind him on the low block. Gomes also had to play all the rotations on zones from the power forward slot. The bottom line is that Gomes outrebounded Blount 6-4 (surprise, surprise, eh?) and also grabbed three steals and dished for 3 assists against just one turnover while getting 13 points–stats better than Blount’s across the board.

    I’ll be more succinct about Marko’s glue heroics. First and foremost, he was the primary defender on Wade, forcing him to make a bevy of acrobatic layups in order to get his 25 points. More importantly, he stayed in front of Wade well enough to prompt six turnovers from the Miami superstar, including four in the fourth quarter, and to draw a charging call on Wade for his 5th foul, further limiting Wade’s aggression (kudos to gutsy ref Dan Crawford–the best in the game–for making the right call there). He also hit 6-9 FGs (5-6 from inside the three point line), and dished as well as scored off of penetration, finishing with an 8/2 assist-to-turnover ratio. It was a game tailor-made for the "good Marko"–chaotic, sloppy, and prone to spurts of opportunism.

    2. Inside-Outside

    Having argued in my last trey for less Jefferson-Smith on the front line and more burn for McCants, I was pleasantly surprised by the rejiggered lineup. In retrospect, I don’t think it was the difference in the outcome of this game–during his brief stint, Smith murdered Blount in the low block by flashing down into the paint and using Blount’s well known distaste for flesh and flesh contact, getting 7 points and 6 rebounds (and, alas, 5 fouls, an ongoing Rhino vexation) in just 13:43. But having McCants around for the opening tap is really the only way right now to prevent Wolves opponents from packing the paint against Jefferson, especially when Shaddy erupts, as he did tonight, for 18 first half points on just ten shots (8-10 FG, 1-1 3ptFG, 2-2 FT). What Wittman appropriately demands, and what McCants has done recently, is to vary his attack, from full-court dashes in transition to explosive penetration in the half court to quick midrange jumpers and, finally, three-pointers.

    When McCants is on his game, there is more room and less pressure for Jefferson to score. Hell, there is more space for everyone to score–that’s why an inside-outside scoring tandem is fundamental to even mediocre offenses. That the Wolves have been trying to get by exclusively pounding the ball into Jefferson–or relying on the likes of Telfair, Jaric, Brewer, etc. to score from outside–is a rather large reason why they’ve been so dreadful on offense the past month. Toss Randy Foye into the mix, and you’ve got three players capable of getting bushels of points in the paint–with about two dozen cavaets–involving health, maturity, pecking orders, etc.– that we won’t go into right now.

    Besides, even this win comes with a sobering reality check. After combining for 30 points on 70% shooting (14-20 FG) en route to a 59-point first half, the Jeff-Shaddy combo played like jokers and exerted no leadership or command against an opponent begging to be put out of its misery in the second half. The most jaw-dropping stat in last night’s box score is zero turnovers for Jefferson. That’s only because all the times he muffed well-timed and -delivered entry passes resulted in him putting up a more difficult shot instead of an easy make, or being forced to pass it back out. His only basket in seven third quarter attempts was a tip-in 15 seconds after intermission, and in the fourth quarter one of his two baskets was the crunchtime dish from Gomes,
    who did all the heavy lifting. At 3-10 FG, Big Al came up small in quarters three and four.

    McCants was as bad in the fourth period as Jefferson was in the third, going 2-10 FG after nailing 8-10 in the first half and 2-4 in the third quarter. Wittman inferred that some of that might have been because Shaddy was willing to step up and let it fly while his teammates were fearfully spurning better shots. But even granting the point, McCants seems better able to bang home those treys or finish those serpentine journeys to the hoop when he team is up or down by 20 points, or in the first half, rather than when the score is close and the game is late.

    Nevertheless, balance out the bad and the good and you still have a player who went off for 27 points–pretty much his average the past two games as well–on 12-24 FG. Shaddy wrested a missed Jefferson free throw from Udonis Haslem (no mean feat) and laid the ball in. He snuck in for another offensive rebound and putback midway through the second quarter. He hit a respectable two out of five treys but also muscled his way through traffic for at least two left-handed layups. Oh and there were also the 8 rebounds and 4 assists. Overall a fabulous game, but, McCants being McCants there was of course some bad with the good, just as his "bad" games frequently contain silver linings.

    3. Hit and Run Observations

    Watching Ricky Davis pile up the turnovers–five, in 25:24–take breaks on defense, commit a dumb foul or two, and wring about three percent of the potential from his talent produced some Pretty Ricky flashbacks that actually put McCants, who schooled him most of the game, in a much more favorable light. Then there was Blount and his pathetic defense, aversion to contact, 4 boards in 35:37, and dutiful going through the motions. About the only consolation for Heat fans is that Antoine Walker had one of his worst games of the season. That said, ‘Toine’s been a stand-up teammate under trying circumstances, Minnesota bagged a first-round pick, and the Wolves don’t have the toxic twins poisoning their locker room.

    Minnesota would have won by 25 or 30 tonight if Sebastian Telfair could shoot. Let the record show that Bassy finished 3-10 FG and turned down about three times as many wide open looks throughout the course of the game. Nine assists versus three turnovers is nice, but the more frequently defenses can disdain his jumper, the less and less passing alleys and angles he’ll have against dropping-off defenders.

    Randy Wittman pointedly mentioned a very rigorous practice the team had yesterday in the context of tonight’s uptempo win. If the Wolves beat one of their next eight opponents–Phoenix and Golden State twice apiece, plus Houston, Denver, Boston and San Antonio–maybe I’ll buy that taskmaster approach. Meanwhile, it was just good to be able to see him smile at that postgame podium for a change. He opened his remarks by saying, "Well, we got off the schneid finally." Yes, yes you did coach. Here’s hoping another schneid isn’t headed your way.