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Game #61, Road Game #30: Minnesota 111, Sacramento 103

Game #62, Road Game #31: Minnesota 99, Los Angeles Clippers 96

Season Record: 14-48

1. The Exploits of Foye

The beat writers from the Strib and PiPress had the dominant story arc of last night’s Clippers game down pat, perhaps best summed up by the Strib headline: Telfair injury positions Foye to excel. The severe ankle sprain Telfair suffered in the first half of Friday night’s win over Sacramento enabled Foye to take over the spot for which he feels he is best suited. He responded with a superb game: 26 points, 6 assists, zero turnovers, and the sort of heroic 4th quarter leadership that has given him special cache–and a crucial edge in his ongoing battle with Rashad McCants for primary sidekick status alongside Al Jefferson.

While this was exactly the sort of signature Foye contribution that his boosters claim will be a fairly regular occurrence once he’s fully recovered from this season’s insidious knee injury, it was not his best performance of the year. That would be the "four score and 20" triumph in the first meeting with Utah, when Foye was being guarded by someone with enough height and athleticism to prevent him from taking total carte blanche on his menu of court moves. The Clips, alas, have had a procession of points fall by the wayside, beginning with Shaun Livingstone’s terrible knee injury, continuing with Sam Cassell’s classic 18-month warrantly expiration as a useful teammate (he’s been shipped to Boston), and concluding with solid sub Brevin Knight riding the pine with a sore neck. That left it up to undersized (6-0) journeyman Dan Dickau and the even smaller (5-10) D-Leaguer Andre Barrett to try and stop Foye.

And in the first half, it looked like that would be enough. Coach Randy Wittman paired Foye with Marko Jaric in the backcourt to start the game. But when Marko had his lumbering drive blocked by center Chris Kamen and then Kamen and Cuttino Mobley caught Foye flat-footed on an easy dish at the hoop, Witt swapped in McCants for Jaric at 6:16 of the first. In those first five and a half minutes, Foye had 2 points and one assist and the Wolves were down 4. With Shaddy on the court, the Clips no longer had the luxury of throwing Dickau on either Jaric or Foye, giving Foye an advantageous matchup with Dickau (and then Barrett) at both ends, one he converted into 7 points, a second dime, and a plus +6 stretch for the Wolves over the final 6:16 of the period.

The second quarter was an offensive disaster. Telfair’s pace was sorely missed, as Foye and Jaric split the minutes with almost equal ineptitude. Aside from their minutes played they had *no stat line*–no shot attempts or makes, no rebounds, assists, turnovers, steals, etc.–until Foye found Gomes open for a jumper with 1:09 to play in the half. Meanwhile, the kid from NC State, Josh Powell, did a nice job harrassing Jefferson (as he did the first time they played) into 3-6 FG after Big Al had gone 4-5 FG in the first period, Gomes hit 2-4 FG and the rest of the squad bricked 1-10 FG, and chipped in just 2 foul shots besides, for an ugly 14-point quarter. At the other end, Al Thornton laid waste to the Wolves’ smallish forwards for 11 points and 5 rebounds in the period, Jaric and Foye allowed Dickau and Barrett to go 4/0 assists to turnovers, and the Clips carried a 47-39 lead into the locker room.

The third quarter felt like the team stirred a synergy last demonstrated versus Utah (although I didn’t see Sacto Friday night) and the key ingredient was Foye’s penetration. One of the things that made Flip Saunders such an outstanding offensive tactician was his ability to recognize and relentlessly exploit mismatches. Foye–even the Foye still rusty from injury–versus Dickau or Barrett was just such a mismatch, and whether Wittman or one of his coaches or Foye himself figured it out in the locker room at intermission, it powered the Wolves to a 34-point quarter–20 more than the second period.

Just like some missed shots are as bad as a turnover, some are as good as an assist, and so it was when Foye took it to the hole. Because he was too strong and quick for the Clip points to deter him, he inevitably drew a crowd at the hoop. His 3-6 FG line underrates his positive aggression, with only one of those misses–a wayward trey– detrimental. On the other two, both layup attempts, Gomes followed up with his own layup and was fouled by Dickau, and Jefferson tipped in his own putback. Foye also was fouled going to the hoop–by bigs Tim Thomas and Kamen, and by Barrett at the end of the quarter–knocking down 5-6 FT for the period. And his dribble penetration freed up the double-teams on Jefferson, and enabled Gomes to play his sneaky smart game. The bottom line was 11 points apiece for Foye (who added three official assists in addition to his missed layup assists) and Gomes, and 8 for Jefferson–30 of the team’s 34 for the period, producing 52 FG%. Minnesota was down five but had momentum heading into the final period.

The 4th quarter comeback was greatly abetted by Clippers’ stupidity, especially coach Mike Dunleavy’s perculiar notion to do away with a point guard for the final 8:15 of the game. [Update: At least one commenter believes it was in response to the Wolves’ zone, which is certaintly possible.] At that point, for all their faults, Dickau was plus +9 and Barrett a mere minus -1, making the Clips up 8 at 83-75. When you put Mobley and Maggette in your backcourt without a point guard, ill-advised three-pointers reign. After shooting 49% FG, 5-13 from outside the arc, and 21-23 FT through three quarters, the Clips were a heedless 2-8 from trey territory, spurring a putrid 6-20 FG performance further undercut by just 4-4 FT for 18 points. And at the other end, the Clips big lineup compelled Wittman to go with a front line of Jefferson-Smith-Gomes, just the right combo for Smith to wheel and deal for 6 points and 4 rebounds, and for Gomes to shut down Thornton, who went 0-4 FG with just one rebound while playing the entire 12 minutes.

And that set up Foye’s heroics. Inserted back into the game (after Jaric rose to the occasion with some perimeter deflections on D in the big lineup) with 3:15 to play and the Wolves up 2, Foye scored the last 6 points for his team–the first a cold-blooded jumper off a feed from Smith that seesawed the one-point margin back to Minnesota, 95-94, with 1:15 to play; and the second his patented right-lane running banker which made it 97-94 with 10 seconds to go. Here’s where the Clips’ stupidity reached epic heights. After chucking treys all period, Maggette chose to dribble *inside the arc* and offer up a two-pointer that brought the Clips to 97-96, but with just 2 seconds to play, as Dunleavy made a face like he was shitting BBs on the sideline. To finish the drama, Foye was fouled, canned them both, and the Wolves had their first back-to-back wins on the road this season.

2. Not in the Box Score

During his rookie season two years ago. Rashad McCants was frequently lost on defense, selfish on offense, and petulant in attitude at both ends of the court. When the Wolves went into full tank mode very late in the year, McCants showed flashes of incredible offensive talent. Last year, felled by his microfracture surgery, I developed a real affection for the way McCants had seemed to make himself over. From his willingness to participate in any and every silly Wolves promotion to his constant presence around the team even when wearing street clothes, to his open adoration of Kevin Garnett, to the way he bulked himself up, obviously dying to do *something* to keep himself in shape, Shaddy seemed much less of a punk. What’s more, the nuances of his play once he did finally hit the cour
t, especially on defense, indicated that he had a clue about how to play, and made me pull for him.

That’s a windy prelude to noting that McCants had probably his finest game while scoring in single digits thus far in his NBA career. After playing with enormous discipline and tact for three periods–a time in which he’d attempted only 4 shots, and made but one, in 19:14, only to have a team-best plus +6–McCants came out with that tunnel-visioned score or (more frequently) bust mentality that makes you want to strangle him. He jacked up four shots in the first 2:43 of the final quarter, missing them all, as the Clips pushed the lead from 5 to 8.

Then something clicked back on, and the "good Shaddy" reasserted himself. He collared the rebound on an Al Thornton miss and fed Craig Smith in stride with a left-handed sweep pass for a layup. He facilitated ball movement and concentrated on getting it inside to Jefferson and Smith, and guarded Maggette closely on the wing. When the Wolves had pulled within 4 at 81-85, he fed Corey Brewer for a jumper at the foul line, a perfect set-up, then ran the floor and got a pass from Brewer off a steal from Jaric to tie the game with a transition layup. He canned another jumper to put the Wolves back in front, 93-91, with 2:03 to play.

Now that Antoine Walker is more or less history for this season, no other player can effectively spread the floor like McCants operating on the wing. The biggest beneficiary of this is Jefferson, and it is no coincidence that last night against the Clips, the Jefferson-McCants tandem were the only Timberwolves around for three terrific runs, a 12-2 spurt near the end of the first quarter and a pair of 8-0 bursts late in the third and midway through the fourth quarters. For the game, Shaddy, who was 3-11 FG and had just 7 points, finished with a team-best plus +16 in 31:06, meaning the Wolves were minus -19 in the 16:54 he sat. Compare this to Randy Foye’s net zero in 39:04 worth of action. (And yes, it helped that, unlike Foye, Shaddy didn’t have to play with Kirk Snyder or Jaric very often.)

Plus/minus can undeniably be a funky stat. But here’s a pretty good sample size from 82games.com, which doesn’t count this weekend’s two victories. In the 1444 minutes that McCants was not on the court in Minnesota’s first 60 games, the Wolves scored a flat 98 points per 48 minutes while yielding 111.2, for a net minus -347. In the 1440 minutes Shaddy was playing–almost exactly the same amount of time he sat–the Wolves were a titch worse on defense, giving up a flat 112 points per 48. But on offense, they averaged 105.9 points, a whopping 7.9 points per game more than when McCants wasn’t a perimeter threat, for a net minus -122. That’s why Shaddy’s plus/minus totals, while still very much in the minus (this is a 14-48 ballclub, after all), are much better than any of the other players with significant minutes.

To put it bluntly, McCants is probably his own worst enemy, both in his bouts of ball hogging and his sporadically disagreeable personality. It is very hard to set that aside and just watch what kind of an impact he exerts on the court, but try it and discover his value. Unfortunately, it is also important to note that with his team up one in the final seconds, McCants clanked a jumper (that Craig Smith managed to wrestle away from Tim Thomas, a great play appropriately applauded by Jim Petersen), yet another time when McCants didn’t nail the J when crunch time was getting particularly crunchy. So, the debate continues.

Three other things not noted by the box score alone: As he demonstrated yet again today,Ryan Gomes is most valuable on a very good team, and thus a barometer of how well the other Wolves are performing. I didn’t get the specific stat, but I heard something from Hanny to the effect that the Wolves rarely if ever lose when Gomes scores more than 15 points. In any event, although it isn’t the sort of thing that jumps out at you, when the Wolves play intelligently, talking on defense and share the ball on offense, Gomes shines. I can’t imagine a better complementary piece for the Celtics–he’ll be a better Posey in the next few years, or a Shane Battier, simply all-purpose glue, whether it is as a starter or a superb placeholder. Can the Wolves wait to improve enough to maximize that value, that ability to round out a squad?

There is also no box score citation for Al Jefferson really rolling his ankle on a baseline jumper where he came down on Powell’s foot. But Jefferson’s ability to will himself through the pain, and not only sink the resulting free throws but move in the lane and sink a bunny hook on the very next possession, was the kind of grit that inspires a team making a 4th quarter run. And it indeed coincided with a Wolves spurt that tied the game from eight points down in the 4th.

Last there was a play Corey Brewer made in the second quarter where he blatantly pushed Al Thornton just as Thornton had established primo position in the paint and was about the receive the feed. Two things about it: One, that there is no way Brewer can contain someone like Thornton down low, pointing out how his frailty hinders even the strongest part of his game, which is defensive tenacity. Two, the rook is incredibly smart on the court and mentally does something at least once or twice a game that really benefits the team–last night, the Clips didn’t score on the ensuing in-bounds play in the half court, meaning Brewer’s foul saved them two points.

There is a lot of debate about how Minnesota should have taken Thornton instead of Brewer, and Thornton’s performance in the second period offers a pretty good testimonial for that viewpoint. It is pretty clear that Thornton is a superior athlete. But this is also a guy who has already had a 10-turnover game, and who frequently endures horrible shooting nights that are more 3-15 FG than 1-5 or 2-8. I think the current gap between what Thornton is delivering in the aggregate versus what Brewer contibutes is at its widest point right now. I expect it to diminish and perhaps swing in Brewer’s direction, within the next 3-4 years. Right now, advantage Thornton. Later: ?

3. Miscellaneous

The release of Gerald Green by the Rockets coupled with the occasional lift Kirk Snyder has provided indicates that Kevin McHale’s modest little string of positive trades continues. Still, there is a chippy side to Snyder that is worrisome. He’s already been tossed out of one game, and when he picked up a silly tech in a recent home game (either Seattle or Charlotte), Wittman screamed "No more!" at him in the huddle. More to the point, unless Brewer’s thigh bruise is particularly troublesome, having Snyder snatch minutes from the rook and/or McCants is not a trend this team should continue unless he’s really throttling the other team’s best swingman.

Telfair’s injury is actually good timing. Bassy has proven what he can (and can’t) do, to the point where management and the rest of the league front offices can set a market value and offer him work at the end of this year. Meanwhile, Foye gets to prove he really can be a point guard, Jaric won’t pout as much, and we’ll see more of the Foye/McCants tandem and its effect on how teams defend Jefferson–all good things.

For those who missed my little announcement in the comments last time, I’m back to playing god in what comments are or aren’t going to remain. Folks who arrive with an outsized chip on the shoulders or who for some other reason don’t mesh with what I regard as the high standard of civility and intelligence that the overwheming majority of commenters have established, will see their remarks disappear. Life’s too short to countenance assholes unless absolutely necessary. I understand that not everybody will agree with me–or, more specifically, most everybody will at some point not agree with me–but to the extent we keep it respectful and about the game, everybody’s life is easier and more stress-free. Especially mine. So thanks for the consideration.