The Rake Magazine

Category: Timberwolves

  • The Three Pointer: The Pistons Square the Series

    Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images

    Eastern Conference Finals, Game #4: Boston 75, Detroit 94

    Series record: Tied 2-2

    1. The "Little 3"

    I’m not the first one to unimaginatively pervert the "Big 3" sobriquet for tonight’s no-show troika of Celtic stars, and the way they are playing, I certainly won’t be the last. Among Boston’s starting five, the two role players stepped up fine, especially Kendrick Perkins. But the stars were all dim bulbs, collectively shooting 11-38 FG and refusing to take control of what remarkably, all things considered, was a winnable game until about 3 minutes left to play.

    Begin with Paul Pierce, the man whose guidance of the offense in the half-court is what ultimately swung the Celtic series versus Cleveland. Tonight Pierce had his shot blocked as many times as it went in the hoop, making just 3-14 FG while getting housed three time. Worse than that, though, was that he doled one measly assist compared to four turnovers. Yes, his defense on Tayshaun Prince was stout, and yes he got to the line 11 times and sank ten of them. But in the half-court sets, Pierce, who has become the floor general and go-to creator, never really made anything happen via either the pass or the jumper.

    On to Kevin Garnett, who had an embarrassing night first getting his shot blocked from behind by Jason Maxiell on a breakaway, then getting shown up on two straight defensive sets, the first on a spin move and layup for ‘Sheed Wallace, quickly followed by a Stuckey alley oop lob to Maxiell over KG’s leaping fingers. Now with the exception of the ‘Sheed spin, a charitably inclined individual could say Garnett was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But there is no excuse or justification for Garnett’s disappearance in the first quarter. During the regular season and the first three games of these finals, KG has owned ‘Sheed and the Pistons from about 16 feet on in, averaging 24 points and converting well over half his shots. So tonight the Pistons come roaring out with a 10-0 run and Detroit’s matchup nightmare is MIA. The other nine starters on the floor had all attempted at least one field goal before Garnett deigned to clank a jumper with the score already 16-4 Detroit and the first quarter more than half over with 5:19 to play. His second shot was the breakaway dunk attempt swatted away by Maxiell with 2:22 to play. He sat about a minute later with his team down 20-12.

    During that entire first quarter, in other words, Garnett followed through on a post-up move exactly once. That is ridiculous and typical of the self-effacement that crops up enough to stain his reputation. He finished with decent numbers, given the context of the Celtics offense: 6-16 FG, 16 pts, 10 rebounds, 3 assists (vs. 3 turnovers) and two steals. But when your team is up 2-1 on the road with a chance to essentially make your winning inevitable and your desperate, talented opponent races to a lead, and you are the best mismatch for your ballclub, you make yourself available and then you succeed or fail on that availability. You don’t shoot 0-2 FG with one of the shots being a breakout in transition.

    Which leaves us with Ray Allen. I am sick and tired of color commentator Mark Jackson (and to a lesser extent his colleagues Breen and Van Gundy) detailing every imagined flaw in Rajon Rondo’s game, especially on offense, while Allen gets a free ride for a stretch of abysmally cold outside shooting that has gone beyond a slump and is entering Nick Anderson or John Starks territory for historic, career-footnoting ineptitude. Less than 6 weeks ago, Allen ranked with Peja Stokjaovic and Steve Nash as one of the NBA’s best outside shooters. Tonight he once again failed to hit a single jumper, going 2-8 FG in four seconds less than 35 minutes, with both buckets being layups. He missed three treys and turned down about 15 other open looks. Compared to the way Allen is shooting, Rondo is Pete Maravich.

    I know that none of this is Allen’s "fault," in that he’s been lax or malicious or brought this on by any karmic retribution that would make sense. He’s been forthright and classy about his woes. He’s moved the ball relatively well and has been mostly automatic from the free throw line. But it is getting to the point where patience is appearing to be less and less of a virtue. Allen has already had his breakthrough game to end the doldrums when he shot 9-16 FG in the Celts’ Game Two loss–then promptly went back to abject clanking in the next two games. Tonight’s fourth quarter had to be a bad dream for him: Not only couldn’t he buy a basket, he missed two crunchtime free throws (!) and had Rip Hamilton toy with him on two crucial crunchtime buckets en route to Rip’s 10 4th quarter points and game line of 8-10 FGs. It might be time to experiment with Rondo on Hamilton and either Cassell or Eddie House guarding Billups at the point, at least for brief stretches. That’s two tough matchups on the defensive end, but maybe a little more offense–some shots that go in, in part because they are attempted by someone not worrying about being an albatross every time they pull the trigger. The Celtics as a team shot 31% tonight, and Allen’s 2-8 didn’t elevate that putrid accuracy. I understand that the Celtics don’t win the NBA Finals against the likes of LA or SA without Allen being on his marksman-like game. But that doesn’t mean you can’t rattle the mix–Tony Allen, even?–for four or five minutes stretches, just to see if you can stir a change.

    2. A Night For Large Role Players

    As in large guys who are role players, but also guys who play large roles. The consensus among those who saw tonight’s tilt would be that Antonio McDyess was the player of the game, and not just because he scored more points (21) and grabbed more rebounds (16) than anybody else. Although he continues to be deadly from midrange, McDyess was perhaps most valuable as the team’s emotional leader. With Rip and ‘Sheed bedeviled by fouls, Billups obviously not right in his hamstring, and Prince experiencing shooting woes, McDyess became the regulator, the one to keep things on a consistent keel that blended both passion and self-control. He came up huge. Ditto Maxiell, who in additon to his signature block and nifty alley oop played staunch half-court D and was a perfect 6-6 FG in 20:28 off the bench. And over on the other sideline, Kendrick Perkins was probably Boston’s best player tonight, ensuring that nobody got anything easily in the paint and warring for defensive boards and putbacks while stoking the desire in what seemed a curiously blase, or perhaps just disspirited, Celtics ballclub. After a horrible series against the Cavs, it has been enjoyable to watch Perkins’s series-long revival vs. Detroit.

    3. Quick Observations

    If I’ve got a rooting interest in either team, it is Boston, who I picked to win in 7 and who stars one of my favorite players in Garnett. But without the refs blowing their whistles, the Celts lose by 30 tonight, as Hamilton (8-10 FG) and ‘Sheed (6-9 FG) were both limited by foul trouble while the Celts lived at the line, registering more than half of their first 53 points via free throws. That said, the refs are getting wise to Hamilton’s arm-locking manuvers and push-offs to get open, and ‘Sheed still commits some really obvious and circumstantially dunderheaded infractions, like 4th foul showing hard on the pick and roll with more than 7 minutes to play in the third.

    Flip Saunders and Mark Jackson seem to want to agree that Chauncey is more rusty than dinged up, but the rest of us don’t have to buy that bullshit. Billups has always moved like a cat, he a bunched-up and spring player with a great first step. That stuff is nowhere to be seen in this series. Instead
    we see Billups missing badly on his jumper (3-12 tonight) and walking with a hitch during breaks in the action.

    I understand that Lindsay Hunter’s on-ball defense is preventing Eddie House from getting much burn, but have the Celts forgotten that Pierce was frequently bringing the ball up in Game Seven of the Cleveland series? For that matter, KG and Ray Allen also have pretty good handles. It sure would have been interesting to see if House’s microwave act from way outside could have made up that perpetual 5-10 point margin that existed from midway through the first until about 4-5 minutes left in the game. Boston was 1-9 from trey territory tonight, and that was Posey in the corner off a KG double team. I mean, if Sam Cassell is going to chuck a trey with 16 seconds on the shot clock in the fourth quarter and the Celts down 6 without nobody under the hoop for a rebound, is there any justification for keeping House under wraps?

     

  • NBA Second Round Update Thread

     

     Celtics-Cavs Update: Squared series after 88-77 Cavs win last night.

     It is always so easy to blame the coach, but I don’t see how Rivers avoids castigation here. He has decided that veterans new to the team are more reliable than the guys who got him 66 wins. Last night PJ Brown had a stellar game flashing out for that sideline pop shot, and he wasn’t too shabby on defense either. But having PJ on the floor enabled Mike Brown to keep Joe Smith on Brown and Varejao on KG, meaning, as Levi astutely pointed out in the comments below, he was the go-to guy in the low block at crunchtime. Bad idea.

    But the killer for the Celts is this Sam Cassell fixation. It gets a little wearisome listening to folks blaming Rondo for all the shots he has taken (Magic Johnson, with his predictably stupid, star-centered analysis, hammered this point) without noticing that Rondo made half of his 14 attempts in 33:47 and was a minus -5 while the Celts as a team made 38.6% in 48 minutes and were a minus -11. Cassell, by the way, was 0-5 FG and minus -6 in just 14:13, while Boobie Gibson ran circles around him–a mismatch so blatantly obvious I was hollering for it in the stuff I wrote before the game.

    Levi is also right that Ray Allen is co-goat in that he is not being aggressive at all in terms of looking for his shot, and with Rivers stupidly leaving Eddie House on the bench in favor of Cassell, the Celts only have a midrange game versus the Cavs.

    Last but certainly not least, how good is Lebron James in the postseason? As his encore for dismantling the Pistons last year, he’s pretty much single-handedly winning this second-round. He had 21 points last night–nobody else on the floor had more than 15. He had 13 assists–nobody else on the floor had more than 4. And during the 3:43 he sat at the end of the first half, Paul Pierce shot 2-4 FG. Pierce also scored two buckets in the brief time Pavlovic was on him when the Cavs went small, meaning that the vast majority of Pierce’s misses in a 6-17 FG night came with LeBron on him. Got that? The leader in points and assists by a huge margin and the shutdown defender on the other team’s top scorer. Bravo.

     

    "And we’re baaaaaack!" as the Jimmy Fallon character Joey Mack used to say on SNL.

    With a game on every night, the dilemma has been to put something up that isn’t immediately dated. At the risk of disrupting some really insightful comment threads that occur when I let things languish, my solution is to update my content as we go along (for example, I’ll only post about the Eastern Conference on this first go-round then come back and add the West after today’s games) and then post every two or three days. So let’s get to it.

    Detroit-Orlando: An unmagical bore

    There is a glaring difference between the caliber of play in the two conferences in this second round, with the intensity and ability of the two Western series utterly compelling, while the East is clearly least, a maddening array of missed opportunities, a pair of skirrmishes of strategic ineptitude and dysfunctional execution. And the Pistons-Magic matchup has thus far been worst of all.

    With 7:42 left to play in the third quarter Saturday, the Magic were up by 15, 63-48, to a team obviously missing the injured Chauncey Billups at both ends of the court. The Pistons proceeded to go on a 28-7 run that had them up by 6, 76-70, with 8:40 to go. During that 10:58 of action, Orlando went 2-17 from the field. Clueless Jameer Nelson led the squad in shots during that woeful stint, making one of five and missing two free throws. Nelson’s missed free throw with 44 seconds to play also spelled the difference between a loss and overtime in the 90-89 defeat. True, Nelson generally had his way with Rodney Stuckey, but when Detroit subbed in defensive specialist Lindsay Hunter, why did Nelson keep chucking?

    Nelson is just one of many goats here. Fresh off his being named to the All-NBA First Team as center, Dwight Howard was horrible, shooting 0-9 from the field in the final 43 minutes of the game, a period that saw him grab 6 offensive rebounds without converting a single one into any points–three missed putbacks and misfired jumpers by Nelson (twice) and Keyon Dooling ensued. Meanwhile, SVG clung to a crunchtime matchup of Dooling on Rip Hamilton, against all evidence that it could succeed. This was manna from heaven for matchup maven Flip Saunders, who posted Rip up on Dooling about a half-dozen plays in a row. Yes, Hamilton missed a couple of j’s over Dooling, but Van Gundy’s refusal to utilize the double team and to leave Dooling–who is four inches shorter than Rip and had four fouls at that point–out to dry was idiotic, especially after Hamilton fouled Dooling out (the frustrated Drooling picked up a T as he exited) and hit those free throws down the stretch.

    Understand that this was a game Orlando had in its hands. All they needed to do was play fundamentally sound defense and move the ball on offense. Instead, they let Detroit beat them in transition off the turnovers (something that simply hasn’t happened as often in the Utah-LA and SA-NO series, where transition D is a priority), refused to run any plays into the post for their lone All Star, let Jameer Nelson imagine himself as the catalyst of the offense rather than a fourth option in the half-court, and had Hedo Turkoglu burn all kinds of time off the clock so that when his terrible scoop shot off the drive barely grazed the front iron at the end, Orlando couldn’t even desperately foul in time to save the game for another possession.

    If I were Detroit, I’d leave Billups on the shelf for the next two games (if it comes to that) against the Magic, give him time to fully heal. Because either the Celts or the Cavs are a significant step up from Orlando, and the Western champion will be at least a step up from there. Put simply, Detroit doesn’t need Billups to close this out–in fact Hunter got better as the game went along, a nice little dividend for the Pistons if the gritty vet can find a rhythm with these extra minutes–but if he isn’t mostly healthy in the matchups after Orlando, the Piston have little or no shot to advance.

    Celtics-Cavs: Still Waiting on LeBron

    Oh how the national network audience wanted to canonize LeBron James last night, declare him fully back in all his glory after his putrid 8-42 FG flop in the first two games of the Boston-Cleveland series. And one could convincingly argue that LBJ delivered, stuffing the stat sheet for 21 points, 8 assists (half of them dazzling), 3 blocks (all of them dazzling), 4 steals, the snuffing of Paul Pierce on defense (Pierce had more turnovers than field goals) and a game-best plus +29 in 40:15 of play. What more could anyone possibly want or expect out of the 23-year old superstar?

    Scoring off dribble penetration, that’s what. The Cavs would be up 2-1 instead of the other way around if LeBron had been able to finish at the rim in Game One, and they won’t win this series if he can’t get to the cup and either convert the layups or the free throws the rest of the way. The only blemish in James’s game Saturday night was his 2-11 bricklaying from inside the arc, giving him a horrendous 10-43 FG total on non-3-pointers in the first three games. That’s 23.3% shooting on two-pointers for arguably the best penetrator in the NBA.

    Fortunately, LeBron has gotten to the FT line 35 times in the three contests thus far, and made 25, or 71.4%. What that number tells you is that the Celts, much like the Wizards in the previous series, are determined to make LeBron "earn it at the line." That’s code for "beat the shit out of him."

    Yeah, I’ve heard all the old-timers talk about how the game isn’t as tough as it used to be, that the flagrant foul rules have sissified things and that back in the day–when men were men and wore shorts so tight they got hernias when they saw a pretty girl in the stands–players could administer a proper beatdown in the
    paint without worrying about those nanny refs butting in.

    Well, like most occasions in any arena where old-timers are talking about their prime, it’s about four parts bullshit (due to exaggeration) and one part truth. I’m old enough to give the old-timers a run for their fading memories, starting watching hoops in 1959 at age 6, and I can tell you that there is more gratituous pounding and takedowns now than there ever was. First of all, the athletes are bigger, quicker, jump higher, and head to the hole more fearlessly, meaning the potential for injury is greater. Second, all the contemporary players have heard and bought in to the bullshit about how the vintage NBA was tougher. It wasn’t.

    Yeah, maybe you had more burly white guys slugging each other with elbows–call it joustling with a vengeance–down in the low block. But the infamous Kevin McHale takedown of Kurt Rambis back in the 80s is so widely remembered precisely because it was relatively rare and particularly violent. You didn’t see guys clotheslined and cross body-blocked nearly as often as you do today–and, to reiterate, when it did happen, they weren’t moving nearly as fast, jumping as high, and being finished off nearly as thoroughly. How many of you old-timers remember Dr. J getting clocked the way LeBron has gotten clocked in the past couple of years? Or what about other erstwhile high-flyers like Elgin Baylor, or even Michael Jordan? The Pistons had a deserved reputation as Bad Boys, but watch them try to intimidate the Bulls and compare it to the way the Wizards went after LeBron in the first round this year. They are very very comparable, and yet Washington’s Brendan Haywood can actually call LBJ a crybaby, even as his punk-ass gets schooled by Ilgauskas for most of the series. The old timers are spooling out self-aggrandizing nonsense and the young’uns full of testosterone are gobbling it up and turning hoops into something as stupid as hockey.

    Unfortunately, that’s what it has come to. It turns out that yesterday I was switching channels between baseball, hoops and hockey, and saw the end of the Red Wings-Stars hockey game. The goalie cheap-shoted a Stars skater right at the end of the game, the player retaliated with a swung-stick spear into the goalie’s chest, where all the padding is, and the goalie went down like he’s been tasered. After seeing the replays it was clearly all an act. So later in the day I’m watching LeBron drive and James Posey–a player I like and respect–cheap shots him with a hand across the neck off the drive. It was properly ruled a flagrant foul, but James, like Detroit goalie Chris Osgood, played it to the hilt, going down and grimacing like crazy, rolling in agony. So what we’ve got now is alternately more cheap shots–just off the top of my head I can think of Jason Kidd’s takedown of a Hornet player, Marvin Williams horse-collaring Rondo, Raja Bell doing his thing on Manu Ginobili, the Stevenson clothesline and the Haywood push on LeBron, and I’m not even counting Boozer knocking out Landry’s tooth because that really was accidental–and more ostentatious acting, of the sort made famous by the flopping Spurs. These two things beget each other, and it is time to call bullshit on the whole thing, increase the penalties for flagrants, institute a foul for flopping, and tell the senile braggarts that they really didn’t eat nails and the daughters of their opponents for breakfast.

    But back to LeBron: I think the punishment has had an effect. I think the Wizards did rough him up and that the Celts are doing the same thing. And when you get called a crybaby anyway, maybe the best course of action is to zip it to the open man and find your long-range jumper rather than put up with all the abuse. In any event, I repeat, the Cavs don’t win without LeBron scoring enough off the dribble to collapse the Celtic D for Z’s short pops, Szczerbiak’s long-range catch-and-shoots (and if Mike Brown doesn’t bench him every time Wally puts the ball on the floor with a defender on him, I’ll start believing all the terrible things people say about his coaching), and Ben Wallace’s wide open layups and putbacks on the weak side followups.

    As for the Celts, I’m delighted to report that KG is having a monster series. His aggressiveness toward the hoop sealed the deal in crunchtime of Game One and he alone came out ready to play in Game Three. Meanwhile, what has happened to Ray Allen? Paul Pierce understandably has his hands full, but if Allen can’t make the likes of Szczerbiak or Boobie Gibson pay on the offensive end, Doc Rivers might as well go with Eddie House to spread the floor.

    Bottom line, this is still anybody’s series. I thought the energy that Ben Wallace, Delonte West and Joe Smith brought to the floor in Game Three was as important as LeBron’s regal peformance in securing the victory, and think that every time Rivers relies on Sam Cassell to get things rolling he is gambling mightily. Mike Brown needs to make Boobie Gibson a permanent matchup for Cassell, then instruct him to never leave his feet when guarding Cassell and to put down the throttle every time he has the ball with Cassell on him. If the Cavs win Game Four, we’re going to get pounded by that home/road split for the Celts until we all turn the sound down. BTW, Boston doesn’t have to win one damn road game to capture the trophy, so let’s give that a rest, eh.

    Besides, just watching the way these series have unfolded, does anyone seriously think the eventual champ is coming out of the East?

    First Road Win Captures the Second Round in the West

    As I was saying about ugly takedowns…

    Actually, I honestly don’t think Ronnie Turiaf was trying to pound Price; at least not as blatantly as has occurred a dozen other plays in this postseason. It was just an unfortunate landing that had Price’s arms unable to protect his head from splitting open on the floor. It deserved to be a flagrant, of course, but I think if Price gets his hands down and there isn’t blood everywhere, Turiaf stays on the court instead of getting booted. On the other hand, Turiaf obviously hit Price hard enough to spin him; that and bumping against other players going down is why Price could break or brace his fall. And after calling for tougher penalties on flagrants, I can’t really rebut Turiaf getting tossed. But all things being relative, the actual hit Turiaf laid on him doesn’t even rank in the top ten goon moves for this postseason.

    As for the game, well, the issue here is how long do you or should you ride your stud superstar when he clearly isn’t the best option for your ballclub? This is what I knew would happen to the Wizards when Arenas came back–Agent Zero has enormous ability and an even bigger ego, and his desire to make an impact screwed up the pecking order that has served Washington well in his absence. And you could see it coming a mile away–I called it in the Cavs-Wiz series preview.

    Now Kobe Bryant is a different story. The flare-up of his back obviously rendered him into an ordinary athlete, but what makes Kobe Kobe isn’t just athleticism, it is great court vision, his wiley ways when he has the rock, his insatiable competitiveness, and ability to come up big in the clutch. So if I’m Phil Jackson, yeah, I probably call Kobe’s number in the huddle during the crunchtime timeouts–but I stipulate to him that if others are open, check those options too. I leave Kobe at his rightful place atop the pecking order, but plant the seed that the way to win when your back is ailing and the brutal Jazz won’t let you get a clean look even if you are healthy and quick is to find the open man and let him take the shot. Which is exactly what happened on the drive and kick out to Lamar Odom for that tying trey near the end of regulation, a perfectly called and executed play.

    But too often, Kobe tried to do it on his own. Odom bailed him out once with a great follow after Kobe blew the layup, and Derek Fisher was the hero of the dozen-point comeback in the final few minutes of regulation, yet Kobe kept trying to summon
    all the physical gifts normally at his disposal, long past the time when everyone watching knew he couldn’t. Hey, the refs even bailed him out on that Kirilenko "foul" right in front of the Jazz bench.

    No, the Jazz deserved to win this game, and if they designated the game’s number 1, 2, and 3 stars to come out and take a bow like in hockey, the top guy would be Deron Williams, who has pretty much demonstrated that nobody but Fisher can guard him effectively on the Lakers–LA fans will be throwing things at their TV sets the next time Jordan Farmar is assigned to Williams. In a contest loaded with tremendous crunchtime shots, none was better than Williams moving to his right after nearly losing the ball at half court and then launching over a looming Pau Gasol. You also have to give a curtain call to Mehmet Okur, whose reputation for coming up big when it matters most was burnished a little further today with his step-back treys and that immensely important offensive rebound he pulled down.

    But do the Lakers win this game is Kobe is healthy? Yes, I think so. You can’t keep Kyle Korver on the floor as often, for example, and AK-47 doesn’t get to swoop behind Kobe for that block off penetration–how often does a healthy Kobe lack the quickness to get his shot blocked cleanly from behind? For that matter, how often does Kobe get his shot blocked five times in a single game? But it isn’t Kobe’s injury that should have Laker fans kicking themselves; it is Kobe’s refusal to do what was best for the team. If you are beseiged by back spasms for the last three quarters plus overtime, do you really want to jack up 33 shots, especially when Odom and Gasol combined for 21-34 FG? Odom in particularly looked ready to take over a few times (he would have been the third guy called out to take a bow afterward), and having him get the chance to secure a 3-1 lead heading back to LA would have been a boon for the Lakers regardless of how it turned out today.

    Instead, Kobe overreached. Even the fact that he got 10 assists isn’t all good news, since it was half of the Lakers total in 53 minutes of action, demonstrating how little anyone else was allowed to create. The ostensible point guards Fisher and Farmar had *zero* assists in a combined 37:08, and only two turnovers combined, meaning their role in igniting the offense was minimal. Now, Fisher got in early foul trouble guarding Williams and Farmar was waaay overmatched–he was minus -19 in a scoreless 18:43–but the Lakers’ forte is ball movement. All five of their starters can sling the rock. So why is it that only Kobe, Gasol (4) and Luke Walton (3) had more than 2 assists, while every member of the Jazz starting five posted at least three, led by Williams’s game-high 14 dimes? Ball movement leads to high percentage shots and forced fouls by the opposition. Well, the Jazz shot 52.6% from the field and went to the line 45 times. The Lakers shot 47.4% from the field and went to the line 25 times. Kobe and Gasol combined for 49 FGA and 12 FTA.

    I still think the Lakers are going to win this series, provided Kobe’s back improves enough for him to play without martyrdom in Game Five. But Williams and Okur have both proven to be tough matchups. Odom can’t guard both Okur and Boozer, unfortunately, which means Gasol has to step up–his defense remains one of the Lakers’ few obvious weaknesses going forward. Of course Turiaf may get suspended for his takedown of Price, further complicating things. In the backcourt, I’d think about Walton playing some point on Williams. In any case, this series is better contested than I envisioned when I called it for LA in 5 or 6 at the onset.

    Did anyone really expect the Spurs to roll over and let the Hornets run them off the court in San Antonio? Tonight’s thrashing was surprising only in how little resistance New Orleans provided, and demonstrated a few things that are obvious enough to be conventional wisdom by now. One is that Bruce Bowen was always a better matchup on Peja than on Chris Paul. Just because Bowen had some success on Steve Nash in the past doesn’t mean he could stay with CP3. Paul is quicker and a better dribbler under seige. Nash excels at dishing in the open court on the fly; take away that space for him to survey the terrain and his effectiveness diminishes much more than it does for Paul under the same circumstances. You pressure Paul when he has the ball and it is far more likely he breaks you down, and then contently chooses between shooting the open jumper or drawing opponents and feeding the bounce pass or alley oop into the paint. Nash is probably a better shooter when he’s being contested (he’s three inches taller than Paul), but Paul is better at getting uncontested, especially when it is an older, rugged-but-slower guy like Bowen doing the checking. By contrast, Bowen’s in-your-jersey approach really bedevils Peja, who was magnificent not only on the catch-and-shoot during the two games in New Orleans, but in running the floor, taking people off the dribble, and crashing the offensive boards. Now that Bowen is putting the clamps on Peja, Paul and Parker are both running wild, and thus essentially cancelling each other out, a situation that very much favors San Antonio.

    Which brings us to the power forwards. After a simply stupendous first three games against a Spurs team that plays postseason defense as intelligently as any franchise in 40 years, David West was due for a bad game and perhaps not coincidentally it came on a night when Tim Duncan seemed to shake off the aches and illness that have plagued him the past week. The two don’t guard each other much, of course, but each anchors the low post offense for their team, and to the extent they successfully draw the opponents’ attention, the wider the lane gets for their teammates on penetration, and the easier the putbacks for the big men on the weak side. West is a deadly midrange shooter and a joy to watch spinning off his baseline shoulder for left-handed shots in the low left block. I’ll bet tonight is his lone stinker of the series, particularly if he can keep his temper totally under control, which apparently was no mean feat this evening.

    For Duncan, well, what can you say? He looked old and slow in the two tilts over in the Big Easy, but particularly tonight Popovich seemed to bring him out a little further away from the low block and toward the sideline, so that the inevitable double-teams created more ball-swings to the weak side, creating more running for the opponents, and many many more open treys in the corner and at the top of the key for the Bowens, Finleys, Ginobilis and Udokas of the world. The Spurs weren’t exactly marksmen on all those wide open looks–they shot 8-26 from beyond the arc–but they both wore the Hornets down with all that chasing, and also generated a helter-skelter chaos that deprived New Orleans of defensive rhythm. Right about the time the Hornets were instinctively flying toward the perimeter, Duncan decided to spin to the hoop (he was an efficient 10-13 FG) or Parker penetrated the open lanes (8-12 FG). New Orleans was working harder and less effectively.

    The final indignity was Duncan (twice) and then Ginobili drawing three fouls on defensive stopper Tyson Chandler in the first 3-plus minutes of the third quartrer. Suddenly with 8:39 to play in the third, Chandler had five fouls and the Hornets were down 19. It was right around then that New Orleans mentally threw in the towel, along with everyone but the most Hornets-addled fan watching at home. Byron Scott emptied his bench shortly after the 4th quarter and the older, slower Spurs had their garbage time to relax and ready themselves for Game Five.

    It should be a tremendous game. Even after San Antonio won Game Three, the fight staged by the Hornets–they pushed the Spurs to the brink a few times in the third and fourth quarters–had me rethinking my pick of the Spurs in 6 or 7. But San Antonio kept refining and came out in Game Four playing that incredibly well-spaced and unselfish ball movement offense that de
    stroyed the Suns in Game Three of their first round series. Can San Antonio impose their enormous will on the Hornets on the road? Paul and West both seemed a little pissed and twitchy tonight, an ire that could go either way in their motivation for Game Five. When the Spurs are annoying, they are almost always winning. On the other hand, Chris Paul and David West are bona fide NBA stars, right now, despite their youth, and Tyson Chandler should be in the conversation with Dwight Howard (and some would say Yao Ming) for who is the best center in the NBA. Yeah, I know Chandler didn’t even attempt a field goal tonight. But he is the chip Byron Scott has to play to avoid the disastrous double-team schemes on Duncan that the Spurs have clearly parsed out. And that matchup, perhaps more than any other, will detemine how this series is decided.

  • Wolves 2007-08 Season Recap, Part 1

    Note: I know I said I’d have a Wolves recap for you Monday, but with all the playoff ball consuming my time (not to mention other writing projects–my editors know what they are) I now realize I’m never going to get this done unless I break it into parts.

    So, here’s Part 1, which deals with what I wanted to hear from Kevin McHale at his season-ending press conference last week. (Please bear with the changes in typeface that may crop up because I cut and pasted some of the press conference transcription.) At least one other part will be an evaluation of each player on the roster: Both how I regard him and how I believe the Wolves’ front office regards him. Anyway, thanks for your patience. I’m also willing to kick around the playoffs, if anybody is interested, and will probably in the next couple of days set up an open thread with a bevy of impressions to get things rolling and see what happens. 

    When Timberwolves personnel veep Kevin McHale did his by-now traditional meeting with the media the day after the 2007-08 season to discuss the State of the Ballclub, his mood was decidedly more upbeat and the number of reporters he was addressing was much smaller than in recent years past. Part of the reason (for both) was that there was no buzz McHale was going to step down. The other part (again, for both) was that the bar of expectations had been set so low, especially for the immediate past and future of this ballclub.

    McHale sought to change that some with his dramatic proclamation that, barring significant injuries, the 2008-09 Wolves should improve by some 20 games, flirting with .500, if not a bottom-rung playoff spot in the ultra-competitive Western Conference. And how was this going to occur? Essentially by standing pat and letting the existing personnel get more familiar with each other.

    McHale said this two or three different ways, but just to be clear, I asked him, "Beyond the seasoning of existing personnel, what does this team need?" This is what he said:

    "It needs to come together and play. Everybody says ‘We’ve got to go and get somebody from the outside,’ [but] those guys have got to go in there and grow together as a team, establish themselves a little bit—Al has established himself—kind of, underneath that how are we going to play, our style of play, becomes more dedicated defensively in getting back; our transition defense needs a big step up. Defensively we have got to get tougher. So most of the growth I see is internally. Now in the draft we’ll get a good player in the draft, but with way it is set up we’ll get a 19, 20, 21 year old kid; if you are hanging your hopes on that coming into a man’s league….I would say that, overall, I would just say basically a little more shooting around Al, because he is going to get double-teamed and you have got to have court-spacers. But I thought Foye, when you had Foye and used Foye to enter the ball on the strong side and when you left him he made shots; that is a big part of it. Because I think Bassy was out trying [to distribute], not shooting a lot. Again I think shooting. But to me the biggest jump we are going to make is that group in there staying together and being confident."

    Asked point blank what *besides* seasoning is needed, McHale repeatedly invoked seasoning.

    There are two fundamental problems with this. Minnesota does not have a legitimate NBA center on its current roster capable of starting for a playoff contender. The other fundamental problem is that the Wolves have a glut of swingmen. You could argue–I do argue–that unless Randy Foye dramatically improves his court vision and attitude and Corey Brewer dramatic improves his strength and sinew, the team’s last three top draft picks are all best suited to play the off-guard position. And yet McHale specifically cites the two aspects of the game in which off-guards are thought to be most adept–transition defense and outside shooting–as the two largest areas where this ballclub needs to improve. 

    I understand where McHale is coming from. He’s not going to say this team needs a hardy, defensive oriented big man, because unless he’s going to reach for a player based on position more than talent in the draft, or overpay in free agency, there doesn’t look to be any way to address that weakness. By contrast, talking about the need for shooting and transition defense sets the to-do agenda for his swingman glut heading into next season. I’d have more sympathy for his hands being tied if he wasn’t the one spooling out the rope.

     

    But make no mistake: Minnesota will never be a viable playoff contender without a staunch big men to take the defensive pressure off the team’s two best players, Al Jefferson and Ryan Gomes. A steady diet of postseason games has reminded me what it takes to be an elite NBA team: A bonafide superstar, a demi-star, knowledgeable role players, and capable team defense. It is possible–not quite probable–that Jefferson is a budding superstar. Gomes is certainly a knowledgeable role player who can find a niche on most any ballclub. But put them on the court together at center and power forward and you cannot defend in a playoff-worthy manner.

     

    The numbers at 82games.com show that the Wolves allow a whopping 12.1 points per 48 minutes more when Jefferson is on the court (116 points per 48) than when he is off it (103.9 points per game). One reason for this is because opposing centers have an eFG% (which factors in three-pointers, not generally applicable to centers and power forwards) of 56.3%. By contrast, the power forwards Jefferson guarded had an eFG% of 40.3%. Unfortunately, the sample size for Jefferson at the 4 is woefully small, so we don’t know if that excellent D on eFG% would hold up; but we do know his inept defense in the pivot, where he played exponentially more minutes, overwhelms that performance. And we know that even a scorer as gifted as Big Al isn’t going to lead his team to many victories if that team is ceding 116 points per game.

     

    On to Ryan Gomes. Whereas Jefferson had a huge disparity between his minutes at center and those at power forward, Gomes, because he went to small forward not only when a center was slotted in beside Jefferson, but when Craig Smith or Antoine Walker entered the game, is shown to have played 26% of his team’s minutes at small forward and 34% of the Wolves’ time at power forward (meaning he was on the court approximately 60% of the time). Thus, his stats between the two positions are a little more reliable in comparison to each other. And again according to 82games.com, Gomes yielded an eFG% of 48.6% to the small forwards he guarded versus 54.7% to the power forwards he guarded. (His own eFG% was better at power forward–49.7% versus 48.5% at the 3–but not enough to overcome the disparity of his less effective D in the low block.)

     

    Fortunately, McHale understands this. When I asked him at last week’s press conference: "Are you comfortable, long term with Jefferson at center and Gomes at the 4?" here is what he said.

    "Well I don’t think, I think that Al is a 4-5, not a 5-4, and that Ryan is a power 3-4. Ryan gets more shots at the 4 because he can move around and all those big guys have that paint fixation. But he rebounds better at the 3, posts up better at the 3. They give you flexibility and that is a good thing. Do I want to see that 4-5 combination for 48 minutes? No. I would like to have another big guy for when Al plays the 4. Al has got to get better defensively. Randy Foye has got to get better defensively, Rashad McCants has got to get better defensively, Ryan Gomes, all those guys have to get better defensively. I like the versatility that they give you and again that is why I like bigger players that can do different things. To me Gomes may have scored more at that 4 spot, but to me he punished teams more when he was offensively rebounding and going into the post at the 3. I like that style of play. But he can play both."

     

    When I pointed out that the vast bulk of minutes wound up with Al playing center and Gomes playing power forward, McHale acknowledged: "For 25-30 games, yeah. And I thought we fell into that. They are both two-position players which are really good to have. [But] you don’t like Ryan Gomes, who works really hard, against Rasheed Wallace. What you really like him playing 4 is against Luis Scola who is sitting in the paint. But what I like is you can make one substitution and go huge or one substitution and go small."

     

    Compounding the problem is the fact that the Wolves play horrible perimeter defense, and have for as long as I can remember. It wasn’t quite as deadly when Kevin Garnett was the superstar in residence, and totally committed to the defensive end. (KG’s willpower slipped the last two seasons he was in Minnesota. I thought it was age until I saw him this season in Boston, reborn as a panther capable of hounding anyone from the three point arc to the low block.)

     

    The third and final question I asked McHale was: "For some reason perimeter defense has been a chronic defect of this franchise. Why has that happened?" His reply was: "It bothers me too. It bothered me for twelve years. For me it goes back to 7th grade basketball: If you can’t keep your man in front of you, I’m going to take you out. Don’t let him cut in front of you and keep your rear end between him and the rim. That’s as tricky as I like to make it and sometimes I think we scheme up so much we got so many schemes going on that we lose sight of that. We have got to get better at that, at containing the ball. The good teams in our league defensively contain the ball. They may have holes in other areas but they contain the ball…That is a definite, huge area of concern that we have got to work on."

    To me, that in a nutshell is why the Wolves only won 22 games this season: They played an undersized lineup where the center and power forward couldn;t effectively defend their counterpart, and they allowed perimeter players to penetrate into the paint almost at will.

  • Saturday Playoff Thread and Sunday Playoff Series Picks

    AP Photo/The Plain Dealer, Joshua Gunter

    The obvious pundit’s take on yesterday’s playoff games was that the big guys stepped up, especially LeBron, Duncan, and CP3. Here are some of the dominant impressions I came away with after plastering myself to the rocking chair and catching all of two games and the majority of two others.

    Cleveland 93, Washington 86

    Two things the Wizards should have feared–that Deshawn Stevenson’s asinine comment about LeBron being "overrated" would give him a dollop more motivation, and that Gilbert Arenas would abandon his teammates and try and match LeBron bucket for bucket in crunchtime– came to pass. That stupendous first half dunk where LeBron not only climbed the ladder but got out a special, heretofore unknown stepstool and put it on top of the ladder to reach Boobie Gibson’s too-high feed will be shown in any five-minute recap of his career. but it was the two hoops he made with the score knotted at 84 with 2:38 to play–blowing past Stevenson for a layup and then a little runner just inside the foul line–that truly demonstrates his championship-bound DNA. Arenas, meanwhile, shot 0-4 in that final 2:38 and had no desire to dish it off to one of his two very capable teammates, Antawn Jamison and, even better, Caron Butler, the guy who average 20.3 ppg for the season yet managed to squeeze off only 10 FGA yesterday, making half of them. The fact that Arenas fouled out in 27:47 doesn’t speak well for his mobility either–all the more reason to be realistic about what he can bring to the table in this series. BTW, Stevenson was 1-9 FG–isn’t that always the way with guys who talk louder than they walk in hopes of elevating themselves through pressure. Or perhaps it just doomed egotism.

    Two more quick thoughts: The Cavs, supposedly the one-man team, had an assist-to-turnover ratio of 24/8, while the Wiz, who should be distributing the rock among their plethora of scorers, went 16/13 and shot 40.2%. The matchup that really killed Washington was Z Ilgauskas (22-11-4 and a game-best plus +22 in 37:15) over Brendan Haywood (15-10-0 and five fouls in a game-worst minus -19 in 29:59).

    San Antonio 117, Phoenix 115 (2OT)

    How can anyone not regard NBA hoops as the greatest sportswatching pasttime after this classic? The Fundamental for 3 to bump it into a second overtime?!

    Okay, that’s the only blatantly obvious highlight in a bouquet of big, big plays that I’ll rhapsodize about. If you saw it, you know, and if you didn’t, there are buzz-oriented recaps available elsewhere. Odds are you can find these following pearls of wisdom repeated elsewhere too, but these are the things that stuck in my head from the latest chapter in this amazing Spurs-Suns saga.

    The Shaq trade was as much addition by subtraction as through the presence of Baby Huey Aristotle himself. I don’t know how much Amare Stoudamire actively disliked Shawn Marion as a human being, but ever since the Matrix went to Miami, Stoudamire has been unstoppable on the pick and roll, deadly pulling up for jumpers at the charity stripe, and, here’s the real dividend, invested in team play enough to become an average defender. Now I’ll grant you that Tim Duncan clearly dislikes having Shaq on his back in the low block, but let’s also be clear how little Shaq had to do with Phoenix being up 43-27 in the first 17 minutes–he had zero points, one rebound and three fouls in about 5 minutes of play. No, it was Nash-to-Amare (5 dimes and 10 pts, respectively) and the space that threat opened up for Barbosa (9 pts) and Diaw (8 pts) that built that lead, abetted by a bunch of Spur turnovers and horrible performances at both ends of the court by Finley and Parker.

    I don’t care how often Shaq can get inside Duncan’s head (he scored 40 points anyway); he nonexistant pick-and-roll shows and abject inability to otherwise deter penetration by Ginobili and Parker cost the Suns a game they should have won. I say this as a longtime defender and admirer of Shaq. Compounding the misery for Suns fans was the presence of Kurt Thomas, doing for San Antonio exactly what Phoenix craved: Low post defense and rugged box-outs on the boards. Put Kurt Thomas on the Suns and leave both Shaq and the Matrix in Miami so Amare could run free and Phoenix might just have won this game (I qualify it only because I’m not sure the Spurs ever lose a game they *need* to have).

    I love the way the Spurs play basketball. But–and I know I am late to the party on this–I have come to detest the way they blatantly whine about every single call. Yesterday’s snit-fit was their worst display yet–no mean feat about these cry-babies. Duncan literally jumped up and down and stamped his feet on one call. Yeah, I know there was a play where he was whistled for a foul on a jumper where he obviously didn’t touch the shooter. But when he went ballistic, Bennett Salvatore literally give it a second thought, because, like the boy who cried wolf, Duncan is going to bitch whether it was a phantom foul or there’s blood on the floor. And now, increasingly, Tony Parker and the flopping Ginobili are escalating their aggravated martrydom stances. The Spurs franchise should be apprised of how much this constant bullshit detracts from the classy performance their team displays when the clock is ticking.

    Which brings me to the commentators. Mark Jackson’s pro-Shaq bias was flagrantly on display on the two quick whistles his man received. The first found Shaq swinging one of his formidable forearms aside the noggin of Oberto–Jackson claimed it should have been a non-call. TOn the second, an obvious foul where Shaq tried to draw a charge but was clearly standing inside the circle, Jackson literally said "that ain’t right" because he doesn’t agree with the circle rule! Then there was the time Shaq was whistled for a foul on Kurt Thomas and Jackson derisively called Thomas a notorious flopper–flash to the replay, showing Shaq with his forearm on Thomas’s neck, pushing Thomas’s head below Shaq’s waist.

    Now sometimes Jeff Van Gundy enabled his partner’s idiocy–demerits there. But I don’t remember JVG being so pleasantly loosey-goosey before, the opposite of his anal coaching style. When Jackson tried to give him shit about using the word "acquiesce" (that’s right, don’t get too uppity Mark), Van Gundy disbelievingly replied that he wasn’t going to dumb himself down during the broadcast. Then there was Van Gundy’s caustic rip on the 6th Man Award and his statement that he’d "rip Michael Finley’s head off" for not sliding over in rotation earlier on a three-point play in the paint. More to the point, Van Gundy was loaded with compelling insights. He identified San Antonio’s hack-a-Skinner strategy in fouling Brian Skinner, in order to squeeze another possession or two out of the end of the first half, a manuver that indeed paid off handsomely for the Spurs. And he pointed out the deeper level of defensive strategy–how San Antonio would be successful if Grant Hill was shooting a two-pointer, even if Hill hit the shot; the point being to have Finley play D in a manner that forces Hill, and not Amare, Nash or Shaq, to beat you.

    Final quick thoughts:

    One negative of the Shaq deal and the Amare emergence is less emphasis on Steve Nash distributing off the dribble. Nearly every single shot Nash hit yesterday was a crucial bucket–the guy was just brilliant–and it would behoove the Suns to let him freelance with the ball a little more frequently to throw another option into the mix–because Bruce Bowen ain’t what he used to be on defense.

    Raja Bell, on the other hand, had a superb defensive game for the first three quarters and then, like the rest of the Suns, couldn’t stop San Antonio’s penetration.

    Another tremendous coaching performance from Pops. He was dead-on when he noted that the Spurs "seemed in
    a hurry" on offense in the first half, and that Duncan trey was clearly a designed play–that takes some stones. [*Update: There are now some reports that the play wasn’t designed. The Spurs freelanced the Duncan trey!] Phoenix was 21-1 when leading heading into the final period. Thanks to Pops and the usual crunchtime crew–we didn’t even bother noting Ginobili’s game-winner until now–the Suns are 21-2 and feeling that snake bite.

    New Orleans 104, Dallas 92

    Dallas was doomed the day Mark Cuban decided Jason Kidd was worth Dasagna Diop *and* Devin Harris, never mind the two #1 picks. Without those two guys, it is much harder for the Mavs to post up and much harder to penetrate. The most revealing stat in yesterday’s game was that Dallas shot 19-56, just 34%, from *inside* the three-point arc. The extent to which the Mavs have entrusted their offense to Kidd can be seen in the fact that the other four starters *combined* for just four assists, and three of those were from Jerry Stackhouse.

    That Dirk Nowitzki and Josh Howard had one dime between them, while Erick Dampier put up just five shots, indicates imbalances all over the place. On the other side, David West had four blocks, Chris Paul four steals, Tyson Chandler as many offensive boards, 7, as any Dallas player had on the defensive board. As I said in my preview, New Orleans is longer, quicker, and the patently better team. Now Jason Terry and Stackhouse aren’t going to combine for 5-16 FG every game, and Nowitzki and Kidd are proud veterans who have seen much better days and know their window is closing with this franchise, which should make for some ferocious contests the rest of the way. But the future is in New Orleans’ court.

     

    Utah 93, Houston 82

    The outcome of this one was predictable, even if I pig-headedly predicted it the other way. Without their center (Yao) and point guard (Alston), Houston’s bench is perilously thin and green, and the Jazz took advantage. None of the Jazz starters were better than plus +5 nor Houston’s worse than minus -6, but Chuck Hayes was minus -17 in 15:36 and Carl Landry (a particular favorite of mine) was minus -12 in 11:09. By contrast, Matt Harpring was plus +19 and Kyle Korver plus +17 off the bench for Utah.

    This was a gritty game, full of sweat and elbows. Luis Scola made me feel really smart about my ROY pick by battling Carlos Boozer to a draw, and Shane Battier worked the seams and Utah’s fixation on Tracy McGrady to get a game-high 22 points with an ultra efficient 7-7 FG. But Bobby Jackson was out of his league thrust in against Deron Williams, shooting 3-15 FG and doling out just 3 assists. T-Mac was the de facto point guard for the Rockets and he concentrated on the task a tad too diligently, passing up makeable shots to "get everyone involved," especially in the first three periods. If McGrady can only muster 20 points on 21 attempts (he sank 7), the Rockets are toast unless Landry and Hayes grow up in a hurry or Alston makes a miraculous recovery that has him at full strength by Game Two.

    Houston actually led briefly in the third quarter, but I thought the game turned on a pair of treys Korver buried to turn a 2-point Jazz lead into eight during the last three minutes of the third. After that, Utah just wore the Rockets out. Few teams are better at that the one coached by Jerry Sloan. If the Rockets don’t get off the mat in the next contest, there won’t be any more basketball in Houston this postseason.

     

    Here are today’s playoff picks:

     

    Toronto (6) vs. Orlando (3)

    Pivotal points: Both teams like the long ball and the Raps are actually a little better at it, making this a potentially volatile series. Can Toronto exploit its distinct advantage at point guard (Calderon/Ford over Nelson/Arroyo) to compensate for its lack of an answer for Dwight Howard down low? How does Toronto, a team that looks so good on paper (balanced scoring, better than 2/1 assist/turnover ratio teamwide) finish only .500—a dozen games below the Magic?

    My guesses: The Magic play classic inside-outside basketball with Howard in the paint and Turkoglu and Lewis using their length to get off treys outside. Toronto can make this a series if Chris Bosh hits enough midrange J’s to bring Howard outside his defensive comfort zone, if Howard is frequently fouled and clanks at the line, and if Toronto’s bevy of long-range chuckers get reasonably warm. That will be worth a couple of games.


    My pick:     Orlando in 6.

    Philadelphia (7) vs. Detroit (2)

    Pivotal points: Is Philly just happy to be here or capable of overachieving on the momentum of its remarkable second-half push to the postseason? Conversely, will the Pistons be subconsciously taking a team who finished 19 games behind them for granted while they look ahead to Orlando and Boston? Does Flip Saunders continue to play 10 guys or shorten his bench?

    My guesses: Tayshaun Prince is Andre Iguodala’s bad dream, Chauncey Billups is one of the few point guards Andre Miller can’t post up, and Samuel Dalembert’s shot-blocking is wasted on a ballclub that excels at Saunders’ midrange, low-turnover offense. So how did Philly split four games with the Pistons this year? Dunno. But the playoffs are a different animal.

    My pick: Detroit in 4.

    Denver (8)
    vs. Los Angeles Lakers (1)

    Pivotal points: Will a team sporting Marcus Camby and Anthony Carter among its starting five ever decide to play team defense? Who matches up with Kobe Bryant? Will the Lakers play their controlled, triangle-offense game, or get suckered into a shootout?

    My guesses: Melo and AI put up gaudy individual numbers next to their team L’s as they have done much of the season. By default, the main Kobe-checkers are the chuckleheaded JR Smith and the offensively challenged Yakhouba Diawara (with a little bit of AC and maybe even Linus Kleiza also thrown into the breach), all to no avail. The Nugs will win once when the score is over a combined 240, but this colossal waste of talent won’t see the second round.

    My pick: Lakers in 5 or 6.

    Atlanta (8) vs. Boston (1)

    Pivotal points: Will Josh Smith, a poor man’s Kevin Garnett, make the most of his time in the spotlight opposite KG? Has Ray Allen been napping as third wheel to conserve energy for the postseason, or will Joe Johnson abuse him on defense? Will the Hawks be able to break 100 in this series?

    My guesses: There will be at least one monster blowout and at least one improbable Atlanta victory, maybe even in the first two games at the Garden. Expect a great series from Rajon Rondo who will outplay the more heralded Mike Bibby at both ends of the court. Johnson will go off, but so will Paul Pierce, who will make life worse for Marvin Williams, increasingly known as the guy taken ahead of Chris Paul and Deron Williams.

    My pick: Boston in 5.

     

  • The Three Pointer: Painless #60

    AP Photo by Carlos Osorio

    Game #81, Road Game #41: Minnesota 103, Detroit 115

    Season Record: 21-60

    1. One More Smallball Razzing

    Since this will probably be my last Wolves three-pointer of the year (I’ll either do a season evaluation and/or cover the team’s press conference later this week after tomorrow’s Milwaukee tilt), it’s appropriate that I jackhammer on the anti-smallball theme one more time, eh?

    Without being a conspiracy theorist, isn’t it odd that we finally got a long look at Jefferson-Gomes-Brewer-McCants-Foye the other night (a lineup one might think would be deployed on a more regular basis, given that it best reflects the five players this organization is probably most invested in right now) and tonight had not one but two stints where Al Jefferson and Chris Richard actually were allowed to play on the floor together? Now, granted, the first one was just 3:16 in the second period and the second only a tad longer at 3:33 in the fourth, which is hardly a large sample. But lo and behold, how did the Wolves and Jefferson fare in that combined 6:49?

    How about plus +9, factored out at plus +1 in the first half stint and plus +8 in the second half one. If you go plus +9 in 6:49 of a 12-point loss, that means the Wolves were a miserable minus -21 in the 41:11 Jefferson and Richard didn’t play together. Here’s another interesting stat: On a night when Jefferson labored hard to get his 30 points, shooting 12-26 FG, he was 4-5 FG during his time with Richard, and thus 8-21 FG without Richard. What makes this even more skewed is that Richard had a case of the dropsies tonight; he flubbed an easy slam opportunity on a pick and roll, frittered away a basic feed into the post, and couldn’t even retain possession of a rebounded free throw in the final period. Imagine Al Jefferson playing beside a center who could not only hang on to the rock a little bit, but stick a 12-footer just often enough to deter those double-teams. Imagine Ryan Gomes guarding Tayshaun Prince instead of Rasheed Wallace.

    2. The Foye-McCants Redundancy

    It is quite possible that Randy Foye and Rashad McCants can find a way to co-exist in the same backcourt, especially if they realize it is the only way they both get regular rotation minutes. But in a very fundamental way, they really do have a lot of overlap in their respective games. Neither one of them is really a point guard, in that point guards are working for a seamless blend and a synergistic ensemble above all else–they are the Anthony Hopkins or Gene Hackman of hoops, capable of greatness mostly in the context of their character role. Foye and Shaddy are more like Jack Nicholson, the shooting guard of actors, a guy who is essentially himself regardless of what role he plays, a guy who elevates the ensemble by being a shining star, not a blender.

    Everybody knows this about McCants, of course. Tonight he got up 17 shots (making 8, with 2-7 from 3pt range) in 30:30, and received a technical foul for banging into Rodney Stuckey heading back up the court after executing a spectacular dunk that facialed both Jason Maxiell and Amir Johnson in the 4th quarter. Foye is a little less obvious, especially if you just read his stat line in the box score instead of watching him operate an offense. Tonight, for example, he had an impressive 9/1 assist-to-turnover ratio. But what the stats don’t show is after he nailed a jumper midway through the first period for his initial points of the night, he waited three seconds on the team’s next possession to give himself a heat check and try to stick another. Later that same period, he stepped back and made a trey for his second bucket of the night. Eight seconds into the team’s very next offensive possession, he launched another trey–heat check #2 (both heat checks missed).

    On a slightly more macro level, Foye very much buys into his 4th quarter mythology. Tonight, he was 4-7 FG with 4 assists after three periods. But in the final 12 minutes, he launched as many shots as he had in the first three quarters (going 2-7 FG) and doled out even more assists (5, versus zero turnovers). In other words, Foye’s governance of the offense was much more pronounced in the 4th quarter, in ways that were both good and bad.

    There are worse things than two Jack Nicholsons, of course, and by that I mean that both Foye and McCants have undeniable talent. Er, offensive talent, anyway. Neither one seems to be able to play a lick of defense. Randy Wittman has loosened the reins a little bit these past couple weeks, which has certainly made the games more entertaining in the sense of showmanship and skill-rendering, but in the process the Wolves are yielding a whopping 112 points per game during the month of April, and it starts on the perimeter. Tonight, both Chauncey Billups and Ronnie Stuckey could get pretty much anywhere they wanted off the dribble, and Shaddy’s defense was equally porous and lackadaisical.

    Getting a quality point guard would be a boon for this ballclub in more ways than one. It would shake up the pecking order and compel both Foye and McCants to redefine their styles and priorities. It would also nice to see Jefferson, Foye and McCants all benefit from a slick passer with good court vision who, unlike Mr. Telfair, could keep opponents honest with an accurate jumper and/or an ability to finish at the hole as well.

    3. Snyder and Brewer Are Not Redundant

    The largest stylstic difference the past few games has been when Brewer and Snyder have subbed in for one another. Even as Snyder’s defense has become more sporadic, he has gotten to the rim off the dribble more consistently than any of the swingmen or back court players on the roster. Brewer, on the other hand, is thankfully concentrating on defense and rebounding once more and letting the shots come to him by accident–he was an efficient 4-5 FG in 24:46 tonight as a result.

    The biggest similarity between the two small forwards is they both are anxious to exploit opponents in transition and are much less effective when the pace is slow and the offense bogs down in the half court. On the odd chance that Snyder is still around next year, it might be good to see them playing together on a quintet that tries to play three-quarter court traps and just generally pressures the ball. Of course that’s best utilized when you have a shot-blocker to help clean up the gambles of pressing, which brings us back to square one (or at least point one) and the need for a pivot man to prevent small ball from becoming the fallback position.

  • The Three Pointer: The Last, Best Weekend

    AP Photo by Nikki Boertman

    Game #79, Road Game #39: Minnesota 102, Orlando 101

    Game #80, Road Game #40, Minnesota 114, Memphis 105

    Season Record: 21-59

    1. Wanting It More

    It does not significantly diminish the two wins posted this weekend by the Timberwolves by pointing out that neither Orlando nor Memphis bothered to be particularly resilient or really dedicate themselves to "the old college try." The Magic have a #3 seed in the east sewn up and didn’t seem especially distraught about allowing the Wolves to overcome a 9-point deficit in the final 4:23 of the game. The Grizzlies rested outside sniper Mike Miller (bad back) and benched their top two centers, Darko Milicic and Jason Collins (each DNP-CD) to get a longer look at the small (6-9) youngster Andre Brown in the pivot. Such are the vagaries of late-season hoops. Consider that the previous two years, the Wolves themselves bent over backwards to move the clicker upwards in the loss column.

    By contrast, the Wolves weathered a blistering 3-point shooting performance by Orlando in the first half and overcame the Magic with a balanced scoring (abetted by riding their most highly-touted quintet of the future at crunchtime) and more diligent defense; then blew Memphis out with a franchise-record 43-point first quarter and their most dominating performance of the season on the boards. What these things have in common–the resilience, the ball movement, the rebounds, the defense–is an abiding desire to win. It has been awhile since this team was demonstrably hungier than its opponent for two successive games.

    Let’s focus in on the pivotal movements of both games. After playing cat-and-mouse with the Wolves with a lead that fluctuated from 4 to 14 since the first 90 seconds of the game, Orlando and Minnesota each made key substitutions with 8:18 to go and the Magic up 5, 91-86. For Minnesota, it was Al Jefferson in for Chris Richard, giving the Wolves a lineup that includes their last three first-round picks–McCants, Foye, Brewer–and arguably their top two players this season, Jefferson and Gomes. Somewhat remarkably, despite the frequency with which the Wolves play smallball, this particular quintet does not even rank among the top 20 most-frequent five-man units this season for Minnesota (according to 82games.com), which means it hadn’t even mustered 36 minutes up this point.

    Well, for the final 8:18 they stayed intact, and the result was a 16-10 margin, including 12-2 over that last 4:23. A primary reason for this disparity was Stan Van Gundy’s decision to sub in Jameer Nelson for Carlos Arroyo instead of Keyon Dooling, giving the Foye-McCants backcourt a substantial physical mismatch versus Nelson (6-1, 190) and Dooling (6-3, 195)–especially when you consider that the Magic flank the beastly Dwight Howard with a pair of 6-10 swingmen (Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu) and throw the 6-5, 220 Maurice Evans in the backcourt as starters.

    Consequently, the Wolves were able to rally despite zero field goals from Jefferson, who went 0-4 from the floor while the rest of his teammates registered 10-18, including 4-4 from beyond the arc, two apiece by Foye and McCants, who played together over the last 17 minutes. For that matter, Foye played the entire second half, and all but 34 seconds of the entire last three periods, leading the team in points (25, on 10-21 FG) and assists (6). With Jefferson otherwise engaged with the giant speciment named Howard, Foye went off for a dozen 4th quarter points, McCants added 8–but more significantly, hit a vital crunchtime trey to bring the Wolves to within a point with 1:17 left to play. This was right after the Wolves looked doomed by a sequence where Ryan Gomes clanked a wide open jumper and Turkoglu drove the left lane for a layup. It was also the last field goal of the game. The Wolves’ defense clamped down, the Magic, worried about Howard getting fouled and missing free throws, chose to have Dooling and Turkoglu miss out side jumpers, and the game came down to a scrum where the Wolves battled for an offensive rebound that eventually fell to Gomes. Howard fouled him with 2 seconds on the clock. Whatever Gomes’s difficulties with jumpers with the game on the line, he’s money from the free throw stripe–swish, and swish. Ballgame, Minnesota.

    Still riding the high of their first road victory of the season against an Eastern Conference team, the Wolves ensured that there would be no drama in the game against the Grizz. They purely and simply blew out Memphis in the first period, led by Kirk Snyder, whose four turnovers and minus -14 in less than 25 minutes of play against Orlando stood in stark contrast to Corey Brewer’s fine outing. Against Memphis, he went hard to the hole, scoring nine points on a putback layup, dunk, and a driving layup, plus three FTs. Meanwhile, the Wolves doubled up the Grizzlies (who made the smallball Minnesota squad look rather large with their pipsqueak lineup) on the boards, 20-10. That set the tone, which had the Wolves racking up a monstrous 21 *offensive* rebounds in the first three periods alone, finishing with 62 boards overall. Four players–Jefferson, Gomes, Snyder and Brewer, had double-digit rebounding totals. McCants was again a deadeye from outside. The final 9-point margin really wasn’t that close.

    2. The Return of Corey Brewer

    How long has it been since you were excited about Brewer’s NBA future–a month? Six weeks? I daresay the same might be said of Brewer’s own outlook. But, as will probably always be the case with Brewer, he rekindled his nearly snuffed confidence with defense on Friday, particularly in the final 6:58 of the second period. It started with a steal of Arroyo and floor length drive culminating in two free throws. Then he went high flying sidewise to block Arroyo’s open court layup attempt a few minutes later, stuck a jumper after that, and filched the ball from Howard and generated another layup in the final minute of the period. Bottom line, in the second quarter alone, Brewer had 8 points, 4 boards (two offensive), two steals and a block. No doubt it helped that he and his former Gator college teammate Richard both had dozens of friends in the stands down in Florida. In any event, shaking off all those weeks of bad ju ju, he carried over the old Brewer hustle into the Grizzlies game and racked up 11 rebounds to give him 20 in less than 52 minutes of play his last two contests, along with four steals. Yes, he can get overamped–he fouled out against Memphis and had moments versus Orlando where he was ball-dogging a player who wasn’t his man–but when that enthusiasm is productive, he can flash back to the steals and blocks and boards rather than those hideous misses that have marred his play before then.

    3. Quick Hits

    Chris Richard also had dug his niche a little deeper as the backup center with a pair of nice games over the weekend. While it remains possible that Richard will become this year’s Bracey Wright–a kid with a flash of promise honing everything he can out of his game who just doesn’t have NBA ability in the long run–his attitude and work ethic have been a joy to behold this entire season.

    Another second-rounder who constantly works hard at refining aspects of his play–Craig Smith–has not been missed at all the past two games, which could help make some signing decisions a little easier in the off-season.

    During the trey for the Milwaukee finale, I’ll announce a couple of playoff games or series in advance that I’ll be covering along with delivering my choices for various awards, and guessing the winners of the first round matchups. If we can keep this beautiful conversation going into the postseason, I’m game.

  • Abbreviated Three-Pointer: No D in Wolves

    Game #78, Home Game #40: New Orleans 122, Minnesota 90

    Season Record: 19-59

    1. Trying to Trade Baskets

    The Minnesota Timberwolves shot 73.3% in the third quarter last night, 11-15 FG, including 3-4 from beyond the 3pt arc. The worst shooting performances were Ryan Gomes and Chris Smith at 1-2 FG; Al Jeffeson was 2-3 FG, Rashad McCants was 3-4 FG, and Marko Jaric and Kirk Snyder were each a perfect 2-2 FG. Eight of those eleven baskets were assisted, led by Gomes with three dimes.

    The Wolves were outscored 41-27.

    The front line of the New Orleans Hornets annihilated Minnesota’s frontcourt, shooting a collective 14-18 FG, including a trio of treys by Peja Stojakovic, for a collective 31 points. Chris Paul chipped in 8 points on 3-4 FG and 1-1 FT and dropped five dimes with nary a turnover. Morris Peterson went 2-3 from the free throw line to complete the scoring.

    In the fourth quarter, the Hornets cooled down a tad, shooting only 57.1% (12-21) after the blistering 77.3% of the third. Alas, Minnesota could only muster 5-20 FG, making the final a blowout 32-point loss after being a bucket down at the half.

    Asked how tough it was going up against MVP candidate Chris Paul, Randy Foye was begrudging. A lot of it is the people around him–they have great finishers," said Foye, adding, "we were stopping him."

    The operative word in that last sentence is "were." Yes, Paul failed to register a field goal in the field half, arriving with just two points (2-2 FT) and one rebound at the break. Foye, meanwhile, had exploded for 16 points in the first period, including 4-4 from three point range in his 6-7 FG overall. But Paul also had 8 assists in the first half, compared to Foye’s 2. So if we compared the two *point guards,*, Paul generated only four fewer points–his 2 points and the 16 from his eight assists–than Foye’s 22 generated points (18 scored plus 2 assists).

    And that was the first half. In the second half, Paul shot 6-7 FG, added 3-4 FT, grabbed four rebounds and again dropped 8 dimes in the half, to finish with 16 assists versus one turnover. Foye went 0-6 FG and 2-2 FT in the second half, with three assists and zero turnovers. Final line: Foye outscored Paul 20-19 but got out-assisted, 16-5. Asked about what happened in that second half, he was still begrudging, noting that "I got in a little bit of foul trouble, picked up some cheap fouls."

    Paul’s teammates may be great finishers anyway, but it helps that the frontcourt towered over Minnesota’s front line by 3, 4 and 2 inches, respectively at the center, small forward and power forward positions. That explains how five of Paul’s assists were alley oop dunks.

    2. It’s The Meat (Size) and the Motion (Penetration)

    After the game, coach Randy Wittman bemoaned the fact that his team went with the jump shot as the default position. "We need that guy who will put it on the floor," he said. "We have struggled all year getting free throws–we had 9 tonight–and we’re settling for jump shots." When Foye’s first quarter scoring explosion was mentioned, Wittman re-emphasized, "Yeah he made some jump shots but then he kind of fell in love with that…We moved the ball pretty good but we have got to look for people who will put the ball on the floor and get to the rim."

    Asked if that is the team’s biggest need, Wittman gave an answer that should be applauded for folks who are sick and tired of smallball. "No, we need to get bigger. What is prefereable?" he asked rhetorically, the penetrator or the larger bodies? "Whatever presents itself. We also need outside shooters. Al is a willing passer."

    3. McCants and Brewer

    Whatever drama may have existed between Wittman and McCants is again on the back burner, as Shaddy played 30:09 off the bench and was his usual self, leading the team in points and field goals and tying Foye for the high in FGA. Foye and McCants combined for a gaudy 9-17 in three-point shooting and yet the ballclub still got pasted by 32 points. Not coincidentally, defense has been an achilles heel for both Foye and McCants this season.

    On the other side of the ledger, Corey Brewer continues the out-of-body experience of watching his season disappear down the rabbit hole. As happens enough to be something of a pattern this season, Brewer came out and stuck his first two jumpers, including a nifty dribble-drive left, put on the brakes and nail a fade-away sequence early in the second period. But then he came down and chucked up a heat-check J on the very next possession that clanked, leading to five more misses that were lucky if they clanked. Also in the second period, Marko Jaric drove beneath the hoop and fed the rook on the baseline for about a 10-footer that he flat-out airballed, a shot so inept that the 12,000 or so people in the stands were murmuring about it for the next 15 seconds. Then there was the four footer he was gift-wrapped in the second half that barely grazed the front iron. In all seriousness, I’m not certain giving Brewer any more burn in these final four games is a good idea. Better just to let him keep practing and then proscribe an off-season diet of milkshakes, bench presses, squats and cheeseburgers along with a daily diet of about 10,000 jump shots. The boll weavils have infested his confidence and it will take a few months to clean them away.

  • The Three Pointer: Unprepared

    Copyright 2008 NBAE (Photo by Kent Smith/NBAE via Getty Images)

    Game #77, Road Game #38: Minnesota 119, Charlotte 121

    Season Record: 19-58

    1. Plenty of Blame To Go Around

    Coach Randy Wittman thought the Minnesota Timberwolves came to play without passion or commitment tonight on the road against Charlotte, and he was spot-on. I wasn’t there to ask any of the players–and they wouldn’t tell me anyway–but I imagine they thought Wittman’s stubborn smallball strategy put them in a position to lose, if not outright embarrass themselves, and that might have had something to do with the half-assed effort. At the end of the night, the only mystery was how this wretched ballclub found itself with a chance to win the game on its last two possessions.

    Let’s deal with Wittman and smallball first. I’ve stopped writing about it because it’s arrogant and boring to be a johnny one-note when you have no influence on the outcome and the team has lost 39 more games than it has won–it’s not like there aren’t any other foibles to point out. But on a game like tonight, when the small lineup was immediately and definitively proven to be disastrous choice of matchups, it probably serves a purpose to grab some of the nearby factual ammo to highlight the stupidity, and then remind folks that it really doesn’t *have* to be this way.

    On Charlotte’s first two offensive possessions, center Nazr Mohammed fed an interior pass to power forward Emeka Okafor who shrugged off Ryan Gomes (if he noticed him at all) and laid the ball in. After the first time, color commentator Jim Petersen chuckled ruefully and said that Okafor would be a tough matchup for Gomes tonight. No kidding. Okafor is three inches taller than Gomes and much stronger in the upper body. He likes to score in the low block, mostly because he’s good at it. Meanwhile, on the other side of the lane, Mohammed was abusing Jefferson to the tune of 9 points in the first 5:40 of action.

    The first time Charlotte scored off a jump shot, they already led 21-12, having scored 21 points in the paint in a cool 6:21, which works out to about 80 points in the paint per 48. Petersen, who is paid to be diplomatic, began calling for Chris Richard to join Jefferson and Gomes on the front line. Instead, Wittman subbed out his entire front line, bringing in Richard, Craig Smith and Kirk Snyder for Jefferson, Gomes and Brewer with the score 27-12 and 3:26 to go in the first quarter.

    Randy Wittman is a hard guy to defend. Indeed, one could make the case that, even with personnel that has been mediocre to inferior in terms of overall talent, he has underachieved on that talent level pretty much every year he’s been the head coach in this league. I don’t know why he has continued to deploy Jefferson at center, but after 76 games and a couple weeks’ worth of steadily declining production, Jefferson finally said "uncle!" over the weekend and declared himself physically and mentally toasted. And how did he say he was going to prepare himself to play with more rigor next season? By losing weight. Now does that sound like a guy itching to remain in the pivot with the leviathans, or somebody sending a message that he’d like to go back to his natural power forward slot next year?

    Now, I didn’t say Wittman was an impossible guy to defend, and if I’m going to club him for the smallball, I owe him a little context. Jefferson *has* come out relatively weak and unwilling to mix it up the past three first quarters. He could barely dribble straight countenancing doing his patented spin moves and dipsy doodles against Shaq and a rejuvenated Amare the other night, and laid an egg in the first 12 minutes against Memphis and Darko, of all people. Tonight it was passive D on Mohammed and an inclination to settle for 15-foot jumpers.

    But Wittman hasn’t backed down. He called out Jefferson after the Memphis game and benched him alongside Gomes and Brewer. At halftime, Jefferson had gotten just four seconds more burn than Craig Smith, and less playing time than Gomes or Randy Foye. And for whatever reason Wittman did not play him for one second at power forward beside Chris Richard. Now do I think that’s stupid coaching? Yes, I do. But in Wittman’s defense it must be stated that Jefferson came out and destroyed Charlotte in the second half on offense, scoring 29 points on 12-13 FG and establishing himself as a horse that the Wolves’ rode to an amazing 68 points in the paint and 51.5% shooting for the game. The only shot he missed in the second half was a desperation jumper from the corner with .7 seconds left on the clock. It wasn’t like the team was running its offense through the guy who happened to register 40 points: 10 of his 18 field goals were unassisted, included 4 putbacks.

    So if one buys the argument that Al Jefferson is really the only sure thing this franchise has to work with, than an argument can be made that Wittman is tempering him with fire and ice and everything in between, wearing his ass out in the paint against bigger and stronger personnel. I don’t know if this is true, but nothing else makes sense. And to the extent that Jefferson is gathering himself up and rising as best he can to the occasion–and 40 points is a pretty good response–the drill sargeant bit is working.

    To continue along this track, Gomes is arguably the second best player currently on the roster and is also being fed a steady ration of pounding in the low block. Again, the only way this makes sense is to enhance Gomes’s toughness and durability over the long run. Personally, I’d argue he needs more time and seasoning at the small forward slot, learning how best to use his size and bulk out on the perimeter. Tonight, after Wittman did finally relent to the point of playing Smith at the power forward and Gomes at the 3 (prompting the Wolves’ comeback, not coincidentally), Gomes did some posting up of Jason Richardson, who, as a strong, athletic 6-6, probably isn’t used to defending it. Gomes customarily quietly had 24 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists tonight.

    Of course neither the coach nor the players operate in a vacuum. Wittman is justified in castigating his players for coming out flat and essentially losing the game in the first five minutes. But his smallball very obviously lessened the odds of his team’s success, something the players know better than anyone. And as he cracks the whip on a 19-win team 77 games into the season, is he surprised that some, if not most, of the players are rebelling is ways both passive and aggressive? On the other hand, while the players are justified if they note the coach blew the matchups and don’t appreciate the demonstrative scenes he makes on the sidelines in response to their mistakes, they aren’t coming out ready to deliver a solid night’s work either. Bottom line there is plenty of blame to go around.

    2. A Gold Star for Buckner, A Lump of Coal For McCants

    Both Petersen and Strib beat writer Jerry Zgoda appropriately lauded little-used reserve Greg Buckner for his catalytic performance (PiPress writer Rick Alonzo was less effusive but didn’t neglect Buck). After not playing for a month, Buckner climbed off the bench and delivered a game-best plus +17 (six better than second-best performer Raymond Felton of Charlotte) in 31:05. Even watching on television, you could see that Buckner was operating at a higher gear than every one of his teammates, a scathing indictment of their effort that almost certainly raised their caliber of commitment. Along with his example, Buckner provided a rare semblance of defense (Charlotte shot 62.3%, led by a combined 23-29 FG from Okafor, Mohammed and shooting guard Matt Carroll), and nailed 3-4 treys and 5-9 FG overall. Amid all the gushing, however, the cavaet must be inserted that Buckner fell prey to his primary weakness–trying to do too much once he gets on a bit of a roll. In a game decided by just one or two possessions, it would have been nice to see him deemphasize his offensive contribution in shooting and dribbling. Ditto Ryan Gomes, who let fly with a trey from the corner
    and another jumper that I’d really wished he’d pounded into Jefferson.

    Rashad McCants was among those not ready to play tonight. With the Wolves down 9 after just 6:21, Wittman threw him in for Foye and it took Shaddy all of 12 seconds to dribble around two opponents out on the perimeter and jack up a trey. After that, his only smudge on the box score was for two silly fouls, the first catching Carroll on the follow-through to his missed jumper, the second simply crowding his man too much in the corner. Wittman sat him after that and never brought him back–he played a scoreless 3:11 and was a minus -8 during that brief period. After the game, according to the beat writers (again, I wasn’t there), Wittman said he didn’t bring Shaddy back due to a lack of professionalism and was quoted as saying that McCants knows what he did. For his part, McCants left the locker room before the media could reach him.

    I’ve been accused of being both a McCants-lover and a McCants-hater and I plead guilty on both counts, and suspect Shaddy wouldn’t have it any other way. It is certainly possible McCants did something Wittman considers unprofessional, but it would frankly surprise me if it was heinous or malicious–until the situation gets explained further, there is no way to know.

    What I do know is that Wittman and McCants mix like oil and water, for obvious reasons of temperament and personality. I also know that this is a situation engendered by the front office. When Kevin McHale selected McCants in the draft three years ago, he openly acknowledged that Shaddy had some baggage but that the Wolves, unlike at least a handful of other teams, believed his talent was worth the gamble. Then a year and a half ago, the same McHale tabbed Wittman to replace Dwane Casey because he felt the team needed a little discipline and a kick in the pants. So you gamble on the volatile McCants and then you hire a taskmaster coach and everything is supposed to go well?

    I find it disappointing but not surprising that Wittman met with both Jefferson and Foye, but pointedly not McCants, the other day to talk about what is expected of them as future leaders of this team. In a comparison of Foye and McCants, I believe Foye is the more likely player to put together 6-8 solid seasons in the NBA, but that McCants has more star potential. True, he is a gamble, which is precisely why a team like the Wolves–who are looking at pretty formidable competition from Portland and Seattle in the next 5 years–need to cultivate him. I see the scowls and the ball-hogging and all the rest. I also know that McCants has produced as many important assists–synergistically creative ball-sharing–this season as Foye. Granted, Foye hasn’t played as much, but on the flip side, Foye is supposedly a point guard.

    Yes, Foye has been felled by injury. But that doesn’t change the fact that, flat-out, McCants has been a better player than Foye on the Wolves thus far this season. Or that he is the team’s best perimeter scoring threat–it isn’t even close. Now, does that mean McCants is or should be superior to Foye on the pecking order of this ballclub? No, not necessarily. But consider that tonight in crunchtime, with the Wolves down three with 30 seconds to play, Foye bulled his way to the hoop and tossed up a too-strong airball layup that was fortunately rebounded by the Wolves and converted into a Jefferson bucket. Consider that with 12 seconds to play and the Wolves down one, Foye turned the ball over on a misguided feed to Jefferson–flashing it too strong and not realizing Jefferson had a bad vision angle because he was visually screened by the man guarding Foye. Consider that Foye continues to have difficulty stopping dribble penetration and has increasing difficulty executing his own dribble penetration because defenders properly seek to take away his right hand.

    This is not to say that the Wolves should abandon Foye, who had a solid 19-6-7 and was plus +2 in over 40 minutes of action tonight. But it is to point out that his play does not suggest him to be a sure bet as a team leader. And to add that if he is regarded that way, to the point of publicly announcing meetings with just him and with a no-doubt leader like Jefferson, then somebody ought to consider that McCants would be offended. I don’t know if that was related to the recent spat or "unprofessional" behavior that Wittman views Shaddy as having committed. But if you are going to go buy a can of oil and a jug of water, don’t be surprised if they don’t mix–and think long and hard about which is more valuable or what else can be done to improve the situation.

    3. Nice Guy Finishing Close To Last

    Of all the players wishing the season would end, Corey Brewer is probably near the top of the list. After a brief stint of decent accuracy, Brewer has shot 3-13 FG over his past three games and increasingly seems to be melting on defense as well. Jason Richardson had about as much regard for his physical prowess as Okafor had for Gomes tonight. A year from now, Brewer needs to be in conversations about "most improved player." Right now he is hurting the club more often than not when he steps on the court. He hustled down floor on the fast break tonight and finger-rolled an airball. Just by watching him this season it is hard to imagine him as anyone other than a proud, hard-working professional who is used to being respected and rewarded for the results he creates. This must be a hellish spring for him.

  • The Three Pointer: Two Ugly

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

    Game #75, Road Game #37: Minnesota 88, Phoenix 117

    Game #76, Home Game #39: Memphis 113, Minnesota 101

    Season Record: 19-57

    1. Jefferson Finally Cracks

    The Timberwolves offered themselves and their fans a choice of embarrassing performances over the weekend: Which do you prefer, an annihilation so complete there was literally 38 minutes of garbage time (the Wolves trailed Phoenix 32-12 with 2:10 to play in the first) or being sluggish early and tepid late in order to drop an eminently winnable home game against one of the few opponents with inferior personnel (Sunday’s loss to Memphis)?

    The Phoenix blowout was the more sobering because it was the first time this season that Al Jefferson was plainly rattled. Even when he was getting lunched a half-dozen times by Samuel Dalembert back in ’07, Jefferson was indomitable and his aggression with respect to both wiles and willpower have been the signature virtue for this ballclub this entire season. So when Jefferson seemed so out of sync and disinclined to bull his way into the paint–and, not incidentally, Shaquille O’Neal–that he couldn’t even coordinate his footwork with his dribble, the Wolves were doomed, injured in the head as well as the heart.

    After torching Phoenix for monster games that keyed improbable Minnesota wins twice this season, it just flat-out looked like Jefferson didn’t want to be out there Friday night. After Sunday’s game, someone remarked to coach Randy Wittman that Jefferson only had one shot in the entire first half against Memphis, and Witt was quick to pounce, saying "That was Al, nothing but his doing." The coach added that the second half Sunday was the first time in awhile Jefferson "had been Al Jefferson," that what he had been doing before was "asking for the ball 15, 20 feet from the basket" and the Wolves weren’t going to reward that. Asked if fatigue was a factor, Wittman said yeah, it probably was, but that the guy Jefferson was replacing–KG was inferred, not mentioned outright–played all 82 most of the time. He added that he was proud Jefferson had played all 76 games for the Wolves this year and that it was important to finish strong.

    I sat next to Stephen Litel of Hoopsworld, who mentioned that Jefferson’s voice indicated he had the flu or something before the game. He mentioned some other things about their interview that were interesting and that I imagine he will publish soon if he hasn’t already.

    In any case, the daily beat writers have duly noted that Jefferson is in a bit of a slump, at least statistically, lately. He’s already exceeded his career highs in games and minutes-played by a fairly wide margin. I still think his defense has begun to improve, although it is hard to know against Phoenix because Amare Stoudamire is like a man unleashed since the Shaq acquisition–he’s not only going beserk on offense, but deigning to cover his man with some diligence lately. Today against Memphis, the large mobile swingmen, Mike Miller and Rudy Gay, were the tandem that thrashed the Wolves, neither of them Jefferson’s man on D.

    2. Wittman Still Barking; Are Players Listening?

    Last year, I disrespected Randy Wittman’s performance because he walked in declaring that he was going to hold players accountable and then called out some players directly (Trenton Hassell) and indirectly (Kevin Garnett and his locker room leadership) while Ricky Davis personified corrosive dysfunction and Mark Blount laid down like a dog without a public peep out of Witt in either case.

    This year, Wittman hasn’t been afraid to pull out the carrots or the sticks on any and every player on the roster, and the absence of a double-standard represents an improvement. In the past week or so, the coach has also seemed particularly caustic–and specific in both the nature of his criticism and the punishment. Against Memphis, he told Marko Jaric and Corey Brewer exactly why they were being yanked as they went to the bench, and didn’t mince words with Randy Foye either.

    But there’s a chicken-or-egg dynamic that needs to be addressed here. If I was coaching the team the past two games, I’d go batshit on them too, probably–but is all that haranguing precisely why the effort and grit have begun to wane as the meaningless games pile up in the spring? It’s a very subtle line, but the body language exhibited by the players as they’re being blistered is less deferential and respectful, and certainly more dismissive. It is way too dramatic to say that Witt is "losing the team," given that there literally isn’t that much to lose, quite frankly, and that it is hard to motivate any ballclub that owns less than 20 wins in April. But if the idea was to finish strong–for example, Wittman said he was disappointed because overcoming Memphis in the standings had become a late-season goal–well, that isn’t happening, and there’s only six left to play.

    3. Shaky Cornerstones and Robust Afterthought

    There are few things worse that Rashad McCants knowing that it is garbage time–the "I’ll get mine" shots rain down–but two of them are Al Jefferson and Randy Foye being the abysmal catalysts for that premature garbage. Jefferson we’ve already discussed. Foye followed up two dreadful defensive performances against Detroit and Utah with a totally disinterested and mentally casual game versus Phoenix. After he inexplicably launched a airball three pointer for no reason whatsoever with about 15 seconds on the clock Friday, Wittman almost had no choice but to give him a quick hook, and indeed, McCants climbed off the pine almost before that stupid shot hit the floor.

    The theory I’ve been toying with as for why Foye has regressed recently has to do with leadership. He was obviously the heart and soul of a very talented Villanova team in college, and I assume the same was true in high school. His rookie year he’s naturally going to be very deferential to KG, yet he still manages to snag a niche–"4th Quarter Foye"–and make the all-rookie team. After Garnett was dealt this summer, Foye attended preseason media day loudly announcing that he was now the leader of this ballclub.

    Then he goes down before all this new personnel really gets a chance to see anything out of him. While he’s rehabbing, Jefferson steps to the fore, slathered in gushing praise from the VP of Personnel, who is essentially saying that Al Jefferson is the next Kevin McHale, and will someday eclipse even that. Now McHale had his reason for touting Jefferson so highly that are bound up in basketball philosophy, kindred styles, and butt covering on a huge trade that, even if successful in the long run, represents a failure for McHale for having to make it in the first place. But the net effect is that it is impossible for Foye to assert himself as even co-leader of the club any time this season.

    Foye’s most egregious mistakes this year–some weird statements about the point guard position, for example, and a lack of deference and feeding of Jefferson at crunchtime in favor of taking the shot–make more sense if you consider that he’s had to grapple with a setback in the pecking order as well as physically with his own body this season. The "little" things he hasn’t done well, like defend, and generate some consistency in terms of shot selection, reflect a player trying to figure out for himself what his role is on this team–and I don’t mean point guard or shooting guard; I mean co-leader with Jefferson, chief sidekick to Jefferson, crunchtime go-to guy, etc. As much as Wolves fans worry about him being able to play a set position, maybe an equal concern is whether he can accept a set role–like #2 guy, or less.

    Then there is Kirk Snyder, who w
    as probably the best overall Wolves player this weekend. Yes, Snyder’s defense has slipped a bit recently–he was one of the multitude who couldn’t guard Rudy Gay Sunday, but he draws fouls, gets to the rim, and dishes off penetration better than any none point guard on the club, and plays a hard, physical style that is very handy to have contained in your 8th, 9th or 10th man. Snyder could carve a role for himself at the end of a bench on a very good team, the one who steps in for 10-20 minutes a night for 2-3 weeks when injuries have depleted a roster and prevents a steep drop in quality of play and emotional momentum. He might even be more than that. Yet for about three solid weeks now, he has outplayed Corey Brewer. It says something about the Wolves’ doldrums that that passes for good news nowadays.

  • The Three-Pointer: 3rd Quarter Fold

    Game #74, Road Game #36: Minnesota 100, Utah 117

    Season Record: 19-55

     1. One-Way Jefferson

    Those who check the box score will surmise that Al Jefferson had one of his worst games of the season tonight as the Wolves were routed by Utah, who turned a close and enjoyably contested first half into a blowout with a 38-22 pasting in the third quarter en route to a 117-100 final. I’m posting this quickly and thus am unaware if Jefferson was benched for the entire 4th quarter because he was ailing, or Wittman was displeased with his performance, or merely because it was the frustrating back end of a two-nighter that the Wolves weren’t going to pull out in the final 12 minutes anyway.

    The line shows Jefferson with a remarkably anemic two rebounds, zero assists and 12 points on 5-13 FG and 2-2 FT in 27:49 of action. What the box score doesn’t reveal is that Big Al had one of his more dedicated and effective defensive performances of the year, limiting Carlos Boozer to 5-12 FG and just 12 points (although Boozer did grab 7 rebounds and pass for 4 assists). There weren’t any of the gaudy blocked shots that have raised the shoddy reputation of Jefferson’s defense in recent weeks (although he had a beautiful block that Joey Crawford, a once-great ref who had another in a series of bad nights in recent years, ruled a foul). But there was a stauch commitment to preventing points by the opposing team’s top scorer. For all the times I ripped Jefferson’s D while he was posting 24 and 15 in a mid-winter Wolves loss, I owe him the nod that he did himself proud on one end of the court once again tonight.

    And there’s the rub: Although not to the dramatic extent we saw tonight, there seems to be a correlation between the improvement in Jefferson’s defense and a slight dropoff in his points and rebounds. I remember two or three years ago when the Wolves started asking Trenton Hassell to play a larger role–a #2 or #3 option–on offense, and he told me in the locker room that quality defense took so much out of him that he wasn’t sure he could step up like that. (Hassell’s scoring did improve fairly significantly during that experiment and his defense dipped slightly.)

    The point is, Jefferson expends an enormous, and underappreciated, amount of energy getting his points. He’s scoring in the toughest part of the court, the paint, against teams whose top defensive priority is to stop him, usually with two players and/or specific schemes. And being an undersized center all year long, he’s also had to battle folks as big or bigger than him for rebounds. Throw in the bump and grind of deterring a gritty and wily low post scorer like Boozer on the tail end of a home-road back-to-back and it’s not surprising that the man came up short.

    2. Foye or McCants

    I am becoming convinced that there are Foye people and McCants people. Both players have really excitable and excreable aspects to their games and honest appraisals of both should resemble a roller coaster, given how inconsistent both players have been and how capable they are of engendering hope and disgust not only from game to game but stint to stint within games. I know I’ve lauded and lambasted each one with a yo-yo regularity.

    I confess that Foye has genuinely raised my ire more often this season, despite the fact that he’s played fewer games than Shaddy, and I think it’s because I believe Foye is more a part of the future firmament for this franchise than is McCants. I don’t imagine the Wolves are going to keep both players around for the next two or three years and if a choice is made, McCants will be the one packing his bags.

    The reason I feel this way is because when the team wiped the slate clean with the KG trade, much was made internally about getting high character guys who mesh in the locker room and on the court and foster the kind of synergy required to be a perpetual playoff team. And Shaddy’s volatility doesn’t fit that definition as well as Foye’s comparative "maturity" and magnanimity. Now there is a good chance this intuitive thinking on my part is inaccurate (for example, the entire dynamic may change if a stud point guard falls to the team in the draft or another ballclub likes Foye or McCants enough to make an attractive trade offer). That’s why I haven’t raised it before, and wouldn’t be talking about it now, except that I have to acknowledge that Foye’s foibles are more irksome to me than Shaddy’s.

    Like his complete inability to guard his man. A night after rook Rodney Stuckey showed him up, he stepped up in class in a major way going against Deron Williams, and Williams toyed with him. Sure, as happened last night, Foye posted decent numbers, and finished with 15 points and 6 assists. But after three quarters, Williams was a perfect 7-7 from the field, and had 13 assists and no turnovers. Can a defender be undressed any more thoroughly than that? D-Will’s dribble penetration consistently broke down the Minnesota defense, setting up a large advantage in points in the paint *and* better than 50% shooting from behind the arc. That’s why after three periods, Williams had a game-best plus +21 and Foye had a game-worst minus -21.

    Given that Foye is more the rugged type of point guard at 6-4, 213, and is coming off a significant knee injury, one might think a quick opponent like Stuckey would give him trouble. But then he should be a better matchup for Williams, who is 6-3, 205, and quicker of thought than he is of foot. Nope, resoundingly nope. So if Foye can’t guard Stuckey (27 points last night) and Williams, who can he guard?

    Now folks who are aggravated by McCants were probably throwing things at their televisions when Shaddy was ignoring his teammates and jacking up treys, or coming up a step slow on defense himself on occasion. It certainly felt that way on occasion. But the thing is, McCants made more than half his shots (6-11 FG), including his treys (3-5 from 3pt), and, as usual, posted a plus/minus (minus -5) that was relatively better than most of his teammates, an ongoing phenomenon that has occurred whether he’s starting or coming off the bench. Announcers Tom Hanneman and Jim Petersen frequently mentioned that McCants had a bad game last night against the Pistons–and he did shoot 1-9 FG. But I thought Foye’s performance was more injurious in the loss, and there was no mention of Foye’s bad game versus Detroit. Maybe Hanny and Pete are "Foye people."

    3. And As For the Small Forwards…

    Kirk Snyder has taken a step back since Wittman’s decision to reinsert Corey Brewer into the starting lineup. Tonight, defending Matt Harpring (the matchup that prompted Witt to give him more minutes early in his Wolves tenure), he was outhustled in the paint and in transition more often, and just didn’t have that spark he showed in his first few appearances off the bench and then always as a starter.

    Meanwhile, Brewer continues to be a high energy, high IQ performer who is a suspect shooter, to put it charitably, and physically overmatched on many occasions. Tonight he popped for a decent 4-9 FG and got to the line 4 times (albeit three of them in garbage time), but had just one rebound and zero dimes in 24:24.

    Bonus fourth point: J-Pete noted how Jefferson was being bodied by Mehmet Okur on D, who was also able to wrest rebounds away from Gomes down low, and called for a little Jefferson-Chris Richard tandem on the front line. It was a temporary plea to short-circuit the smallball. But I’ve talked about that enough already.