The Rake Magazine

Tag: Foye

  • The Three-Pointer: 3rd Quarter Fold

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

    Season Record: 19-55

     1. One-Way Jefferson

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

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

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

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

    2. Foye or McCants

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

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

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

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

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

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

    3. And As For the Small Forwards…

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

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

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

  • The Three Pointer: Finishing Strong

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

    Game #66, Home Game #34: Los Angeles Clippers 90, Minnesota 99

    Season Record: 16-50

    1. Pick and Roll Call

    The Clippers without Chris Kamen are a feel-good victim for a ballclub ready to generate some springtime momentum despite its inevitable trip to the lottery. Wolves coach Randy Wittman stomped and gyrated and spun and screamed and acted out for a good part of the game on the sidelines, then came in from the nine-point triumph and essentially praised everyone on the roster.

    And with good reason. Abetted by a steady diet of pick-and-rolls–"we run more of them against [the Clippers] than any other team" Wittman said–Minnesota made at least half their field goals for the third straight game, held the Clips to 38.8% from the field, and used a 13-4 run in the first 3:42 of the 4th quarter to turn a two-point lead into double-digits and a relatively comfortable coast to victory.

    With that said, let’s begin the roll call.

    The easy story is Al Jefferson because it follows the classic arc of shame and redemption: Benched for horrid D Friday night against Seattle, challenged to improve at that end of the court for at least the last month, according to Wittman–"it is the next step for him"–Jefferson made a pair of tone-setting blocks on shots by Josh Powell and Tim Thomas in the first 1:10 of the game and then added another against Cuttino Mobley with 4:06 to play in the period. And in the second quarter he lunched Powell again at the 3:16 mark.

    It ruins the plot to point out that those first three blocks didn’t really set the tone: The Clips were firing away at 53% (9-17 FG) during the first nine minutes of the game. But both Wittman and Jefferson were enthused about his defensive play, and the Kamen-less Clips–who also got a subpar effort from a dinged up Al Thornton–did only get 30 points in the paint, so if Big Al wants to use this one as a momentum changer toward a new emphasis on protecting the rim, no self-respecting Wolves fan should stop him. Especially with Memphis (Darko), Indiana (Jeff Foster) and the Knicks (Zach Randolph) on the dance card of what should be a very successful week.

    I’d rather toss garlands at the invisible man, Ryan Gomes, who was second on the team to Marko Jaric in minutes-played, led in plus/minus at plus +15, and in scoring efficiency by getting 19 on 6-9 FG, 1-1 3pt and 6-6 FT–and was barely noticeable. Gomes was the only guy on the team who understood how to play offense in the first quarter, as the Clippers aggressively doubled Jefferson–move without the ball. Jefferson barged his way for 2-5 FG, and Kirk Snyder barreled into the lane for 1-3 FG and 3-4 FT. Meanwhile, dynamite sticks Foye (1-5 FG) and McCants (0-2) misfired from the perimeter. It was left to Gomes to school the lard-heavy (in brain and body) Tim Thomas, from the first points of the period (a 17 footer from near the baseline) to the last (a pretty layup on a deft dish from Corey Brewer). While the rest of the Wolves were shooting 5-18 FG, with none of the baskets assisted, Gomes was 3-4 FG, with dimes tossed in all three buckets, and 4-4 FT to account for 10 of the team’s 23 points. He added 5 more in the second quarter (including a trey) and then deferred once Minnesota discovered the pick and roll between the littles and the bigs, shooting just 1-2 FG in 17:15 in second half play, but chasing Thomas from the paint to the arc and helping out on rotations down low. The Barometer is holding steady: good, unsung game from Gomes, victory for Minnesota.

    Plaudits also to Shaddy McCants, who had one of those games that makes you wonder why he isn’t registering 35-40 minutes per night. After a tepid first and early second quarter, he re-entered the game with 5:08 to play in the half and the Wolves down 2. In the space of 3:36, he nailed a trey on a feed from Foye, caught the Clips napping on a breakout transition layup courtesy of a baseball bullet pass from Snyder, then fed Jefferson for a turnaround 10-foot bunny, Gomes for a layup and Foye for a trey: 5 points, three assists, Wolves up 3 at the break.

    McCants would have finished with 9 or 10 assists instead of 6 had Craig Smith not done an atypically poor job at finishing at the rim. Shaddy to Rhino was one of the choice spreads in the pick-and-roll bread-and-butter, with McCants delivering the bounce pass in rhythm nearly every time. Then there are the purely aesthetic delights, such as the Clips blocking the passing lane as the Rhino stampeded down the left lane, leaving McCants to dribble once, twice, and then right-dribble-to-left-hand crossover dribble as he’s moving left, only to right himself toward the hoop as he skies and squares in muscular ballet, nailing a 21-foot liner the way you and I toss a soggy paper towel in the wastebasket from across the room.

    His 9 points on 3-3 FG, 1-1 3pt and 2-3 FT tied Smith for 4th quarter honors. He finished with 16 points on 10 shots, was a second-best plus +6, and contributed to Cuit Mobley and Quinton Ross (his two primary matchups) going 4-18 FG.

    2. A Pleasing Display of Depth or Disappointing Development?

    Among the evening’s plethora of solid performances were those lodged by Kirk Snyder and Marko Jaric, at both ends of the court. For Wolves’ fans this is of course a good thing, except that Snyder and Jaric got plenty of burn at the expense of Corey Brewer and Randy Foye, the coveted first-round draft picks for whom the Wolves’ tanked down the stretch the past two years.

    The Jaric rescue effort is easier to take, because Foye has been on a bit of a roll lately. As nifty as Sebastian Telfair is at slinging the rock, Foye’s visually less pure floor generalship has nevertheless resulted in a greater spread of shots taken, producing more balanced scoring (and more scoring, period) and assist-making. His defense has been so-so at best, but Foye at the point has found a groove.

    But not tonight. Where McCants and Jaric envisioned and initiated pick and rolls galore, fueling a collective 16/3 assist-to-turnover ratio, Foye was adrift, ignoring Wittman’s entreaties to pound the ball into Jefferson despite the double team and preferring to launch before the pick arrived. He finished the game 3-9 FG, with just 2 dimes and 2 miscues and sat for all but 36 seconds of that win-going-away 4th period, supplanted by Marko and his 5 assists in the final period alone. Yes, it would be preferable in the team’s future for Foye to have racked up another notch on his point guard credibility meter, while Jaric was the dunderhead. But it will take more than these occasional blips to recast doubts about Foye right now, and it’s a minor pleasure watching Jaric revel in his role as the steady, savvy vet.

    Snyder and Brewer is another story. Corey Brewer is a very likable performer–he hustles, he’s smart, his demeanor is sunny and industrious, and he’s got the high profile championship college pedigree. By contrast, there’s something about Snyder that seems a tad too forced and strained, and besides, wasn’t he supposed to be little more than a bit part that enabled Minnesota to shed itself of Gerald Green and filch a second-round draft pick besides?

    During the first half, Snyder did not live up to his role as the defensive stopper (same as Brewer’s), allowing Corey Maggette to run amok, a grievance partially mitigated by him burning Maggette for a pair of fouls and a trio of hoops at the other end. By the end of the night, Maggette had done his thing against both small forwards, getting 20 points in the 22 minutes Snyder guarded him and 14 in the 14:20 when Brewer was the matchup. Nevertheless, watching the game, you had the impression that Snyder was the more effective defensive foil–at 6-6, 225, his dimensions mirror Maggette’s (compared
    to Brewer’s 6-9, 185), and he was more physical, if less constantly in his presence, than Brewer. Wittman confirmed as much by saying, in reference to Maggette’s game-high 34, that the Wolves didn’t have "another big 3 other than Ryan, and I wanted to keep him where he was."

    Then there is the offense. After shutting down Kevin Durant in his first notable game in Minnesota, Snyder bricked enough shots to gain the rep of a defense-only guy. But he’s shown some signs of being able to get to the rim, and finished tonight a respectable 5-10 FG in 25:56. For Brewer, alas, it was the same old shaky aim. He was 1-7 FG in 24:05, with the make being a slam dunk–no funky jumpers converted. For the year he is a dreadful 139-387 FG, barely above 36%.

    Snyder is an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season. Brewer is expected to be a regular, if not a cornerstone, for this franchise for the next 5-10 years. Nearly every game he does something unique–tonight it was using his extra gear, the jet gear, to swoop in a snatch a rebound of an indifferent prayer-shot at the end of the half and immediately gather steam enough to fling a 3/4 court-length shot at the buzzer. Yet at precisely the time in the season when McCants and Foye began to figure it out and emerge during their rookie campaigns, Brewer is fading. When you’re a defensive stopper and a 24-year old competitor defends as well as you do and scores a little besides, well, it will take more than that to bump you out of the club’s blueprint. But it is still enough to sow a little doubt.

    3. Give Me April-June Madness

    As everyone marks their NCAA brackets, I’ll ignorantly claim that the Big East and Pac-10 will fare best, with Butler a huge sleeper and the Big 10 bounced by the final 16. Meanwhile, the Celts toppled the Spurs tonight, the Spurs 4th straight March loss, putting them in a tie with Dallas for the 6th seed in the West. Any one of the top nine teams in the West could lose in the first round. And if San Antonio has to play every series as a road team, the fiedl will be wide open.

  • The Three Pointer: Lost in the Crunch

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

    Game #63, Home Game #33: Portland 103, Minnesota 96

    Season Record: 14-49

    1. When It Matters Most

    Al Jefferson did not score a single point in the first 19 minutes and 4 seconds of this game, which I’d wager is his longest drought of the season thus far. By the time he grabbed an offensive rebound and tossed in the putback, three of his teammates–Marko Jaric, Rashad McCants and Craig Smith–were already in double figures and the Wolves were up 5. In the locker room after the game, Jefferson sprawled easily in his chair and exclaimed that the situation showed "that my teammates had my back." This is the way a leader talks.

    The screws were turned for almost this entire game, making it one of the more enjoyable to watch this year. There were no double-digit leads, 16 ties, and 18 lead changes. In such a game you knew that Jefferson’s prominence would steadily rise, and you suspected that on Portland’s side, a similar dynamic was coalescing around combo guard Brandon Roy.

    And so it went. Jefferson’s point totals through three periods were 0-2-6. Roy’s were 7-5-6. In the 4th quarter, Jefferson led all scorers with 12 points, shooting 6-9 FGs, while the rest of his teammates shot 2-13 FG and coughed up a 5-point lead in an 18-6 run over the final 6:06 of the game. Asked if he got frustrated with the disparity between his own accuracy and that of his teammates during these final 12 minutes, Jefferson replied, "I got frustrated with myself for missing shots and tried to get myself going."

    Roy led his team in fourth quarter field goals (3-5), free throws (3-4), points (9) and assists (2). "Roy got to the rim," Wolves coach Randy Wittman stated. "They didn’t settle for 25-foot jump shots."

    Let’s address this Brandon Roy versus Randy Foye thing head-on for a moment. Through no fault of his own, Foye is apparently destined to be bedeviled with Roy comparisons, due to the Wolves drafting Roy and immediately trading him for Foye. Since Roy was Rookie of the Year during Foye’s rookie year and was an all-star while Foye’s sophomore pro season has been spent recovering from a knee injury, it is difficult to claim, at this point anyway, that the Wolves got the better of the deal.

    Roy is one of those players better appreciated in person than on the stat sheet. There is a marvelous placidity to his style, a level-headedness that has a calming, confidence boosting effect on his team. From the Wolves being up 90-87 with 5:48 to play, he keyed a 14-4 run over the next 5:14, either scoring or assisting on every point but James Jones’s three-pointer, including two kamikaze drives through traffic that, as Wittman admiringly noted, finished at the rim.

    Foye did not have one of his better crunchtime performances, going a little too strong on his classic running banker down the right lane with 1:32 to play and Portland up 2, 94-92, and then having a similar shot swatted away by Joel Przybilla with the Wolves down 7, 101-94, at 34 seconds to go. The contrast was sharp.

    But the greater point here is overall crunchtime leadership–those who have it and those who don’t. And on that count, Foye has shown a willingness and proclivity to make big shots. To further the bedevilment, he doesn’t offer the same versatility of ways to beat you that Roy seems to, and his ballhandling and overall mien is less calming than it is propulsive and perhaps infectiously energizing.

    Crunchtime prowess is probably the most compelling argument for starting Foye at point guard ahead of Sebastian Telfair, even when Telfair returns and is healthy enough to play. As eye-opening as Bassy has been in terms of floor generalship and pacemaking, we have seen, more than once, what happens when opponents practically dare Telfair to shoot when the game is on the line. Meanwhile, opponents would not be remiss in doubling Foye, or at the least preparing for his hell-bent-for-leather traipse down the right lane.

    As a longtime defender of Kevin Garnett, I know how skewed and inaccurate the "can’t score in the clutch" epithet can be; but, that said, understand why someone would invoke crunchtime as a means of separating Lebron James and Kobe Bryant from KG among the top 3 MVP candidates this season. Some guys, for better or worse, in wisdom or lopsided ego, just want to seize these make or break moments. Some don’t.

    And some shouldn’t, which brings me back to the "Lost in the Crunch" title of this trey. Marko Jaric had a nice game tonight: a dozen points, six assists, three steals and zero turnovers. But is anyone surprised that Jaric had 10 of those 12 points in the first period on 4-5 FG and was scoreless in 5:57 of the 4th, with his only FGA a wild, ill-advised airball on a left handed layup attempt with Portland up 1 with 4:30 to play? Is anyone surprised that Shaddy McCants nailed his first 7 shots, executing that jab-step, pull-back-and-shoot move to literal perfection, and went 7-8 FG through three quarters, only to go 1-4 FG in the fourth, culminated by an airball trey with Portland up 5 and less than a minute to go? And is anyone surprised that Corey Brewer strode into a long jumper in rhythm yet still clanked it, then mimicked Jaric’s crazy drive to the basket and left handed airball–two shots that comprised half of his 0-4 FG evening–during the crunchtime swoon?

    After the game, Wittman tempered his criticism of the 4th quarter offense, obviously in deference to the confidence of this clank crew. "We had our chances," he said. "We had good looks. Ryan had several good looks." That would be Gomes, the superglue and team barometer who likewise has proven to be shaky in the clutch. He went 0-2 FG in the 4th tonight, but was missing wide open looks most of the evening en route to his 5-14 FG performance, further besmirched by his zero assists and 2 measley rebounds (such are the hazards of guarding Joel Przybilla, who doesn’t score but boxes out pretty well).

    BTW, here’s a link to the "Clutch Stats Chart" at 82games.com:

    http://82games.com/CSORT11.HTM

     

    2. Free Throw Bugaboo Strikes Again

    At the 5:55 minute mark of the third period, Foye committed yet another of the team’s dumb, reach-instead-of-shuffle fouls on defense, putting Portland in the penalty. At the time Minnesota had hit 8-9 FT, almost exactly the same as Portland’s 9-10 FG, and the Wolves were up 68-65. I leaned over to Myles Brown of slamonline.com and said, here comes a free throw parade. If the Wolves can stay within ten FTs of Portland, they’ll win. Otherwise, they’ll lose.

    Well, Minnesota never again got to the free throw. The Blazers got 16 more free throws, and made 13–more than enough to turn a 3 point lead into a final 7 point deficit. And to anyone who has watched the team play this season, my prescience wasn’t that visionary, in fact rather predictable. Minnesota is next to last in the league in the number of free throws they shoot and have the fifth largest amount of free throws shot against them. That’s how you can score more field goals than your opponents over the course of 63 games and still be 14-49. Opponents have converted a whopping *433* more free throws than Minnesota, which works out to 7 points per game.

    As usual, tonight was a combination of stupid fouls on defense and a lack of foresight and aggression on offense. McCants and Gomes were chief offenders of the cheap, reach-in type that is a Wolves’s specialty. And in postgame remarks, Wittman called out his team for not attacking the rim when Portland’s big, especially Aldridge and Pryzbilla, showed hard on the pick and roll, leaviing the lane open to express layups.

    3. Hit and Run

    Sure hope it is the Gator rook’s nagging thigh bruise and not some "extended look" or pecking order shenanigans that has Kirk Snyder getting many of the early minutes–including the starter’s minutes–that not so long ago belonged to Corey Brewer.

    Yet another too-small sample size and yet another decent plus/minus–a team-best zero–for Chris Richard tonight.

    Crazy schedule makers had the Wolves out west, then back home for one game tonight versus Portland, then back out to the West Coast. Would a road game in Portland that saved two flights given them more of a shot at victory than a home drive-by ?

  • The Three Pointer: Power Outage

    Copyright 2007 NBAE (Photo by David Liam Kyle/NBAE via Getty Images)


    Game #57, Road Game #27: Minnesota 84, Cleveland 92

    Season Record: 12-45

    1. The Price of Youth

    What a discouraging game.

    Wanna bet that the Cavaliers had a scout at Target Center for the Wolves win over Utah last Tuesday? Coach Mike Brown seemed to set his stellar defense for a team that would deftly move the ball and present probing, multifaceted threats. In particular, Brown, thinking he had 20-point scorers like Foye, McCants and Gomes to worry about, decided to single-cover Al Jefferson with the Luthuanian leviathan known as Z, and let tall, panther-quick cohorts like Ben Wallace and LeBron James scout the horizon beyond the paint.

    That was fine with Jefferson, who was enjoying the elbow room even before Z (surname Ilgauskas) committed one stupid foul by going over the back on a free throw miss, and then another one showing too hard on a perimeter pick and roll in the first six minutes of play. That sent him to the pine, to be replaced by Anderson Varejao, a Raggedy Andy-headed string-bean quite the opposite of the bald Z. He promptly got flattened (half shoulder, half patented Varejao fffflop) for a Jefferson slam. Brown understandably flipped Varejao over to Gomes and so it was Ben Wallace’s turn to guard Jefferson. By the half, Jefferson had hit half of his 16 field goal attempts for 18 points and 5 offensive rebounds (out of 7 total) at intermission.

    Alas, the rest of the team also had 18 points, on horrendous 7-30 FG. The ball movement and constant stabs at penetration–not to mention the silky, visually pleasant teamwork–so much in evidence against Utah was kaput, with a capital dipthong. Just a few quarters beyond his breakout game against the Jazz, Randy Foye broke back in, displaying all the bad habits that caused me to sour on him earlier this season– the ill-chosen, off-balance jumpers early in the shot clock, the running alongside of his opponent’s dribble so he can he can get a better profile on the man’s successful jumper, and the lazy entry passes that, while not usually stolen, certainly give defenses the time to cogitate and react.

    Hopefully the offensive gameplan was for Ryan Gomes to exploit the smallball matchup and take Ben Wallace out on the perimeter, the only justification I can come up with for the normally prudent Gomes chucking it up like the second coming of Rashad McCants, at 2-7 FG in 11:04. Speak of the devil, Shaddy checked in with 2:41 to play in the first quarter and managed to squeeze off three before the buzzer, then added three more in 8:41 of the second quarter. Three and three make six shot attempts and six misses for zero points in 11:22 first half minutes. Foye? Zip for three but a literal bonus point for being allowed to shoot the technical on a defensive three-second call against Cleveland, and thus transform his halftime goose egg into a straight line. After his first quarter delirium, Gomes came back to earth with but one clank in the second, and thus finished the half with 4 points on 2-8. For those of you slow with the abaci (abacuses?), that’s a collective 2-17 FG and a whopping 5 points from the squad’s second, third, and fouth leading scorers in the first half–and because of shot selection and general disdain for the first pass, let alone the extra pass, they collectively deserved almost every miss.

    This is what happens with a young ballclub. They play well and then they don’t, learning painful lessons on the job. Coach Randy Wittman addressed this after the Toronto loss Wednesday, but it is typical young club behavior, the habit of relaxing after a grand victory. The vexing aspect of it was not so much Toronto, however, but this game, after their Canadian clubbing theoretically taught them the error of instant self-regard. They had the contrast–fun and bloody games a la Utah, or belittling suffocation a la Toronto. The irksome thing is that they mentally opted for another bout of belittling suffocation, this time in Cleveland.

    At the half, Hanny and Pete were marvelling about how nice it was to shoot only 32.6% and yet be down a mere four points at 36-40. But from the time the Cavs’ Devin Brown opened the game by waltzing down for an easy jumper and Randy Foye followed that matador D with a travel, until the time McCants rang the garbage time dinner bell by nailing his 4th quarter treys, there was not a single moment when I seriously thought the Wolves were going to win this game.

    In the second half, Mike Brown took a gander at the stat sheet and decided Big Al needed a double team after all. With Z and Big Ben–and isn’t it ironic that Z is much bigger than both Big Al and Big Ben?–taking turns as the primary matchup and sometimes tag-teaming, with a little guy flashing over to boot, Jefferson had 4 points and 3 boards in 20:36 of the second half after going 18-7 in 20:39 of the first half. With all this attention focused on the undersized center, the undersized power forward, Gomes, managed to sneak outside for a 7-point flurry in 71 seconds to knot the game up at 51-51 midway through the third quarter. But by the end of the third Foye and McCants were a combined 1-14 FG and the Wolves were back down by 7.

    When it was mercifully over, Foye was 1-9 FG for 4 points, two assists, and three turnovers in 33:32, not a good line for a point guard or off guard, even one given a fistful of free passes for making a ginger transition from one-and-a-half to two good knees. McCants had a totally deceptive double-digit night–six of his ten points came on meaningless three-pointers in the final minute of play–but to his (small) credit he did register a team-high 3 assists while finishing sixth in minutes-played at 27:37.

    With just 1:22 to go in the game, the Wolves had amassed but 75 points and visited the free throw line 10 times. For the game they shot 39.1%. Young players or not, it is worrisome that the ballclub, which ranks 29th among 30 NBA teams in points scored per game, can be so inept offensively despite the fact that three players perceived to be cornerstones–Jefferson, Foye, and to a slightly lesser extent McCants–are all much better offensively than they are on defense.

    2. Management Follies

    About the only good thing about owner Glen Taylor’s halftime "interview" with Tom Hanneman tonight was that it spared us the cheerleader report and Sweetwater Jones. As infomerical entertainments go, it was somewhere between the Victoria Principal/Susan Lucci testimonials and the somewhat clownish guy walking around with all those question marks on his suitjacket. Actually the latter wouldn’t be a bad analogy for the current state of the Wolves.

    Taylor let it be known that he is really enjoying this team, especially compared to the underachieving teams of the previous two years. He knows, in other words, that this 12-45 team is not underachieving, but likes the job coach Randy Wittman is doing–Kevin McHale and the rest of the front office are not discussed. He says he has many people telling him and writing him that they like this team better than other recent editions too, and would like to invite still other folks to come out and decide for themselves. And, oh yeah, the new Timberwolves season ticket packages for next year are about to go on sale soon. If Taylor was this subtle in his wedding invitation business, the fancy, script-flowing marital announcements would go out complete with a picture of a the father of the bride holding a shotgun between the groom’s shoulder blades.

    In very much related news, the Wolves have bought out the contract of Theo Ratliff and would very much like to do the same with Antoine Walker. The spin that dumping Ratliff will open up more playing time for rookie Chris Richard is about as disingenuous as the earlier spin that Ratliff’s
    return would enable the Wolves to see how well Al Jefferson plays with a shot-blocking center. Richard got a whole 3:21 worth of burn tonight (his plus +1 led the team, of course), which is approximately how much Ratliff and Jefferson played together after Theo’s return.

    For quite some time now, it has been apparent that Wittman prefers Jefferson at center and Gomes at power forward. Smallball. Game by game, it has worked out much better than I would have imagined. Tonight, for example, the shrunken banshee lineup battled to a 40-40 draw on the boards with the top rebounding team in the NBA. Wittman likes to spread the floor with his small unit and give Jefferson room to operate down low. He also likes the other players utilizing this spacing and their quickness to crash the boards and outhustle as much as outmuscle opponents for position under the hoop. Perhaps this lineup is giving Jefferson experience getting his shot off against the tall timber, and hopefully learning how to survey the floor and dish back out when teams pack the paint to defend him.

    But I can’t embrace it. Anyone who watches Jefferson knows he’s a classic power forward that, even by the standards of the "new" NBA, with its paucity of dominant big men and anti-hand checking rules, is best suited to operate beside a center precisely like Ratliff, who can help out on defense, is laterally quick around the hoop, sets a good example by showing hard on peimeter pick and rolls and doesn’t need the ball. Even if we all know Ratliff wasn’t part of the future here, isn’t that kind of pivot man something this franchise should be manuevering towards? Shouldn’t we get Jefferson and Gomes ingrained in those habits now, in their formative stages? Do we really need Jefferson playing 69% of the center minutes for this ballclub and just 5% of the power forward’s minutes? (According to the 82games.com web data.) And do we really need the Wolves’ 8 most popular 5-man lineups to feature Jefferson as the center–especially when the most popular 5-man lineup that doesn’t feature Jefferson as a cetner puts Mark Madsen in the pivot instead?

    Perhaps there is guerrilla tanking going on here. A Timberwolves team with Jefferson and Ratliff playing beside each other for most of the season would be very close to 20 wins by now, in my opinion, which would vault them ahead of another five teams in addition to Miami. Perhaps that’s a little too close for comfort on losing that Clips’ pick this year for the Jaric deal.

    Then there is the money angle. Taylor himself acknowledged (in the newspaper, of course, not the infomercial) that the buyout would save him a chunk of the remainder of Theo’s $11 million contract this year–on the order of the $3 million or so that he had remaining. Meanwhile, consider that Ratliff has missed 45 games–officially more than half of an 82-game regular season. Consider that with his injury history there is a possibility that he is insured against loss of play due to injury. When I tentatively asked around, through a member of the communications staff, about whether the Wolves were getting any insurance money due to Ratliff’s injury, the staffer reported back that he couldn’t find out. Now that Ratliff is gone, I’ll be a little more aggressive and ask the question myself to Taylor or GM Jim Stack or some other team representative. And I wouldn’t mind if a daily beat writer traveling with the team beat me to it.

    3. Silver Linings

    Not all is amiss and awry in Wolves land tonight, and amid all the dolor, I thought I’d save the best for last. First off, Sebastian Telfair has begun to improve his shot much as he hiked up his court vision and sense of command in prior months. For the past 8 games, Bassy has shot 48%, (12-25) from beyond the arc. He has scored in double figures in 6 of those 8 games, along with running the offense far better than Foye or Jaric or McCants in terms of pace and proactive passing. Let’s face it, he’s the only point guard on the roster. That said, I wouldn’t go so far as to label Telfair a reliable shooter. Tonight, after hitting some big shots in the 3rd quarter and clearly establishing himself as the second-best Timberwolf behind Jefferson, he got a little too happy with himself and clanged a pair of stupid shots that were crucial to helping the Cavs pull away. On the second of these, McCants was literally pointing down toward Jefferson in the paint as Telfair drew iron with a trey. I understand Bassy is feeling–and sort of thriving on–the heat of competition for playing time with Foye, McCants and Jaric (the current short straw man, logging just 6:26 tonight). But excitability is his enemy.

    By contrast, Corey Brewer seems forever excited and unruffled at the same time. The rook’s work on LeBron James tonight was as staunch as one could hope for against a player who wound up with 30 points and 13 assists.(And if we’re talking about real silver linings, that would go to everyone lucky enough to see James’s monster dunk midway through the fourth quarter, when he tried to thread his way through two or three Wolves and stumbled around the foul line, losing the ball a little out in front of him, only to grab it as he stumbled a bit and rise up with literally incredible speed and elevation to slam it home. "That is a different look than anything I have ever seen in my life!" Petersen claimed, rightly going batshit. "TV doesn’t do it justice." Perhaps, but even on TV it looked like somebody hitting the fast forward button on a dude who disappares behind players for a second only to emerge as if jumping on a trampoline to slam it home.)

    Whatever is said about Brewer, and I’ve been pro and con, the guy is dogged and he plays the game like he’s memorized the handbook. Tonight he racked up 15 points (5-10 FG) and 4 steals, but it was his simple foot movement and determination to stay in front of LeBron that was most impressive. Meanwhile, if you want a half full/empty glass, think about how shrewd Brewer’s shot selection is–the ex-Gator almost never shoots outside the flow and rhythm of the offense and hustles hard enough to put himself in many great positions to score. Now consider that despite taking such an inordinately high percentage of good shots, Brewer is still making less than 35% of them. Blame it on his youth, and cross your fingers.

  • The Three Pointer: The Best Yet This Season

    (AP Photo/Jim Mone)


    Game #55, Home Game #30: Utah 100, Minnesota 111

    Season Record: 12-43

    1. The Beauty of Teamwork

    It’s been a long time–certainly a year, maybe two–since fans of the Minnesota Timberwolves have seen this kind of 48 minutes from their ballclub. There have been some really nice wins thus far this season: The roaring final 3 quarters that produced the 131 points versus Indiana, the two convincing wins over Phoenix, and the solid rousting of Philly just last week. And there have been enjoyably well-played losses to Boston (the one on the road), Atlanta (the one on the road), and San Antonio (last week). But Indiana and Philly are sub-mediocrities, the style Phoenix plays is prone to their occasional pratfalls, and the losses were ultimately losses, after all.

    Tonight the Wolves beat a very good team–19-4 in 2008 heading into this game–by mixing aggression and sound judgment, tenacity and tact, and, above all, a full-fledged sense of selflessness for the sake of the ballclub. Such teamwork is harder to describe than witness–it’s always easier to isolate what’s wrong with a car than why it works so well from ignition to muffler–but worth the effort if only to savor it. There are all the little things. Randy Foye jumping right in the middle of the paint to set a pick for Al Jefferson. Rashad McCants diving toward the hoop wide open and not receiving the pass, yet diligently circling back out to probe for other ways he can extend the play. Ryan Gomes rotating over to deter penetration and cover for his late-arriving teammate, then sliding to the other side of the lane to box out his own man after the shot goes up. Corey Brewer scrambling to the sideline and backhanding the ball in to save the possession, then getting back in time to tip in the subsequent shot less than two seconds later. Foye scrambling back hard enough in transition to be able to set his feet for a charge.

    Utah is a physical team, charter members of the Frequent Foulers Club, expert in rubbing out obstacles with back-door picks and other traffic-jamming Xs and Os designed to sap your spirit and bruise your muscles. They wait to seize the lapses that are the byproduct of fatigue. But the Wolves beat Utah at their own game. Wittman threw new man Kirk Snyder on Utah enforcer Matt Harpring and Snyder, who practiced against Harpring often his rookie year after being drafted by Utah, went shoulder to shoulder, toe to toe and more than once joined him on the floor in their mutual mania for the round orb. Theo Ratliff took the measure of another bench bruiser for the Jazz, Paul Milsapp, and, although it required 5 fouls in 12:31, helped flummox the second year player. By the third and early in the fourth period, many Utah shots were banging front iron.

    Muckers like Craig Smith and Ryan Gomes mucked, but so did Foye and McCants and Telfair, and Big Al. They gave little away for free to Utah, staying with their men by wedging themselves over picks or switching off smartly, alert to the entire court, vertical and horizontal, the breakaways and the back-door cuts. They kept their heads on a swivel and their hands up for deflections, grabbing 16 steals (one short of the franchise record) and disrupting at least that many other possessions. Utah did not execute poorly–the Jazz shot 46.4% and had 26 assists–but the Wolves also forced them into a season-high 24 turnovers. Three Wolves–Jefferson/Foye/McCants–had three steals and Telfair and Gomes had two.

    The offense was even more fun to watch. It brimmed with minor decisions that made already good possibilities just a little bit better. Telfair led the team with just 4 assists, and two big men off the bench, Smith and the newcomer Snyder had 3. McCants would have an open look for his jumper but see Jefferson sealing his man and already anticipating the double team, so he’d dump in the entry pass, watch Jefferson spin one-on-three into the lane and draw the foul. McCants gets the glow of feeling unselfish; Al the gusto of barging into the teeth of Sloan’s boys in the paint, a Jazz player is that much closer to foul trouble and Jefferson nails the free throws (he was 8-10 FT overall). Another time down, Jefferson has the ball and is crab-dribbling into the double until he push-passes a final dribble into the hands of McCants, swinging over five feet behind him and getting his feet in position, even as Jefferson becomes the de facto screen on his two men and the other McCants has just rubbed off him. Shaddy nails the open look (8-17 FG), Jefferson drops an easy dime (one of two tonight) and Utah knows there are legit threats being wielded at either end of this two-man game.

    Except that it’s a five man game. The three-headed monster Wolves fans have been pining for–Jefferson, McCants and Foye–all take their closeups, damn well linger in it, maybe for two or three possessions in a row if the matchups are right, abetted by the other four teammates in the little ways described above. But then, for one of the few times this year, the emphasis moves before it has to. Foye’s hot, but cedes to Shaddy, or Al, who goes and gets some, but doesn’t mark the territory for pecking order purposes. In the first half, Foye has 9 shots, Jefferson 7, McCants 8; for the game Foye has 16 shots, McCants 17, Jefferson 17. Jefferson and McCants tie for the scoring lead with 22, Foye a whisker behind at 20.

    And 20 from Ryan Gomes makes it only the second time in the last 10 years, and the first time since January 2004, that four Wolves go off for 20 points or more. Gomes, of course, is different. He is the best individual barometer for this team, because his game is glue, everything geared to teamwork, meaning his perceptive movements without the ball will get him a bushel of sly, easy looks at the hoop if others notice and feed him. Tonight he was 7-15 FG and grabbed team highs in rebounds (11) and offensive boards (4). When the Wolves play this unselfishly, he is probably the most emblematic, and will likely be among the most obscure, especially in relation to his contribution.

    2. Coming Out Party

    Hey, it’s Randy Foye, circa January or Feburary 2007. Those who have been counseling us Foye critics to wait until the guy was back in game shape can gloat a little off this performance. Too often in his first 11 appearances this season Foye wallowed in boom-or-bust mode, bent on arching up treys or taking his shakey wheels for a traipse through the lane. Tonight he threw in the deceptively tough stuff, the midrange game, the runners and the pull-ups and the dish on the move. It made a huge difference both in making the treys and the lay-up tries more unpredictible and in fostering the ball and player movement so much on display tonight. As I mentioned earlier, and am anxious to repeat, Foye, McCants and Jefferson passed the baton fairly regularly tonight. There were three go-to guys and nobody bitched/sulked/malingered or otherwise acted out if one of the other two was bogarting the crayons in the sandbox. And while Foye is not a point guard (16 shots, 2 assists), he is a buffer against the idea of either/or between Jefferson and McCants.

    "We’ve said we have to be patient with Randy," an elated Wittman cautioned after the game. "There’s probably going to be another down before there is another up."

    And when there is, I’ll describe it and probably criticize it. But tonight’s effort gave credence to the "still recovering from injury" feeling about Foye; there was physical confidence in this "up." Yeah, Foye missed a chippie or two, but the shot selection was light years better than the chuck-fests he showed previously. Maybe this won’t be so much of a "limbo" season for Foye after all.

    3. In Praise of Wittman

    With ten m
    inutes to go in the game and the Wolves clinging to a one point lead, Randy Wittman opted out of his big lineup, subbing in Ryan Gomes and Craig Smith for Ratliff and Jefferson, with Foye, McCants and Snyder filling out the rotation. For those breaking out the slide rules at home, that’s no player above 6-7 (if you believe Craig Smith is 6-7). As a stalwart big lineup guy, I sharpened the poison pen.

    But Wittman had noticed Utah coach Jerry Sloan sitting his best players, Carlos Boozer and Deron Williams, limiting the Jazz’s options on offense. And he knew a front line of Okur (6-11), Harping (6-7) and Millsap (6-8), might have trouble defending a quicker team in the 4th quarter.

    Boom. Foye nailed a trey off a feed from Gomes. Harping tried a jump-hook over Smith on the baseline that didn’t go. Foye missed another trey attempt but Gomes got the board. His shot was blocked by Millsap but Smith got the board. His shot was blocked by Harpring, but Smith got it back, and laid it in. Millsap missed a jumper from the side of the key and Foye rebounded, leading to a neat layup by Gomes on an assist from Snyder. Sloan hurriedly called timeout and got Boozer and D-Will back in the game, but, in just 1:54, the smallball Wolves had bumped a single digit up to 8, permanently changing the complexion of the game.

    Had it gone exactly the other way–smallball giving the Jazz a quick seven and swinging the tide–the anti-Wittman venom from me and others would have been righteous. Because he’s got a lousy won-loss record, he’s fairly bland, he stunk up the joint in his coaching stint last year, and he enjoys the support of McHale, Taylor and some others who have been incumbents of the downfall. We’re quick to criticize and slow to praise.

    So give the man his due for the smallball gambit–it’s not like that quintet had ever played a minute together before, and it may have been the difference tonight. Wittman also chose this game to showcase Kirk Snyder, who doesn’t know all the team’s plays but logged an effective 24:09 tonight because Witt liked matching him up with the beef of Harpring and Kirilenko at the small forward slot. He probably also knew Snyder had that stint in Utah and Sloan doesn’t change spots that much. Snyder, anxious to make a splash and mindful of his impending free agency, was the right feature at the right time. There was also the fabled Wittman discipline, but lower-keyed and effective this time. After the Wolves raced out to an 8-2 lead, Utah scored the next ten points, leading to a no-nonsense time out from Wittman. Smart move whether he said anything or simply broke the prevailing momentum–the Wolves scored the next seven points.

    PS–City Pages writer Jonathan Kaminsky has a nice, long, profile of Al Jefferson up on the citypages.com site. Worth reading.

     

  • The Three Pointer: Better Than Philly

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


    Game #52, Home Game #27: Philadelphia 88, Minnesota 104

    Season record: 11-41

    1. Spread the Credit

    It’s been a habit of these three-pointers to isolate players for individual praise or criticism, rearranging members of the roster like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle that someday will yield a different and more pleasing picture than the one who entered the All Star break losing more than four games for every one it won. But tonight’s convincing triumph over a Philadelphia 76ers team that had won five straight is most accurately seen as a blended team effort, the type of performance that most satisfies coaches and front office personnel.

    The Wolves’ outscored Philly in all four quarters, beating back a series of runs and challenges in the process. Seven of the nine players who participated–and all seven of those who logged over 20 minutes of playing time–scored in double figures. Only Antoine Walker, who played but 8:05, failed to record a positive in the plus/minus figures. Especially in the first half, the Wolves both moved the ball and moved without the ball, generating offense that was generous, dynamic, and visually pleasing. They were far better mentally and physically prepared than their opponent for their first game in nearly a week, roaring out to a 17-8 lead in the first 6:14 mostly by grabbing 12 of the game’s first 14 rebounds and proving themselves to be the more alert and energetic team.

    Within this team game, two early matchups deserve special mention. Perhaps no foe has frustrated Jefferson more than Samuel Dalembert the first time these teams played, with Big Al suffering five blocks, including a game-tying attempt in the final seconds. This time, Jefferson wasn’t lunched once en route to 9-14 FG. And at the other end, Jefferson totally stymied his taller but more listless opponent. At the half, Dalembert had two points and a rebound in 13:13 versus Jefferson’s 10 and 8 in 16:22. Jefferson’s shot wasn’t falling, but four offensive board produced a pair of putbacks that boosted his percentage (he was 5-9 FG in the first half). He added three more offensive rebounds in the second half and grabbed 14 overall versus 9 for Dalembert. Best of all, weaknesses in his game are slowly but fairly surely being caulked. His "show" on the pick and roll actually had some resonance for the dribbler, and he wasn’t as casual about getting back either.

    But the real eye-opener was a trio of interior passes down toward the hoop from a spot in the middle of the post. Because Jefferson has expanded his range enough to hit that 12-15 footer, the double-team–or at least an opponent’s attention–will be drawn. Tonight he shoveled one pass that Craig Smith finished, went over the top to find Rashad McCants in traffic beneath the hoop, and had another nifty feed come to naught due to a missed layup. His total of 3 assists could have been double that had his teammates converted, or if he needed to log more than just 2:22 in the 4th quarter.

    The other honorable mention goes to Corey Brewer’s defense on Philly’s leading scorer, Andre Iguodala. The 6-6 swingman was clearly bothered by Brewer’s length and tenacity, missing all four of his shots before Brewer picked up his second foul with 3:01 to play in the first and headed for the bench. On the other side of the ball, Brewer remains a disaster–his lone basket in 8 attempts came on a transition layup off a steal. Yes, he takes "good shots," and I suppose one should applaud his confidence in continuing to try and keep opposing defenses honest. But they simply don’t fall–long in the first half, woefully short on his first attempt of the 3rd period–and defenses cheat dishonestly away from him anyway, and will until his finds the range.

    But here’s why Brewer deserves kudos instead of brickbats for this game: While scoring just that lone bucket on five attempts in the first period, the rook also grabbed six rebounds, dished for two dimes, and sank a pair of free throws. Meanwhile, he held Iguodala to a pair of free throw attempts (one made), no baskets, two rebounds and an assist in that first period. When your rookie is getting the better of your opponent’s top point producer, the chances of winning skyrocket. Brewer wasn’t flashy about it–his blanket on Iguodala was most apparent after he sat and Iguodala suddenly was shooting jumpers without a hand in his face (McCants and Ryan Gomes were his other defenders). He *was* flashy coming out of nowhere to foul fellow rook Thaddeus Young in mid-slam well above the hoop in the third quarter, however. Bottom line, if Brewer is one of the top two (or perhaps even three) guys in your pecking order, your team isn’t likely to go far in the playoffs. On the other hand, most playoff-caliber teams have a Brewer-like presence in their lineup: An energy guy with glue-like attributes. And he’s going to get better.

     

    2. Bassy Hangs In

    Randy Foye finally received his first start of the season tonight, but in a bit of an upset, it was at the shooting guard slot. This move is a victory for common sense over face-saving draft politics. If Foye isn’t a point guard, then the Wolves likely erred in swapping him for Brandon Roy (certainly the injury history argument hasn’t panned out thus far for Foye’s defenders). Well, Foye *isn’t* a point guard–they are sent from God, as Stephon Marbury once said, and isn’t that ironic in retrospect–but force-feeding him at that spot to make sure was the kind of butt-covering logic I anticipated. Instead, Wittman and company are properly impressed with Bassy’s gaudy assist to turnover ratio; after preaching the value of reducing turnovers with numbing frequency, Wittman would have demonstrated blatant hypocrisy by lifting him for a unbalanced combo guy whose miscues outnumber his dimes.

    Fifty-two games into this season, Telfair is the Wolves player who has most aggressively seized this campaign by the throat, not so much surpassing the low expectations his previous play had engendered as lapping them, stoking his energy and intelligence in the process. In the past 30 games or so, Telfair has finally learned how to do more than simply turn the key in the offense and try to steer the wheel. He’s discovered how to regulate pace with the throttle and the brake, how to draw and kick, how to make opponents cover him because of his dribble penetration or initial probes in the modified fast break where the Wolves may or may not have the numbers. He’s still small, of course, and despite tonight’s 3-4 FG, his shooting continues to be a relatively wretched adventure. But when he’s paired with Jaric or Foye or McCants in the backcourt, there’s no longer much doubt that he’s the floor general.

    By the numbers, Foye had perhaps his best game thus far: 13 points, five assists and one lone turnover. But he did jack up 15 shots (making six), including a half-dosen treys (converting one), and he’s been a sub-mediocre defender all year. Tonight, Andre Miller posted him up a couple of times for easy baskets on the way to a 15-point half that kept Philly in the game (Miller didn’t score in the second half, however.) Of even greater concern, Philly was the second straight opponent to deploy a full-court press when Foye was the primary point guard, and Wittman quickly had Telfair up and ready to go back in after the court-length disruption cut into the Wolves lead.

    Foye’s confidence, like Brewer’s, remainsa little higher than reality might warrant. Asked about his defense tonight, he boasted about clamping down on Willie Green (who *was* held to 6 points on 3-10 FG) instead of Miller’s early post-ups or some garbage time matador maneuvers. It is reminiscent of his claim about being best suited for the point. And maybe after he regains full range of
    that knee and fills his head with another thousand or so minutes at the point, he’ll become more of a savior than a sabatoeur at the position. But Wittman revealed after tonight’s game that he’ll continue to experiment with the Telfair-Foye backcourt allignment for a while longer to see how well they stir up sparks.

    3. Cuban’s Kidd

    About three weeks ago when I was catching a Mavs game on League Pass, a television poll showed Dallas fans believing that Devin Harris was the team MVP at that time. Now not only Harris but the Mavs’ best legit big man in Dasanga Diop are heading to New Jersey to finally trigger the trade for Jason Kidd. It’s a bad deal for Dallas on a number of levels: The fans clearly appreciated Harris, who destroyed the Wolves with dribble penetration the first two times the teams met in Dallas earlier this year. Kidd has slipped defensively, and will have difficulty with the Nash-Williams-Paul-Parker quartet, who figure to be among his opposing matchups in the playoffs. Losing Diop means Erick Dampier will be the default man in the pivot when the Mavs need to match up with lengthy ballclubs. Then there is the small matter of two first round draft picks. And three million bucks.

    I’ll be shocked if both Dallas and Phoenix make it out of the first round of this year’s playoffs.

  • The Three Pointer: Getting Past the KG Hangover

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


    Game #48, Home Game #24: Boston 88, Minnesota 86

    Season record: 10-38

    1. Kevin Garnett, Over and Out

    The big man came, he smiled, he waved, hit his heart once or twice, and left. The applause from the fans was long and genuine, but not so enthusiastic as to induce goosebumps, or to make either side of this classically Minnesotan, passive-aggressive relationship believe that something historically special was taking place.

    It’s another small but significant step of separation, and I’m glad it is over. As someone who has covered the Timberwolves on a near game-by-game basis since 1991, I’ve struggled to be a person of perspective, to suck it up and take the long view, and to give this current squad a chance for their talent, and their potential, to be judged on its own merits. I’ve tried not to be baited by the inevitable but absurd KG-Al Jefferson comparisons, by the various members of the media who say they’d rather have Jefferson than Garnett in a Wolves’ uniform, by the folks who seem enthusiastic, almost giddy, about the trade that occurred this summer. So I am going to dive into this one more time and then hopefully leave it alone.

    When Kevin McHale was named the most successful executive in pro team sports last year by Forbes.com, the hoots and hollars of derision were appropriately widespread. People who didn’t look at the methodology wondered how such a conclusion could possibly be drawn. And the answer is, in the context of the dunderheaded Wolves management that had existed before, be it Bob Stein or Trader Jack McCloskey or the Musselman-McKinney power struggle, McHale did indeed look like a genius. The Wolves never won more than 29 games in an 82-game season before McHale came on board. And because he was instrumental in acquiring Gugliotta for Donyell Marshall, drafting KG and Stephon Marbury, installing Flip Saunders on the sideline, and weeding out the Laettners and the Riders, McHale laid the groundwork and then filled in the pieces, culminating in Spree and Cassell, for a franchise that *averaged* 51 wins per season from 1999 through 2004. That’s a hell of an improvement, and that’s what impressed the statistical formula Forbes.com was using.

    The Garnett trade can be regarded with a similarly diverse, contextual perspective. For those who endured the increasingly dysfunctional, dispiriting decline in the team’s fortunes the last three years, ending the inexorably fractious KG drama in exchange for a bona fide cornerstone player in Jefferson, a couple of draft picks, huge cap relief in Theo Ratliff’s contract, and a couple of keepers in Gomes and (surprisingly) Telfair is a very good trade indeed. When the trade occurred I considered the circumstances and endorsed it. I still do. It was the right move and–*in context*–a good deal for the Wolves.

    But proponents of the trade should stop right there. Don’t blame Garnett for the Wolves’ failures, or proclaim that, all things being equal, you’d prefer to have Jefferson instead, because you risk looking like a fool. Yes, I understand that Jefferson is just 23, already averaging 21.5 points and 12.3 rebounds a game, whereas KG at a similar age was averaging 18.5 and 9.6. I was there when KG was 23. He was putting together a season in which, if Jefferson’s current averages hold out, had him block 37 more shots than Jefferson will block this year, steal the ball 55 more times, and, on a team where a relatively selfless Marbury was the point guard, passed for more than triple the number of assists Jefferson will deliver this year. Then there is the small matter of the 24 minutes when the Timberwolves don’t have the ball.

    Right now, the Celtics are 38-9 and Kevin Garnett is on a very short list of MVP candidates. Meanwhile, Leon Powe went 8-10 FG on Jefferson last night, and when Powe ran down and tipped in Ray Allen’s missed layup with one-fifth of a second on the clock, Jefferson had not yet stepped over the half-court line. I say this out of no disrespect for Jefferson, a marvelous player who did not ask for this comparison, and who will make my job infinitely more pleasurable over the next five years. I say it out of disrespect for clueless homers suddenly contorted into revisionist history, who, because they don’t want to think about how little this franchise reaped of a utterly distinctive and magical performer during his dozen years here, are overpraising what was salvaged via the KG yard sale.

    Now you know why I’m glad this latest Garnett frenzy of attention is over. It brings out the grumpy old man in me. Because when it is all said and done, I miss the athletic beauty, and the consistency of effort and execution. I miss, with an ache and a surly passion that will now hopefully go back under wraps, the opportunity to watch Kevin Garnett display his multifaceted virtues on a near daily basis, including live and up close at least 40 times per year.

    2. Now About The Ballgame…

    You can probably blame it on such a young and inexperienced roster, but aside from Ryan Gomes, there is not a single player on Wolves who sports a balanced overall game of solid offense and solid defense, a fact that was apparent throughout last night’s enjoyable game of roller-coaster highs and lows. Corey Brewer not only throttled Paul Pierce as well as can be expected for the second time this season, but was a whirling dervish of steals, rebounds and defensive rotations for most of the game–it ranks up there with his 18-rebound, 5-assist performance against Atlanta as his best game of the season. (Wittman, who started Brewer over Rashad McCants at the 3 to get the matchup on Pierce, says he thinks Brewer’s length is the key, that Pierce likes to clear space for his jumper and Brewer is too long and tenacious to let that happen.) But Brewer was only 3-10 FG, a total that didn’t appreciably diminish his 35.2% field goal accuracy for the season. Marko Jaric likewise hounded Ray Allen into 5-16 FG, but when Jaric went up for an uncontested jumper with the game on the line, did any Wolves fan feel good about the probable outcome?

    On the flipside you’ve got Jefferson and Craig Smith. Be it Big Baby Glen Davis or the smaller, quicker James Posey, the Rhino cavorted at will in the paint, shooting 7-10 FG that included a desperation trey miss. But on defense especially, Smith is a ‘tweener without position, unable to handle the behemoths backing him down or the larger 3s and quicker 4s who roam beyond the paint. As for Jefferson, once he was rid of his old practice partner– the Celts starting center Kendrick Perkins, who wrenched his left shoulder late in the third period–he was unstoppable whenever Boston couldn’t prevent him from getting the ball. It is easy to forget how much of Jefferson’s post-game relies on guile; his upfakes, the footwork, the spectrum of options he has at his disposal and the unpredictible ways he combines them. But Perkins went against him every day in practice during most of that formative process, and defends Big Al with uncanny clairvoyance. Last night, Jefferson was 4-11 FG, had two shots blocked and committed six turnovers before Perkins went down. After that he was 5-6 FG without a miscue. But, as with Smith, defending people is more problematical.

    On the perimeter, it is blatantly obvious that McCants is Minnesota’s premiere scoring threat via perimeter jumpers or dribble penetration. The seemingly effortless elan with which he twice dribbled through two or three Celtics en route to a layup during the first 2 minutes of the second period was simply the latest in a string of constant reminders this season that no one on the Wolves can get his own shot more effectively than Shaddy.

    And yet, with equally numbing frequency, it is apparent that McCants is endurin
    g a star-crossed campaign. Despite three steals and disciplined play at both ends of the court during the first half last night, the defense of Jaric and Brewer deprived Shaddy of court time until the final three minutes of the third. Then, with 8:51 to go in the game, a fateful play occurred that began with a steal by Antoine Walker. ‘Toine got the ball to McCants and the Wolves were 3-on-2 on the break. But McCants, whose skill set certainly gave him cause to try and take it all the way himself, instead followed the bball catechism of rewarding the ball-hawk if logically possible, and dished to Walker on the right wing. Walker flubbed it on the dribble, the Celts converged, and the ball rolled down his back and was up for grabs. McCants did not go down on the floor to get it, Tony Allen did, and fed it to Eddie House for a layup. At the next stoppage in play, Wittman subbed in Brewer for McCants, berated Shaddy as he went by, and left him on the pine the rest of the way. During the postgame, without naming names, he twice specificed the importance of getting down on the floor for loose balls as one of the little things that decide a ballgame. Whether this is tough love or residual disgust, standard discipline or a delayed blowback to Shaddy’s snit the other night, is difficult to know. But the drama continues.

    Then there is the point guard position. Randy Foye is the incumbent in waiting, the guy expected to sidle beside Jefferson for unquestioned team leader status. But Foye isn’t ready yet, and that’s being charitable. Readers are forgiven if they don’t recall that one of my mantras last season was that "Foye is not a point guard," but I didn’t remember either. But a few games seeing the difference between Telfair running the offense and Foye dribbling out on the perimeter has refreshened those impressions. Wittman was actually telling the truth when he said of Foye that last night was "one of his best games," although he once again reiterated that Foye is taking way too many three-pointers. The line on #4 was 3-12 FG, including 1-5 3ptFG, plus 3 assists and 2 turnovers, in 25:15. What the line can’t show is the lack of grease in the team’s offensive execution with Foye at the point instead of Telfair. The problem with Bassy, as always, is he can’t hit the broad side of a barn with that jumper. He was 1-8 FG tonight in 22:45, which puts a large dent in that otherwise nifty 6/1 assist-to-turnover ratio, if you regard missed shots as the onset of a probable turnover.

    Even Foye’s defenders don’t claim him to be Anthony Johnson, let alone Magic Johnson, when it comes to conscientiously doling out the rock. That may eventually came back to haunt the Wolves–as it currently stands, their future is Jefferson, Gomes, Foye, Brewer, and a center, which is a pretty shaky quintet on the handle. But for even that to pan out, Foye has to play defense better than the statuesque poses he’s been making thus far this season, and he has to not only find his offense but incorporate it into a sharing philosophy. The best sight of the night for Wolves fans had to be the time Foye drove the right lane and–in a more pleasant flashback from the glorious of last season–hung in the air waiting for the contact before banking the shot home. As Wittman said, you spend 3 and a half months not playing, it is a long and slow road back. Foye showed too much to imagine that he won’t bounce back. But, flat-out, you give Telfair Foye’s 4th quarter minutes last night and Wolves win that game. As it was, Foye missed 9 shots in 25:15 to Telfair’s seven misses in 22:45. That’s a collective 4-20 FG from your point guard position, added to Brewer and Jaric playing a collective 63:11. And that’s 86 points on 41.7% shooting, despite a combined 16-27 FG from Jefferson and Smith.

    3. Two Big Deals

    With the All-Star game just a week away and playoff positioning beginning in earnest, I will be devoting this third point in the trey increasingly to various observations about other teams around the league. Today, it’s my quick take on the recent blockbusters swung by the Lakers and the Suns.

    The Lakers now boast arguably the best player in the Western Conference in Kobe Bryant, and arguably the deepest team in the NBA. If Bynum comes back healthy, they are the biggest threat to the Spurs’ return to the NBA Finals. What’s great about Gausol in this context is the flexibility he provides their roster. LA is large–7 guys on their roster are 6-10 or above, only 3 are less than 6-5–yet remarkably quick for their size. Guys like Kobe, Luke Walton, and Lamar Odom are matchup nightmares for most swingmen. the two-headed point guard situation with Farmar and Fisher is a great mix of flashy kid and savvy vet. Ronny Turiaf, Sasha Vujacic, Vlad Rad, and even Trevor Ariza, should he ever find some minutes in edgewise, are the kind of players who can burn a second unit that isn’t paying attention or merely going through the motions. The roster’s personnel is well suited for the triangle offense, mobile and fairly smart (losing Kwame Brown boosted the BBIQ), and yet the team can ambush you in transition. The only questions are whether Bynum can be the stud in the paint that he was becoming before the injury, and whether team defense with respect to Gausol, Odom and the two point guards is sufficient in a rugged playoff series. I know Memphis clears lots of cap with Kwame and wants to feature Rudy Gay, season their point guards and line themselves up for the lottery, but even so, advantage Lakers.

    The Shaq to Phoenix bombshell is a little different. As with the Lakers’ trade, I’m probably not saying anything that hasn’t already been said, ad nauseum (fortunately I haven’t had time to read it, just getting it through osmosis in hoops talk with friends), but it is obviously a matter of Steve Kerr going for broke, figuring that spending tens of millions on a potent tub or lard is better than spending tens of millions on a cancerous swiss army knife (that would be Shaq and Shawn Marion, respectively). Phoenix’s odds of winning the NBA Championship go up about 10 percent with this deal. Unfortunately, their odds of being eliminated in the first round of the playoffs go up about 30 percent.

    How does a team getting the most out of Shaq also be a team that gets the most out of Steve Nash? It is difficult to think of two stars whose offensive games are less compatible. One of the precious few blessings of the deal will be that D’Antoni can significantly cut Nash’s minutes, and I would imagine they won’t share the court for any more than 12-20 minutes a game, tops. But it is hardly a secret that both don’t defend very well–who guards Duncan in a matchup with San Antonio? For that matter, who is their premiere low-post defender–Brian Skinner? Losing Marion puts pressure on a physically fragile Grant Hill and a mentally fragile Boris Diaw.

    The greatest justification for this trade is that Phoenix needs to do exactly what Kerr did–push all their chips on to a longshot hope of taking it all this season, because after that, the window is closed. New Orleans and Portland will soon take their place alongside Dallas and the Lakers as championship threats over the next 4-5 years. Better to get rid of the bitching Marion–who, even more than Joe Johnson, wins the Mr. Clueless award for wanting out of Phoenix–and have the aging Nash and the aging Shaq coming off the books; take the team down to the ground and start from scratch. But before that happens, see if D’Antoni can use his offensive genius to get a two-headed horse to go in the same direction. See if the change of speeds discombobulates opponents. See if Shaq and Nash can put their phenomenal talents and their considerable pride ahead of what common sense would say is a disastrous marriage.

    As much as I love and have defended both Shaq and Nash in recent years, I think common sense wins out. I’ve already made a wager with a colleague on the regular season: He wins the bet if the Suns finish among the top three seeds; I win if they finish between sixth and eighth. (Four an
    d five seeds are a push.) And, to bring it around to the Wolves, that Miami draft pick owed Minnesota in 2010 is going to be a lot worse with Marion joining Wade plus a high pick this season on the 2009-10 Heat roster.