The Rake Magazine

Category: Timberwolves

  • The Three Pointer: Awfully Casual

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • The Three Pointer: An Honorable Defeat

    Road Game #6: Minnesota 103, Dallas 109

    Season record: 2-11

    1. The McCants/Jefferson Axis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

    2. Complementary Pairs

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

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

     

    3. Quick Hits

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

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

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

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

    photo by 2007 NBAE via Getty Images

  • The Three Pointer: A Big Easy

    Road Game #5: Minnesota 103, New Orleans 94

    Season record: 2-10

    1. Revolt of the Back-Up Point Guards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    2. Davis for Walker: A Minnesota Steal

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

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

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

    3. More Kudos

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "Hunter did all of that."

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

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

     

    2007-08 4th Quarters
    (through November 24)

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

    *

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

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

  • The Three Pointer: Blown Opportunity

    Road Game #4: Minnesota 93, Denver 99

    Season Record 1-9

    1. Time To Get Angry

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

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

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

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

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

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

    2. The Better Gomes

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

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

    3. A Plus and a Minus

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

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

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

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

    It’s not cute anymore.

  • The Three Pointer: Half Hearted

    Home Game #4: Washington 105, Minnesota 89

    Home Game #5: Washington 100, Minnesota 82

    Season Record: 1-7

     

    1. Swingman Glut Exposes Brewer

    There are a dozen ways to explain how the Minnesota Timberwolves posted their worst six-quarter stretch of the young season this weekend, a trudge of ineptitude that lasted from the second half of the loss to the Wizards on Friday to last night’s thoroughly desultory performance against the Hornets. Like the apocryphal blind men with the elephant, descriptions of all the individual, isolated flaws would be woefully incomplete yet partially accurate, and, if stitched together, would yield of realistic composite of what the thing is. In this case, the thing is a pretty sorry basketball team: Too young, with insufficient talent, comprised of mismatched pieces and not enough pegs.

    Al Jefferson is a peg. You can plant him at power forward and he’ll batten down one-fifth of a quality, perhaps championship-caliber, starting lineup. The rest of the roster? Nobody really knows, including coach Randy Wittman, who may be more confused about his ballclub today than he was at the beginning of the season.

    One of the reasons the Wolves, and by extension personnel guy Kevin McHale, became such a laughing stock was due to the lopsided configuration of position players: Nearly everyone was either an off-guard or a small forward. One of the things lost during the hubbub over the Garnett trade and the boatload of new faces arriving for the cull-and-keep process of rebuilding was that this year’s team likewise is jam-packed with swingmen, scrabbling over each other for minutes like crabs in a bucket.

    Let’s get specific. By dint of his 33-point explosion in the Wolves sole win last week versus Sacramento, Rashad McCants laid a pretty sizable claim on the off-guard spot. If Minnesota is to win, or even avoid being blown out against the better teams in the league, they need a legit perimeter scoring threat to complement Jefferson down in the low block; especially if that guy can also get to the rim and draw fouls off the dribble. McCant is far and away the most obvious candidate to fill that niche.

    But then there is also Corey Brewer, whose perimeter scoring is, to put it kindly, suspect, but who dogs people on defense, scrambles for loose balls, hits the glass with a daredevil’s impetuous focus, and is a coachable, mentally mature kid almost certain to improve dramatically with experience. Brewer, too, is a swingman. At 6-9, it’s reasonable to assume his best position will be small forward someday, but at 185 pounds, someday is not today, or tomorrow, or most any other time this season. Only one player on the entire Wolves roster is lighter than Brewer; Sebastian Telfair, spots him ten pounds–but is nine inches shorter. McCants is 25 pounds heavier than Brewer. Ryan Gomes, who is currently splitting the small forward spot with Brewer, is 65 pounds heavier.

    It’s reasonable to expect Brewer to bulk up at least a little over the next year or two. Looking strictly at the current roster and telescoping a likely 2009 starting lineup would put McCants at the 2 and Brewer at the 3. Consequently, Wittman is force-feeding Brewer at the 3 despite the fact that Brewer’s legs look like popsicle sticks from the knees down and he lacks the upper body to compensate. The alternative is to rob minutes from McCants, or steady vet Greg Buckner (Gerald Green is already a casualty). And when Randy Foye returns, he’ll bump Marko Jaric into the 2-and-3 fray in addition to claiming a few off-guard minutes himself.

    That’s the long-winded explanation for why Corey Brewer found himself a boy among men while trying to guard small forwards Caron Butler (6-7, 228) and Peja Stojakovic (6-10, 229) over the weekend. Butler scorched Brewer for 18 points (6-7 FG, 6-8 FT) in the 22:51 Brewer was trying to guard him. By contrast, Butler had a respectable but hardly dominant 11 points (5-9 FG, 1-1 3pts, 0-0 FT) in the 23:22 Gomes played him. When it was mentioned to Witt after the game that Butler might have been a bit much for the rook to handle, the coach wouldn’t hear it, noting Butler is averaging better than 20 points per game. "He’s been doing that to everybody," Wittman claimed. Uh, not 85% shooting from the field and more than 16 free throw attempts per 48 minutes (his totals against Brewer) en route to a season-high 29 points.

    The next night, with Theo Ratliff out with a troublesome, sore right knee, Wittman upped the ante. Against the tall and rangy New Orleans front line, he could have started banger Michael Doleac on Tyson Chandler, kept Jefferson at the power forward to go against David West, and set Gomes on Peja. Nope. Jefferson slid over to the pivot opposite Chandler, Antoine Walker was tossed in against West, and Brewer started over Gomes versus Peja.

    Well, all things considered, Jefferson and ‘Toine held their own. But at the end of the first quarter, Peja had 15 points, boosting the Hornets to a 25-21 lead. For the game, Peja finished with 20 points (8-13 FG, 4-6 3pt) in 21:50 against Brewer, and 2 points (1-3 FG) in 6:51 against Gomes. And although Brewer did chip in 6 rebounds and 3 assists, he was scoreless for the game (Gomes had 12 in 26:10).

    Is playing Brewer against large veteran small forwards the best strategy? I don’t know, and neither does Wittman. But with McCants showing flashes of explosiveness and Gomes surprisingly tepid the past three or four games, I understand the impulse. Wittman has faith that Brewer is mentally tough enough to endure these whuppings and profit from the NBA court time. I don’t recommend Brewer start at the 3 for the Wolves next game, however. The opponent has a small forward, first name LeBron.

     

    2. McCants–Best When Selfish?

    In the comments section of the last trey, readers and I had a good scrum about whether the emergence of McCants might get in the way of Jefferson’s alpha-dog status in the offense and thus simultaneously deter from the Wolves’ stated "score in the paint" philosophy and smudge the pecking order enough to hurt team chemistry. Over the weekend, McCants generally put those fears to rest by often looking to get his teammates off in the half court sets. In both games, he and Jeff executed the sort of nifty, rapid-fire pick-and-roll that barely waits for the switch–Jefferson slammed home the stuff on both occasions.

    But much more frequently, McCants’ passing gambits were unwise. He committed 8 fat turnovers versus the Wizards on Friday (only two of them charges or travels), and, given that Jefferson misfired from point-blank range in the paint at least a half-dozen times while finishing a miserable 5-16 FG, probably should have called his own number more often. Against New Orleans, McCants joined the general dolor infecting the entire Wolves roster, hitting just 2-10 FG while committing another three turnovers. Yet those 10 shots in 27:04 again indicate the Shaddy was hardly ball-hoggin’. The more intriguing question now becomes, does he need to go for his own to maximize his scoring prowess?

    Wolves’ fans should cross their fingers and hope the answer is no. Instead, let’s offer two more reassuring explanations. First, McCants is neither a point guard nor should be expected to play like one. With the likes of Telfair and especially Jaric, however, he increasingly finds himself compelled to "set something up" out on the wing (hat tip to Garwood Jones for the original insight). Now at the rate things are going, Wolves fans are going to expect the return of Randy Foye to cure cancer–it certainly has been to go-to answer for every other thing ailing the Wolves and humanity. But in this instance, the return of Foye should be of great service to Shaddy, in part because Foye’s penetration and (hopefully) kick-out will provide McCants with a bevy of open looks from the perimeter, and in part because McCants will be freed to operate in shoot-first mode more often when he gets
    the rock. It will be Foye’s job to foster ball movement.

    The second explanation is that, after nailing so many sweet jumpers versus Sac, McCants forgot that scoring in the paint off the dribble is an important–and vital to his good standing with Wittman–part of his game. Just one of Shaddy’s seven baskets (in 16 attempts) was a layup against the Wizards. Versus the Hornets the next night, he simply didn’t score from the perimeter, registering his only points on a reverse slam in the first period and a spectacular left-handed jam over Tyson Chandler in the third (he egregiously traveled on the play, but no whistle so no harm).

    In short, by dishing to Jefferson in the first 85 seconds of play on Friday and looking for his teammates most of the weekend, McCants showed he wants to operate within the context of the club’s offensive schemes. And when Foye finally returns and McCants does the up-fake and go more often as a play off his jumper, the turnovers will diminish and the field goal percentage will rise. Maybe.

     

    3. Silver Linings

    It’s a shame the Friday night tilt versus Washington wasn’t televised, for the Wolves put forth a much better effort than the dog-like performance on Saturday. The key was the performance of the bench in the second quarter, with Telfair, Brewer, Buckner, and Walker joining Jefferson for a smallish quintet that swung the ball with verve and then moved after the pass to foster more ball-movement opportunities; rotated crisply on defense, especially doubling-down on passes into the paint, and generally played with a sense of fun, purpose and electric energy perhaps not seen since the opening quarter of the season opener against Denver.

    The quiet leader by example in all of this was once again Antoine Walker, reprising his role from the previous game versus Sacramento. Watching Walker’s on-court intelligence makes one wince in recognition of how clueless almost all of his teammates are by comparison. (No disrespect intended, but when ‘Toine is the brains of your outfit, your team is in very deep shit.) For example, knowing the multi-misfiring Jefferson was starting to swat at the mosquitoes buzzing his psyche, Walker fed Jeff in traffic for an easy layup he could have converted solo. Little things like that go a long way toward demolishing Walker’s checkered reputation.

    He also has a knack for a maneuver that I haven’t seen a Timberwolf do well since Fred Hoiberg enabled KG: Caught in a double-team, Garnett would dump it to Hoiberg. Freddie would wait just half a beat, perhaps make a feint like he was going to the hoop, then immediately zip it back to Garnett, now facing only one defender and no longer stuck on his pivot foot. Walker executed a similar "get it, wait a sec, give it back" twice with Jefferson to perfect effect (that is, if Jefferson could have hit any shots on Friday). And on offense, ‘Toine had the perfect mix of quick-release treys, and up-fake dribble penetration plus quick snap passes. Bottom line, he had 11 points and sparked a 16-2 Wolves run in the first 6:10 of the second quarter.

    The other Wolves’ player who boosted his internal standing over the weekend was Telfair. The differences between Bassy and Marko at the point, particularly with respect to pace in transition and probing in the half-court, were obvious. Two cavaets: On both Friday and Saturday, Telfair’s first stints in action much more productive than his second stints. And Telfair’s fabled defense was not in evidence on Saturday when New Orleans blew open the game in the second half. Neither Telfair nor any other self-respecting point should let the likes of Jannero Pargo waltz down to the foul line before seriously picking him up. That laxity was typical of the entire Wolves defense, which generated a mere 4 turnovers despite the absence of Chris Paul from New Orleans’s lineup. In any case, it is hard to lavish too much praise on any point who helps enable Pargo to go off for 15 points and 7 assists with just a single turnover.

    Nevertheless, Telfair had his best back-to-back outings of the season, and, if he maintains the momentum, should receive the bulk of the backup minutes when Foye returns. He also has a special chemistry with Brewer on the court–they find each other, and feed off the other’s energy–which made Wittman’s decision to start Brewer and not include Telfair on Saturday all the more perplexing.

  • The Three Pointer: A Breakthrough W

    Home Game #3: Minnesota 108, Sacramento 103

    Season Record: 1-5

    1. Mea Culpa–For Now

    I thought Rashad McCants had a horrible game during last Saturday night’s Wolves loss to the Kings in Sacramento, and quite righteously said so. Thought he was a narcissistic gunner who sabotaged the team’s offensive priority of pounding the ball into Al Jefferson in the paint. And when McCants stubbornly came out playing the same way tonight against these very same Kings at the Target Center–missing two shots and turning the ball over two times before Jefferson even got a touch in the half-court set as the Kings raced to a 7-1 lead in the first two and a half minutes of the first quarter–I started sharpening the knives to slice him up again in this trey.

    Except that after that heat check, McCants began looking for Jefferson and others a bit more. And then when he did start gunning again, and pirouetting through the lane, the ball was going in on a pretty regular basis. He finished with a career-high 33 points, on 13-22 FG, 4-7 from beyond the arc and 3-5 from the line. More importantly, that second turnover early in the first period was his last. Jefferson likewise got off, to the tune of 23 points (11-16 FG), including 13 first half points on just eight shots in a glorious display of footwork, shooting touch, and the psycho-physics of ignoring elbows and hands in your face, but it was McCants who made most of the big shots that cinched the victory down the stretch.

    I still think this is a risky circumstance. I don’t buy Kent Youngblood’s column in the Strib today, in which Shaddy says "We’re a post-first offense. Our main objective is to get it into Al and play off of that," and adds that he hopes "people will really see what I can do," followed by Youngblood opining, "But he won’t force it." Really? Right after he just compared himself to Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade earlier in the piece? And after we’ve seen him continually force it first, to see if he can take over, and only then defer to Jeff?

    Tonight, things worked the way they were supposed to work, with McCants and Jefferson forming a dynamic outside-inside punch that forced the Kings to pick their poison. And there are those who will logically ask, why can’t the team strive for that every game and just play out the hot hand? My response is that young teams create an identity by establishing patterns; and that one key to good team chemistry is a consensual pecking order. McCants has a strong enough sense of self confidence to believe he is the alpha option on offense, and not Jefferson, if his shots are falling early. And yes, that could disrupt the team’s progress this season.

    So why is this point called Mea Culpa? Because tonight the Wolves made it work and very effectively rebutted my kvetching. Because the greater lesson, for this game anyway, might well be that Minnesota does indeed have a dynamic scorer on the perimeter who can also take it to the hole, which was far from a sure thing before the season started, and must be taken as a very good sign, or at least a pleasant dilemma, should pecking order questions arise due to McCants’s continued strong production. I can suspect that the risk remains, and the situation won’t last, but those who were chiding me about this last time I brought it up were vindicated by this win. Hats off to both McCants and Jefferson for enabling the other.

     

    2. A Veteran’s Poise, and the Serbian Sidekick

    Even in this season of the post-Garnett rubble, it wouldn’t be productive for Coach Randy Wittman to just let all the kids play without salting in a few veterans for ballast. (How’s that for a multi-mixed metaphor?) A series of 20, 30, 40 point losses while the rooks and sophs and young newbies to the squad try to read the license plates of the trucks rolling over them isn’t quite the way to engender either confidence or perspective and context. The team needs some poise. And believe it or not, tonight–with Greg Buckner hobbled and Theo Ratliff merely adequate–that means they needed Antoine Walker, who filled the void with grace and intelligence.

    Everyone knows that ‘Toine and the Wolves have a footnote relationship, and that even under the best of circumstances, ‘Toine likes doing the big things. such as launching three-pointers and dominating the rock. But tonight he was the balm, the sage, the guy who was more valuable on the court than he appears to be in the box score. He dutifully banged with the Kings’ two very different bruisers, forward Ron Artest and center Brad Miller, and held his own defending against both.

    When it was apparent that the Wolves didn’t have numbers in their favor on the fast break, it was Walker who slowed it down and brought the ball back out to set up a play. It was Walker who knew the Wolves had a foul to give–and committed it to waylay a Kings’ play–near the end of the third quarter; Walker who also fouled Miller from behind before he could dispose of an easy putback through the hoop; Walker who drove the lane with the shot clock going down; Walker feeding both Jefferson and Shaddy and fostering ball movement in general. He finished with 19 points in 29:33, plus a pair of steals and four rebounds. Given that his presence on the Wolves means that Ricky Davis and Mark Blount have taken their dysfunction to Miami, any other positives he produces for the rest of the season is all gravy.

    Some might wonder why I didn’t cite Marko Jaric as the veteran poise tonight. After all, he’s been with the team much longer than Walker, plays the point, and had a game-high plus +12 and a game-high 8 rebounds in 25:24. The quick answer is that Marko is not poise, not balm, not sage. I suspect you will cut him much more slack and like him a lot better if you realize he is not a leader in most any way. He is, however a glorious sidekick when you’re bent on stoking an adrenaline rush. When bodies are flying around and the ballclub is in that sweet, overlapping zone in the venn diagram of being loosey-goosey and razor-sharp, Jaric thrives like no other and winds up being a super character actor in the prevailing drama. Tonight, given the added advantage of matching up against Slovenian Beno Udrih, whose game Jaric almost surely knows well, he was a large pain in the Kings’ posterior, crashing the boards, diving on the floor for loose balls, snatching a pair of steals and dropping three dimes on his teammates.

     

    3.The Boon of Defensive Aggression and other Quick Takes

    Last Saturday the Wolves limited the Kings to just 40.5% shooting (30-74) and 100 points. Tonight Sacramento shot 50% (39-78) and scored 103 points. Yet I think Minnesota’s defense was more effective tonight. The reason? Pick and roll defense. "We worked on it this week and decided to just be aggressive," Wittman said in the postgame press conference. "Before we were playing one part soft and then one part aggressive." Sometimes this varied approach confuses the opposition. But it also brings forth a cascade of whistles from the refs.

    Flip Saunders used to preach that "the more aggressive team gets the calls." In other words, if you are consistently laying a body on somebody and dogging their every dribble, the refs become accustomed to it and consider it part of your "normal" defense. But if you play loose or soft on one play and aggressively the next, the disparity is heightened and is the aggression seems harsher.

    Coming into tonight’s game, the Wolves had been hamstrung by an exorbitant disparity in fouls, and thus free throws. Opponents were getting to the line an average of 30 times; the Wolves, just 13. Obviously, that’s a huge disadvantage. Tonight, the Wolves were pretty much on their standard pace, generating 12 before the Kings were forced to foul in attempt to overcome a fairly big deficit late in the game, resulting in an additional ten free throws for the Wolves in the final minute and four seconds of play. But
    the real difference was that the Wolves enabled the Kings to get to the line only 14 times, or less than half the season average for Wolves opponents. Yes, the Kings made more field goals and ultimately more points in tonight’s second meeting than as compared to Saturday’s game, but there is something energy sucking and momentum-depressing about frequent stoppages in play that allow opponents to score when the clock isn’t ticking. Making hard, aggressive "shows" on the pick-and-roll, and then sustaining that aggressive approach to the end of the play reduced the whistles. So did better footwork and a slightly more lenient officiating crew.

    Randy Wittman coached a good game from the sidelines, voicing his verbal displeasure more frequently in the first half at a plethora of mental mistakes, and deploying a crisp rotation schedule that had nine different playing logging at least 20 minutes of action. But even the mere 3:42 that second-round pick and backup center Chris Richard received is instructive of Witt’s acumen. Richard subbed in to be matched against another, younger rookie in Sac center Spencer Hawes. In addition, Richard’s college teammate Corey Brewer was with him on the floor during his stint and assisted on a nifty pick and roll that resulted in a Richard slam dunk. Nice of the coach to give the kid an optimal chance to succeed.

    Point guard Sebastian Telfair had one of those inexplicable games where he recorded eight assists and three steals in merely 20:13, yet still seemed inept at decision-making and ineffectual on defense en route to a team-worst minus-3.

    Finally, I never would have thought that less than three weeks into the season scrappy rook Corey Brewer would be giving currently moribund vet Ryan Gomes a run for his money at the starting small forward position.

  • The Three Pointer: Ingraining Bad Habits

    Road Game # 2: Minnesota 93, LA Lakers 107

    Road Game # 3: Minnesota 93, Sacramento 100

     

    1. Half Empty

    The die-hards among us who pledged to ride with the Minnesota Timberwolves throughout the 2007-08 season know that higher levels of tolerance and different parameters of success will be required. Put bluntly, wins and losses take a backseat to player development and team synergy. For those who merely peruse the stats or want to view things in isolation, there were some promising things to take away from this weekend’s losses to the Lakers and the Kings. Those who saw the games, however, might be finding their patience tested by this seemingly willfully callow crew.

    In Los Angeles, the Wolves jumped out to a big first quarter lead–albeit only 8 points, the first time in their first four games it wasn’t double digits–and was still within 7 points with 4:15 left to play. In addition, Sebastian Telfair has his best offensive outing, posting 15 points (6-12 FG), to go with 17 from Ryan Gomes and yet another double-double for Al Jefferson, who scored 24 to go with his 15 rebounds, seven on the offensive glass. In all, the Wolves racked up 42 points in the paint.

    Sacramento’s statistical high points were even better: A whopping 52-34 advantage on points in the paint, a career-high 15 points from Corey Brewer to go with 16 from Rashad McCants and another team high 17 from Jefferson. Oh, and six blocks by Theo Ratliff.

    Yet even by the new and downgraded 2007-08 standards, it was a discouraging couple of games.

    The Timberwolves rarely put together extended stretches of solid team play in either contest. One would think the offensive gameplan would always be to establish Al Jefferson in the low block, compel the double and even triple-coverage that might ensue (as happened in Sacramento), and then utilize ball movement to create open shots and/or open seams for penetration.

    Nope. Far more often, the Wolves’ perimeter players saw fit to take the game into their own hands, with by far the biggest offender being McCants. Out with a sprained ankle versus the Lakers, Shaddy was inserted into the Kings game late in the first quarter, and wound up playing a little more than 26 minutes, enough time to jack up 14 shots and do a credible imitation of someone fantasizing about being Michael Jordan while working on moves alone at the playground. The most memorable stretch occurred when McCants replaced Gomes with 5:53 to play in the third period and ran amuck until he sat with 20 seconds left in the quarter. During those five and half minutes, he performed some beautiful things, including a trey caught and shot in rhythm right off the bench, and a couple of strong, literally beautiful moves through traffic to get to the rim. But the predominant vibe was palpable, purposeful narcissism–McCants uber alles. Along with five shots in 5:32, he also turned the ball over four times and committed three personal fouls, heedless of anything resembling a practical, incremental action. And despite his seven points, the Wolves were a net minus-1 during his stint. For the game, McCants was minus-9, the second worst total on the team.

    The worst total, minus-13, belonged to Brewer in his "breakout" game. Announcers Tom Hanneman and Jim Petersen helpfully pointed out that Brewer is more prolific offensively when "he doesn’t have to think," and it’s true: Those one-on-five drives that McCants utilized and Brewer dutifully copied also got Brewer some fabulous buckets in traffic, as well as notching him 7 free throws, all of which he sank. But do you think there was a reason the normally mild-mannered Al Jefferson started screaming at his teammates to get him the fuckin’ ball about midway through the fourth quarter? Was there a reason the Wolves made two, count ’em, two, field goals in 21 attempts in the 4th quarter? And do you think one of the reasons McCants and Brewer had some success drawing fouls on dribble penetration had to do with the fact that the Kings were minus Ron Artest and were playing their beefiest front line–Brad Miller and Kenny Thomas–to deter Jefferson, who would have enabled Shaddy and the rook even more had they dumped it to Jeff enough to further take Miller and Thomas out of the picture and open up seams.

    Meanwhile, the guys McCants and Brewer were supposedly guarding, Kevin Martin and the unheralded John Salmons, went off for 29 points (25 in the second half!) and 19 points. And Spurs (and Wolves) castoff Benno Udrih had a profitable plus +5 running the point in the second half, after the Kings started out-of-position Francisco Garcia at the point due to the absence of Mike Bibby. Such was the juggernaut that handed Minnesota its fifth straight loss.

    2. Painted Ugly

    Ah, but what about those combined 94 points in the paint this weekend? Yup, that’s a legitimate glass-half-full stat to hang on to. Jefferson is a bona fide bulldog, and both Craig Smith and Theo Ratliff had their moments.

    Here’s the rebuttal: The Lakers game on Friday night turned on the fact that Bynum and Odom simply overwhelmed Jefferson and Smith on the occasions when they were the frontcourt matchups. Bynum was simply too big for Jefferson to handle–it is becoming increasing obvious that "Big Al" is big as a power forward but not capable of negating classic NBA centers–and Odom was waaay too quick for Smith. (For that matter, Odom was too big for Gomes, and a matchup nightmare all game, which is why he scored 18 points on only ten shots (7-10 FG), registered 10 boards, didn’t turn the ball over once and finished with a game-high plus +22.) Yes, the Wolves got 42 points in the paint. The Lakers, alas, got 56.

    Against the Kings, the problem was more situational–like crunchtime. With 2:42 to play and the Wolves down by just a single point, the Kings grabbed six offensive rebounds on a single possession before Ratliff finally fouled Martin at 2:03. And with the Wolves down three with 10 seconds to go, Brad Miller had a tip-in to ice the game.

    On paper, a front court of Ratliff, Jefferson and Gomes would seem to be rock-solid defensively. But the problem is positioning. Theo’s thirst for blocks is a high risk strategy that frequently leaves his team vulnerable to put-backs on the offensive glass. Here’s an amazing stat to chew on: In 123 minutes of play thus far this season, Ratliff has more blocked shots (14) than defensive rebounds (13).

    Back to the basic parameters by which fans should judge this team. Looking over the roster, it makes sense that the Wolves should be tenth worst in the NBA in points per game (94.6), because they are minus point guard Randy Foye and, with the likes of Greg Buckner and Marko Jaric in the backcourt supplmenting a front line of Ratliff-Jefferson-Gomes, have the makings of being a pretty good defensive oriented team who needs to depress the score in order to triumph. Consequently, the Wolves’ rank as 9th worst defensive team in points per game allowed (102.8) is the bigger disappointment of the season thus far, especially when you consider that the aforementioned five players rank in the team’s top 6 in minutes played (Telfair, second on the team with 155 minutes, is the other).

    One significant problem, for whatever reason, is that the Wolves have had trouble defending the pick and roll. It fosters the surfeit of fouls the team commits, or otherwise yields situations where open midrange jumpers and interior passes for layups become the norm. Perhaps, as against the Lakers, it is a matter of matchups and having to worry about Kobe so much that a talented ‘tweener like Odom can burn you and a big burgeoning galoot like Bynum can make hay cleaning up. But one could hardly accuse the Kings of being stocked with talent, yet they were still able to post a triple-digit score. The Kings, as with every other Wolves opponent, lived on the free throw line, shooting 40 times, including a whopping 30 attempts in the second half. And while it is true tha
    t the refs have been stingy and biased about giving Minnesota the calls on offense, most of the whistles against them on D are legitimate. Put simply, this team isn’t moving its feet diligently enough and isn’t building that flowing trust relationship on rotations and other pick-and-roll decisions that create a defensive identity and place a body in front of a defender at the moment a shot is inevitable. Instead, we see the reach-in, the desperate lunge, or the "whistle is better than an  automatic bucket" mentality. Blame for that lack of precision and cohesion (which isn’t getting better) starts with the coaching staff and goes right through the team, including Jefferson, who for all his blue-collar effort this season has been lackluster defending the paint.

    3. Quick Observations

    Sebastian Telfair sure seems like fool’s gold at the moment, if that isn’t overestimating somebody with such a shaky rep. The past two games he’s come off the bench for Jaric and played the entire 4th quarter. Against the Lakers the Wolves were down 14 entering that final period and in that nothing-to-lose circumstance Telfair shot 4-7 FG, including a pair of treys for 10 overall points, and chipped in a pair of assists and two rebounds. Versus the Kings, it was tied with a quarter to play and he missed all four of his shots (1-8 FG for the game) and had one rebound and zero dimes. If he missed ’em all equally in both games we could chalk it up to a lack of skill. But this discrepancy seems psychological–not good for a wannabe NBA point guard.

    Gerald Green finally saw some action in that same 4th quarter of the Lakers tilt and immediately showed that he too does not play well with others. Yeah, he nailed a couple of nice jumpers in his 9-plus minutes of action, but also got tunnel-visioned about winning the game himself, resulting in a pair of forced misses and a pair of turnovers. I know he’s scored 33 points before in an NBA game, but without looking, it wouldn’t surprise me if his team lost that night. Here is yet another example of a player who would have greatly benefited from being bossed around–schooled–by an autocrat like Roy Williams, John Thompson or Billy Donovan, rather than grabbing that NBA teenager dough. Among Green, McCants and Brewer, it sure was a sour weekend for smart, disciplined play at the swingman slot.

    The exception, of course, is the vet Buckner, who continues to do most of the little things (that I expected and saw out of Gomes until his steps back on the West Coast): Play generous, rotational defense to help his teammates; enhance ball movement; and know how to draw and avoid fouls. Yes, Buck too occasionally gets the shooter’s itch at inopportune moments, no doubt from his exasperation at the prevailing low basketball IQ happening all around on the court, but compared to the gloryhounds with whom he shares the backcourt, he is a paragon of discretion.

    Craig Smith was felled by a sprained ankle late in the Kings game, which contributed to the loss, given that Ratliff fouled out and Coach Wittman was forced to use the rook Richard, who promptly ceded Miller’s tip in in the final seconds. Up to then it had been a good game for Smitty, who ranks with Jaric and Gomes thus far this season as inexplicable performers, capable of shining one stint and stinking it up the next. It is too early to know if it is matchups or that he plays better with some teammates than with others, although as On the Ball commenter Andy B noted–and Jim Pete reiterated during the Lakers game–Smitty was better suited to Kevin Garnett’s game than Al Jefferson’s. Nevertheless, what this squad will get out of Smith or Jaric is up to your ouija board. At least Gomes’s doldrums can be attributed at least in part to him missing wide open jumpers and not being able to handle larger players like Odom. The former, at least, will be rectified often before game 82.

  • The Three Pointer: Sick and Twisted

    Regular Season Game #3, Home Game # 2: Orlando 111, Minnesota 100

    1. Not Enough Talent

    The title of this trey is more than a tad melodramatic for what in many respects was the most mundane of the Wolves’ three losses thus far this season. "Sick" refers to the flu bug that made Theo Ratliff a game time scratch; "twisted" is what happened to Rashad McCants’ ankle late in the first quarter, sending him to the sidelines for the rest of the game.

    Minus their best defender and most formidable counter to Orlando’s monster wunderkind Dwight Howard, then losing their principal perimeter scorer after he’d sunk all four of his shots in 10:41 of play and actually seemed to be playing in the flow of the offense, preordained defeat this evening. Because even under the best of circumstances the Wolves don’t have enough talent to beat most opponents on skill alone.

    What happens instead is that players take on tasks and roles that are slightly beyond their ken. Take Greg Buckner for example. He’s a consummate pro, a smart guy with a good work ethic and a fairly solid, well rounded game; a reliable 7th or 8th man on a playoff team. But Theo’s sickness lands Buckner in tonight’s starting lineup as Al Jefferson gets bumped from power forward to center to replace Theo against Howard; Ryan Gomes moves from small forward to power forward to guard Rashard Lewis, and Buckner slots in for Gomes. Then McCants’s ankle tweak adds more playing time for Buckner, who ultimately logs 39:17 on the court. His final numbers look good: 18 points (on 7-13 FG), three rebounds and three assists.

    But, with no disrespect intended toward Buckner, who has already exceeded my expectations, no team makes the playoffs having him average 13 shots (second most tonight behind Al Jefferson’s 20) and nearly forty minutes played per game (a team high). He is a spine-stiffening defensive specialist, a role player called upon for toughness and stability for significant but limited doses that ideally add up to about 15-25 minutes per contest.

    Inconsistency is another byproduct of players assuming roles and burdens that are slightly larger than their perfect fit. Two of the most inept Timberwolves during the club’s first pair of losses–Marko Jaric and Corey Brewer–had by far their best games of the season. I’ll be shocked if Jaric puts up another 10 assist/1 turnover game the rest of his days in a Wolves uniform, and if Brewer nails a pair of contested three-pointers and pulls down as many as six rebounds in the same game again between now and the end of the calendar year, it will be a pleasant surprise. Meanwhile, Ryan Gomes and Bassy Telfair had by far their wrost games of the season thus far, further complicating the team’s player rotations and substitution patterms when everyone on the roster is relatively healthy. For Gomes, it evaporated some of his aura as Mr. Consistency. For Telfair it reignites questions about his viability in this league–he had an egregious, killer turnover with a minute to go and the Wolves down 6, and had another tough night shooting (1-5 FG). On a more talented and experienced ballclub, the roles are more clearly defined and players have the luxury of growing into (otherwise known as earning) them; or they get a longer grace period before they’re at risk of losing them.

     

    2. Wittman Improved

    The litany of reasons why Coach Randy Wittman didn’t have a good year last season go beyond his terrible 12-30 record (after his fired predecessor went 20-20) and have been amply discussed on this site. Promises were made by the Wolves braintrust that we’d see an improved Wittman (and thus a better ballclub) once he had the team under his control right from training camp. Yes, Witt essentially had nowhere to go but up, but there are tangible signs of a more assured and effective performance this year. For three straight games the Wolves have jumped out to large first quarter leads, for example, indicating that Wittman has his team prepared to play at the opening tip.

    The coach’s postgame press briefing offered other hopeful signs. Although the Wolves were once again on the short end of a free throw disparity, 44-25, Wittman appropriately blamed his team for not penetrating to the hoop and drawing fouls on offense, and too often trying for the steal or the big play instead sticking to fundamental, foot-moving defense at the other end of the floor. He pointedly noted that Orlando was in the penalty with eight minutes to play in the final period.

    When he subbed in Buckner and Jefferson for Gomes and Smith with 10:44 to play in that stanza and the Wolves down 14, 76-90, I thought: He is going with veterans (Jaric, Antoine Walker and Corey Brewer were also on the floor), he must really want this game. But as Wittman explained after the game, it went beyond experience. "We tried to get the floor spread with Antoine [going small at the power forward], create plays; not settle for jump shots but get to the line," he says. The result was a 14-2 run that put the Wolves back in the game.

     

    3.Hit and Run

    Wittman was tough on Al Jefferson too, claiming that Jefferson was being too indecisive and not immediately aggressive the first three quarters. But I saw the "indecisive" up-fakes, a Jeff trademark fans already can embrace, as a game-long weapon in his arsenal. Any time your big man can ring up 25 points (11-20 FG) and 10 rebounds in 35:11 against a highly skilled intimidator like Dwight Howard, it is a very good night’s work–especially sans McCants for three quarters.

    On the flipside, this was by far the Wolves’ worst defensive effort thus far this season. Playing without starting point guard Jameer Nelson, the Magic shot 56 percent from the field (18-32) and compiled a 13/2 assist to turnover ratio in the second and third quarters, a testimonial to the lack of defensive pressure provided by the Wolves. This was in sharp contrast to the 4/5 A/TO the Magic posted in the first period. I think McCants’s injury played a role in that too.

    Rashad Lewis temporarily silenced his many naysayers and earned a piece of that fat contract he signed during the off-season by canning three tough treys in two minutes of crunchtime, expanding Orlando’s lead from 92-90 to 101-95 with less than four minutes to play.

  • The Three Pointer: A Decent 0-2

    Home Game #1: Denver 99, Wolves 91

    Road Game #1  Wolves 93, New York Knicks 97

    1. Egos in the Backcourt

    For people who imagined that the Timberwolves might surprise the dour prognosticators and post thirty wins or more this season, it was probably a frustrating opening weekend to the 2007-08 campaign. But for those of us intrigued by the olio of young and old skill sets on this squad and how they might be sifted, culled and exposed to the harsh light of competition, it was a mostly pleasurable experience; one that indicates that our curiosity might continue to be piqued and our hoops aesthetic not completely insulted.

    Or, in less lofty parlance, this team has come out of training camp pulling for each other and squeakin’ their sneakers with hustle. Coach Randy Wittman doesn’t seem like the clueless sideline stalker and hypocritically faux disciplinarian he portrayed last season. There’s much to laud, and to wince at. Above all, the first two games were neither dull nor hopeless.

    One bit of good news is that both members of the starting backcourt, Sebastian Telfair and Rashad McCants, have shown up eager to play. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take much to make them forget how. Both have been hyped and hated on during their brief careers, both have recently been handed a golden opportunity (the Foye injury and the Davis trade), and both know they have a declining window of time (for Telfair it may be a matter of weeks) to justify a significant role on this team. Consequently, both find it difficult to resist the impulse to take matters into their own hands.

    Their offenses aren’t equal. To my mind, McCants has the bigger upside and better future, yet he’s actually been a more egregious disrupter of controlled, intelligent, team basketball. During the Wolves’ opening night loss to the Nuggets, Shaddy frequently drove into traffic or otherwise strove to make the great play when a mundane one, let alone good, would have better served the ballclub. The result was five turnovers, four fouls, and a lousy minus-9 in 29:47. Versus the Knicks it was more foul trouble, resulting in his disqualification halfway through the fourth period and just 22 minutes of PT overall (he was minus-2). Furthermore, Shaddy was extremely unhappy with the way the game was being called against him, and petulantly stood with his hands on his hips, not sitting down, after going to the sidelines with his sixth foul.

     Yes, the free throw disparity has been glaring–the Wolves were outshot at the line 38-19 on Friday and a whopping 39-10 tonight–and some of it is disrespect for young no-names by the refs. But McCants also isn’t displaying the sort of fundamentally sound defense he often flexed last season, and that seems to happen more often when his shot if falling and he’s more prominent on offense (he been 9-18 and 5-11 from the field in about 52 total minutes thus far this year). He isn’t moving his feet as well and he’s more apt to go for the high-risk, high-reward play like a steal, blocked shot, or taking a charge. It’s not incurable, and when he does work within the flow of the offense, he’s proving to be a potent scorer who may be putting some of those microfracture aftermath worries to rest, so even a slight attitude adjustment and dialing down of the ego would be benefical all the way around.

     Telfair has on balance been a pleasant eye-opener, especially compared to the prevailing opinion of his game when the Wolves first acquired him in the Garnett trade from Boston. On opening day, he did a decent job on Allen Iverson (albeit was less stellar when AI and Mike Wilks comprised a small backcourt tandem in the fourth quarter), coming up with three steals and registering a mere minus-1 in 35:17 of an eventual eight-point loss. Tonight agains the Knicks, it was seven assists and zero turnovers (for a composite 12/3 assist/turnover ratio thus far) and a nifty plus +5 in 36:58 of a four point loss.

    But missed shots can be akin to turnovers, especially when you’re the point guard assigned with the task of getting your more accurate shooting and advantageously matched-up teammates the rock. Telfair is a career .387 shooter who has never converted 40 percent of his heaves in any of his three NBA seasons. In the third quarter tonight he received a nice, creative feed from Al Jefferson (a rare occurrence), blew the layup, and then immaturely strained to atone by driving into traffic and hoisting an airball on the very next possession. For the season he is 8-27 FG, with no free throw attempts, in a combined 72:15 of action while Jefferson is 14-29 FG in 74:49. In other words, the bricklaying point guard is shooting at almost exactly the same frequency as the meat-and-potatoes franchise cornerstone who is supposed to be the focus, and primary locus, of the offense.

     

    2. Theo The Magnificent–At One End of the Court

    The Nuggets-Wolves tilt Friday night was one of the more enjoyable games performed at Target Center in recent years, and the primary entertainment was watching a pair of defensive masters, Denver’s Marcus Camby and Minnesota’s Theo Ratliff, ply their craft. Nobody was getting anything unscathed in the paint, and when Melo Anthony went straight at Ratliff for an attempted slam, Theo met him well above the rim and almost earned a non-call for the graceful control of the sky-wire ballet on the collision.

    Ratliff owns three NBA shot-blocking titles and Camby is the reigning champ, but both also know position defense, and the subtler intimidation of looming without committing and risking a foul. Whenever one of them went to the sidelines, the other team seemed to enjoy a huge advantage, and when both rested, the incredible intensity that seemed to pervade the game mostly drained away. Except for a 31 second stint at the very end of the game, Wittman always substituted Craig Smith in for Ratliff. Smith was a team worst minus-15 in 18:12, while Ratliff was a team-best plus +7 in 29:16.

     Ratliff also seemed thoroughly integrated in the Wolves’ offense on Friday, with ten FGA and a team-high 9 FTA in 29:16. It made some sense because Denver had obviously scouted Minnesota enough to know that priorities one and two were taking the ball out of Jefferson’s hands, and with Camby and Najera and Nene and K-Mart, they had the guile and muscle to work the agenda. But Ratliff still seems best suited for a small modicum of touches, for a variety of reasons: At 34 and coming off back surgery (and two other operations before that), you want him conserving his energy for what he does best, which is at the defensive end of the court. Second, Ratliff is a one-year rental, and while it is wonderful to have him enable a little risk and confidence for his teammates on D, no point in habitualizing anything he does on offense. Besides, at best he is merely adequate at generating points.

    After the Denver game, I asked Wittman if he called any plays for Theo. He replied that with all Ratliff contributes, he does call his number every now and then. But I think Ratliff is mature enough and cognizant enough of his own strengths and weaknesses, to understand why he’d be utilized almost completely for his defensive prowess. In any case, Theo turned the ball over four times tonight, at a time when Jefferson had turgid defender Zach Randolph guarding him. Sure, Ratliff’s man Eddy Curry is equally inept on D, but the point is, Minnesota needs to establish the long and the short term habit of force-feeding Jefferson, particularly when the matchup is so skewed in his favor. Ratliff should be rewarded for running the floor, as happened tonight when he beat Curry in transition for a slam dunk, and when he’s wide open because of the attention Jefferson draws. But it wouldn’t bother me, or seem inappropriate, for Ratliff to adopt an offensive identity very similar to what Ervin Johnson executed during Minnesota’s most successful season a few years back–as a very infrequent, but sneakily effect
    ive option when teams totally ignored him down in the paint.

    But in any case, if you enjoy lunch-bucket defense from a wily, still extraordinarily wiry maestro in the paint, Ratliff is perhaps the best reason to attend a Wolves game. Catch him while he’s still healthy.

     

    3. Quick Hits

     Ryan Gomes got into some foul trouble guarding Melo on Friday, but he completely snuffed out Quinton Richardson against the Knicks. Richardson was scoreless in 29:53; Gomes led the Wolves with 19 points in 36:03. On the other hand, Greg Buckner looked like a world beater, and maybe a mob henchman, for the way he bodied up Melo and meted out a couple of choice fouls down near the hoop Friday. But against the Knicks, unless the Wolves’ pick and roll rotations got screwed up or someone blew an assignment not apprarent to the folks in the stands, Buckner regularly got toasted off dribble penetration by Jamal Crawford.

     The learning curve for Corey Brewer looks to be long and slow. It is a tad disconcerting to see how lost the 7th pick in the NBA, a three-year collegian, looked in his first two games.

    Sound observations from others: Jim Petersen commented about how sluggish the pace became when Marko Jaric subbed in as point guard for Telfair. Pete also ripped Jaric for his perpetualy whining attitude and unhappiness over his role on the team. And in media row on Friday, KFAN/Vikings/Canterbury voice Paul Allen approvingly pointed out the nastier enforcement edge the Wolves seemed to be adopting after a flagrant foul by Jaric was followed by a hard foul by Buckner.