The Rake Magazine

Tag: Wittman

  • Wolves 2007-08 Season Recap, Part 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

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

  • 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: Flat

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

    Game #59, Home Game #32: Charlotte 109, Minnesota 89

    Season Record: 12-47

    1. Getting the Message

    It is just early March, with more than a fourth of the season’s games still to play, but the Minnesota Timberwolves are counting ping pong balls a lot more assiduously than they are counting victories.

    Is the team "tanking"? No, not in the blatant, Mark Madsen will chuck up three pointers, or Kevin Garnett will suffer an injury sort of way. But the situation feels uncomfortably similar to this stretch of the season last year, when it became pretty obvious that the best five-man team the Wolves could put on the floor was KG and a bunch of young kids, yet Randy Wittman and the front office stubbornly played the stinking vets like Mark Blount and Ricky Davis with Garnett, all the while trying to convince would-be ticket-buyers that there was a "Blueprint" in the offing that would spell wins down the road. It just so happened that part of that blueprint was losing enough games to keep the draft pick instead of sending it to the Clippers.

    Flash forward to this season. The Wolves have just lost consecutive home games to a Seattle squad that had won just 15 games all season, and now a Charlotte team that had lost nine in a row on the road and triumphed only once–in overtime, yet–in the entire month of February. In both games, Minnesota played quarter-assed defense (half assed is too much praise) and didn’t step up when it mattered most. In the postgame press conference Wittman stated the obvious: "Tonight we tried to have a nonaggression pact with the other team…it was happening from the first play of the game to the last play of the game…I think we are worrying too much about what is happening at the offensive end and not enough about what is happening on defnese…we had 3 free throws and 2 offensive rebounds in the second half–that’s nonaggression.

    All true. But the part that perked up my ears was when Wittman mentioned, twice, at different points in his harangue, that Ryan Gomes was doing a noble job of fronting power forward Emeka Okafor, denying him the ball, and then–and here Wittman said it, twice–he went to his "big lineup" and the person on Okafor guarded him from behind and let him shoot. And that’s when it hit me: The "big lineup" Wittman was criticizing to the inferred plaudits of Gomes and the "small lineup" consisted of Al Jefferson at center and Craig Smith at power forward. But that "big lineup" was the front line I was criticizing as a "small lineujp" earlier in the season before Wittman went smaller still with Jefferson at center and Gomes at power forward. And the reason it is now the de facto "big lineup" is because the Timberwolves braintrust thought it would be a good idea to cut Theo Ratliff loose.

    If your idea is to be as competitive as possible and win as many games as possible, buying out the remainder of Ratliff’s contract made absolutely no sense. If your idea is to groom Al Jefferson at his natural power forward position and get him used to playing with a defensive-oriented, shot-blocking man in the pivot who would be the perfect complement to Jefferson’s skill set, than buying Ratliff out makes no sense. If your idea is to see how the existing centers who are either young and unproven (Chris Richard) or signed relatively long term (Mark Madsen) do paired with Jefferson, the buying out of Ratliff does have some logic–but obviously that is not the Wolves’ intent. Richard got a whole 5:53 worth of burn tonight, bringing him up to 29:38 over the past six games–he played 25:17 in the December 14 game against Seattle alone. But even when the coaches deign to play Richard, it is almost always *replacing Jefferson at center*; the two rarely if ever play together. Meanwhile, Madsen hasn’t played since a token appearance against Toronto February 10, which was ten games ago. And Michael Doleac has logged a grand 2:25 in the last six games.

    If Wittman wanted this ballclub to care more about defense than offense, he should have kept Ratliff, who I daresay would have made Okafor think about turning and shooting even playing behind him. Ditto Doleac, and probably Madsen. Richard and Okafor were on the floor at the same time for less than two minutes tonight.

    At the end of the exhibition season, I was genuinely looking forward to the time when the Wolves could trot out a front line of Ratliff, Jefferson and Corey Brewer; I remember writing at the time that it had the potential to be a very good defensive trio. I was also looking forward to a shared backcourt of Foye and McCants with that front line. Yes, Ratliff would have been gone next year anyway, but he would have provided some defensive stability and attention to that side of the ball this year; he would have hopefully helped develop a habit of talking to each other and taking pride in one’s defense. I saw a team with Ratliff, Foye and Jefferson winning between 20 and 30 games. Now injuries certainly intervened. But it’s funny; just when that unit had a chance to finally get together, the Wolves’ braintrust pulled the plug and let Theo walk, saving owner Glen Taylor perhaps $3 or $4 million–and, not incidentally, putting them in a better position to let the likes of Seattle and Charlotte convert more than half their shots en route to road wins at Target Center.

    "Let’s build it together," is the new "Blueprint For the Future." It feels very familiar: A hard, aggressive public relations campaign while Theo gets his buyout and Antoine Walker–another vet who is highly respected in the locker room and has been a solid citizen up until the trade deadline, and is still straining to be a solid citizen now–sits in street clothes, spared the indignity of not having DNP-CD next to his name. But who’s to say ‘Toine couldn’t have provided a spark tonight, spread the floor a little bit?

    Don’t think the players on the roster don’t notice these things. The talk around the league is how the Lakers got Pau and the Mavs Kidd and the Suns Shaq. Then there are teams that are positioning themselves for next year. Minnesota is in the latter batch–for the third straight year. And for the third straight year, losing games means more to this squad than to most, because the difference is not just a better position in the ping-pong ball chase, it is the difference perhaps between having a pick and forking it over to the Clips.

    Every year about this time, I get into long involved discussions with people who think it best to inadvertantly tank, by "playing the young kids," or simply figuring out ways to move up in the draft. I understand the logic of the argument. But I hew to a simpler logic: Fans who pay good money to watch a pro NBA team deserve to see a team that is doing whatever possible to win now and win later with the personnel they have. And everyone in the Wolves locker room knows that the personnel moves made in recent days–be it the dumping of Ratliff or the mothballing of Walker–are not about winning now or later with the current personnel. It is about making sure another high draft pick comes to this ballclub. That’s not exactly a motivating force.

    There is no doubt in my mind that if Theo Ratliff were still around and Antoine Walker was still getting some rotations that overall morale would be higher, and the defensive effort would be more rugged. I get the math of the draft picks. I get the "we’ll see who really wants to step up and play these last few weeks of the season," speech. But when Glen Taylor goes on television and talks about how much more fun this season has been than the last two, because you can really see how the young kids are coming together and ho
    w there is a plan in place and how the future is brighter–well, some of that is true and some of that is fairly intolerable bullshit. This team is currently playing uninspired, demoralized basketball–they just handed a game to the pathetic Sonics and got impudently spanked by a team that couldn’t beat anybody in regulation during the entire month of February–you know, the month that ended four days ago. It’s not fun. It feels a hell of a lot like the previous two years, when it was hard to tell which was worse: If the front office knew what it was doing or if it didn’t. It’s a Twilight Zone, and that’s exactly how the players are responding to it.

    2. Muddied Waters

    Meanwhile, the jury is out on exactly how meaningful these last six weeks are going to be. Let me offer a few examples.

    Point guard: The competition is between Randy Foye and Sebastian Telfair. The recent plan has been to start them both in the same undersized backcourt and then go "big" by swapping Bassy out for a bigger player than kicks Foye over to the point. Management obviously would prefer that Foye blossom into a quality point guard and settle the matter, consigning Telfair to back-up point status and enabling Rashad McCants to glide in as sixth man and shooting guard, or bump Corey Brewer back to the 2 when the Wolves really do want to go "big."

    If this really is about players stepping up and making claims for their time, no favorites considered, then Telfair is doing his part. Wolves fans don’t even blink twice when they read a line like Bassy’s 9/1 assist to turnover ratio tonight. He’s got 141 assists versus just 33 turnovers in his last 22 games. The knock, of course, is that he is an unreliable shooter.

    But Telfair is ever so slowly but surely improving that facet of his game. Tonight he sank 6-11 FG for 12 points, the 7th time in 10 games he’s cracked double figures, despite having his minutes cut some since Foye’s return. More significantly, he’s begun stroking the j without mentally checking himself, a crucial confidence threshold that he needs to maintain to have any shot at becoming a bona fide point guard in this league. Tonight in the second quarter he clanked a wide open look from about 13 feet, and had the ball bounce right back out to him. The Bassy of earlier this season would have looked around for a pass and, if not seeing one, brought the ball back out to set up a play. Tonight he got the rebound and realized he was in the exact same position as before–wide open for a 13 footer. After the quickest of glances to see if anyone was cutting for the hoop, he rose up and stuck the jumper. In the third quarter, a double-teamed Jefferson dished it out to him and Telfair nailed the jumper (inexplicably, no assist for Jefferson). Then there was the play where Bassy came down, did a quick dribble between his legs, faded right and sank a long two-pointer. And the play where Telfair sped down the court looking for a fast break, only to have no one keeping up. Finally, he hit the trailer Smith, who promptly dished it right back to him. Open again, Telfair let it fly–swish. All of which led to a play in the fourth where the ball went out to Telfair and Charlotte’s perimeter D started to close out on him. Telfair promptly zipped a pass to Smith beneath the hoop for a layup.

    As has been true for the past couple weeks, Foye was more inconsistent, alternately better and worse than his competitor. Tonight he came out smokin’ with 9 points and 4 assists in the first quarter, including some midrange penetration that often yields his running banker on the right lane. He followed that up with 1-1 FG but two turnovers in 5:59 of the second period, then a gruesome second half in which he went 2-5 FG but produced zero assists and two more turnovers, plus 5 personal fouls, in 14:39. The Randy Foye of the 1st quarter deserves the starting point guard position. The Randy Foye who has a 0/4 assist to turnover ratio and 5 fouls in the last three periods must be given the "injuries take time to heal" waiver because the Wolves invested a lot in him both in terms of his draft position and his being acquired for the reigning rookie and the year and current All Star, Brandon Roy. It also of no small concern that both Telfair and Foye were just awful on defense, along with just about every member of the ballclub.

    Power forward not named Jefferson. With Walker bumped aside, the meaningful competitors are Craig Smith and Ryan Gomes. I’ve always felt like the Rhino is easy to overestimate because he’s the archtypal gritty underdog people love to root for as an undersized second-round draft pick with an uncanny knack for scoring in the paint. Consequently, I’ve probably underestimated him this season. He and Gomes share a proclivity for occasional breakout games–they are two of three Wolves to have scored 35 or more this season–and more frequent disappearances. But lately he’s had another boomlet, and what’s especially pleasant to see is how much he is moving without the ball, making him an excellent partner for Telfair–and, increasingly, Jefferson, who is looking for him near the hoop as often as he looks to the perimeter when the double coverage comes. The other things that distinguish Smith are superb hands–that aforementioned bullet pass from Telfair was partially screened by defenders and not an easy catch–and a knack for footwork and body control that create space versus taller opponents, which, along with a nice touch with the arc, gets him hoops that are improbable to say the least.

    Smith is not a very good defender, however, with an admirable frequency but low success rate at attempting to draw charges, and a ‘tweener curse that makes him too short versus large power forwards and too slow versus quick power forwards.

    Gomes is a more versatile glue guy, and not just because he can play the 3 too. He has more range on his jumper (but is less accurate than Smith overall), and is a better passer (‘tho Smith is improving), dribbler, and defender. Wittman’s comments about the defensing of Okafor tonight notwithstanding, however, Smith generally is better able to guard low-post oriented players, and so if Minnesota truly wants Jefferson to be the center in their future, Smith’s odds of being resigned in Minnesota go up. Another relative plus for Smith: He will be cheaper than Gomes.

    Those are just two thumbnail comparison sketches, and what they dramatize for me is that the sample size remains incredibly small and there are so many contingencies that folks–probably including the front office–don’t even know what the parmaters of comparison or the needs of the ballclub are going to be. A part of me yearns to see the same kind of decisive handicapping that had the Wolves not offer an extension to Gerald Green and then unload him at the trading deadline. They saved time by deciding that he was never going to be an answer. Rather than give Kirk Snyder all kinds of burn, or continue to fiddle with McCants/Foye/Telfair without a clear sense of what you are looking for(due top draft uncertainty, I understand), it would be nice to know what each player needs to accomplish or resolve in order to raise his stock. Hopefully, an emphasis on improving defensive prowess is on everyone’s criteria list.

    3. Sign of Progress

    Let the record show that Jefferson had two assists to night–as I mentioned earlier, I saw three, perhaps even four. But for the first time this season I also saw something equally exciting for Wolves fans. When Jefferson was being double teamed in the fourth quater and the Wolves ran their bread and butter play with a baseline cutter going past Jefferson on the left block, he was able to create space for himself by feinting the pass, then spinning for a relatively uncontested layup. The better he can dish, the easier he can score. It was a rare optimistic moment.

  • The Three Pointer: Seattle Slew

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


    Game # 58, Home Game #31: Seattle 111, Minnesota 108

    Season Record: 12-46

    1. An Improving Beast

    During Kevin Garnett’s dozen years with the Wolves, I wrote a slew of game recaps which included as a stock phrase the caution that people shouldn’t take the incredibly high-level consistency KG was offering for granted. I think I’m safely on the record as saying that Al Jefferson is not, and probably never will be, the versatile monster that Garnett is on the court, but here goes my first-ever time pointing out that you do Big Al a disservice ignoring or downgrading his tremendous effort in the overtime loss to Seattle last night.

    Jefferson started the game shockingly cold from the field, bereft of his now famous touch around the hoop. He faked Johan Petro out of his jock and then drove left baseline, only to sail an airball in a manner that made it seem like he thought he was going to get fouled and went too strong. But he did it again later in the first quarter, on his patented spin move where you wonder how he knows where the hoop is–this time he didn’t, for airball 2. In between, he received a perfect feed in stride from Sebastian Telfair headed straight down the lane, only to barely graze the front iron with his floater, snatch the offensive rebound, and then travel while attempting the putback. He missed his first five shots and the Wolves, beseiged by bad matchups at the other end due to their small lineup (more on that later), fell behind by 10 before he finally got on the board via a fast-break layup off a Corey Brewer steal with 1:58 to play in the first. At the half he was 3-11 FG and Minnesota was still down 7, 51-58.

    But great players will themselves past off nights, and that’s exactly what Jefferson did in the second half. His 4-7 FG fueled Minnesota’s 3rd quarter surge into a one-point lead heading into the final period, and his 4th quarter was a demonstration of unstoppable thirst for baskets against double and triple teams as the Wolves fought tenaciously to hold their slim lead. After getting his early-quarter blow, he entered with 7:14 left to play and the score tied. Within two and a half minutes, he had a slam dunk, a baseline-spinning four-foot banker on the left block, and–a new wrinkle–a 5′ jump hook moving left to right across the lane. On the latter two baskets he was gang-guarded by Nick Collison, Damian Wilkins, Chris Wilcox. Didn’t matter. Wolves up by 5 with 4:45 to play.

    Yes, Jefferson and Craig Smith had difficulty containing Wilcox at the other end. There is no question that a defensive-oriented, shot-blocking center would be the ideal complement. But let’s talk about Jefferson’s most obvious leap forward during this game–his passing. After he’d consistently schooled the Sonics in crunchtime, he saw the looming triple-team and shrewdly dished it out to Corey Brewer for a wide-open look. When Brewer’s shot clanged, Jefferson bulled his way for the longish rebound, and then, with Seattle determined to thwart the putback, he rose up and dumped it down by the hoop to Craig Smith for an easy layup, his career-high fifth assist of the evening. (Smith likewise had a career-high five dimes, continuing his recent push for more stable and vital playing time.)

    To bring this Garnett-like point in the trey full circle, folks can rightly point out that Jefferson didn’t finish when it mattered, missing four of five field goal attempts and two crucial free throws during the overtime. Certainly fatigue might have played into this. At the end of regulation, Jefferson had scored 20 points in 20:05 of grueling, pressure-packed action in the second half, sinking 9-13 FG and 4-5 FT, the last two coming with 15 seconds left to play and the Wolves up two, 99-97. But I’d rather simply say, without Jefferson, there is no overtime happening in the first place. On a night when he clearly was out of sync with his shooting rhythm for most of the first half, he finished with 30 points, 13 rebounds and 5 assists, with the vast majority of those points coming with the game on the line and the opponents dead-set on ensuring that he wasn’t the player who beat them. That’s stardom treatment. And while it would certainly be nice if Jefferson became even a consistently mediocre defender, stardom is where he’s headed.

    2. Smallball Mistakes and Motley Mismatches

    It was interesting to note that nobody–Jefferson, Smith, Wittman–seemed especially disheartened by the loss, perhaps knowing that playing hard, entertaining games while positioning themselves for more ping-pong balls is not a bad outcome for a ballclub that just dumped Theo Ratliff and have the word "build" prominent in its new marketing campaign. (Fresh removed from two championships, Corey Brewer was the exception, dejectedly talking about the free throw that likely would have iced the game for Minnesota in the 4th quarter.)

    Anyway, it wasn’t with real rancor but simple force that Wittman said "I thought we were a little too relaxed coming out at the start. It put us behind the 8-ball…it lost us the game. The defense went through the motions…we defended nobody…and we didn’t move the ball like we were capable of doing."

    Nowhere was the subject of smallball included in this litany. And yet as the two teams began feeling each other out in the opening minutes, it was patently clear that the Sonics enjoyed two glaring mismatches: the 6-10 Wilcox on 6-8 Ryan Gomes at the power forward slot, and 6-4 Randy Foye trying to guard 6-9 Kevin Durant at the off-guard slot. If Wilcox hadn’t been cold from the field–he missed some easy looks over Gomes down low–Seattle might have played the perfect quarter. As it was, you throw out Wilcox’s 2-6 FG, and Seattle was a whopping 12-13 FG in the first quarter, and a perfect 11-11 FG inside the three point arc. Durant led the way with an almost casual 11 points on 4-4 FG and 3-3 FT. And Wilcox used his superior height and paint-jousting experience to outrebound the entire Wolves’ ballclub in the period, 7-6

    Things finally began to even out when Wittman subbed in Smith for Telfair with 2:35 to play in the period and the Wolves down 8. To Wittman’s belated credit, we never saw that pipsqueak starting five (Jefferson-Gomes-Brewer-Foye-Telfair) together again, and Wittman discovered that Kirk Snyder was his best stopper on Durant, throwing the gritty Utah and Houston castoff with the Mr. Potato Head nose in for 32:39 of the game’s final 40 minutes. Snyder knew what he was supposed to do, which put him about 4 years ahead of the person he was traded for, Gerald Green, already. Aside from 6 shots (he made 2), the largest number on his stat line was the 5 steals he registered, frequently on strips of Durant as the prolific-scoring rook was bringing the ball up to shoot in penetration. After the game, Jefferson called him a "tougher Corey Brewer" (then quickly amended it with copious praise for the heavy defensive role Brewer is already undertaking as a rookie), but Snyder reminded me more of a taller, perhaps quicker, Greg Buckner, a fine defensive presence who is among the many vets on the roster lost in the youth shuffle this season.

    Bottom line, while you could call this game entertaining and hard-fought, it was not particularly well-played, especially on defense. Minnesota is 20th in the league in points allowed–pretty sorry, considering they are next-to-last in points scored and thus don’t have the excuse of pace like Golden State or Phoenix–and Seattle is 25th. The two clubs combined were 90-173 FG. Snyder may have clamped down on Durant to compel his 4-14 FG shooting after the first period, but Foye and Telfair continued their matador ways with the point guards–Earl Watson shot 6-7 FG and Luke Ridenour went 5-8, for a combine
    d 28 points and 16 assists. Chris Richard, Smith and Jefferson couldn’t prevent Nick Collison from shooting 5-5 FG in the second period. And, in perhaps the best argument against constant smallball and the habits it engenders, the Wolves never could solve Wilcox, who sank 6-9 FG after that cold first period, grabbed a game-high 15 rebounds and was and incredible plus +15 in 42:42 of play, meaning the Sonics were minus -12 in the 11:18 he sat on the bench. With Doleac and Madsen in limbo, Ratliff cut, and Richard a sparsely deployed rookie, the Wolves default enforcement of the paint.

    3. Quick Hits

    Wittman took pains to point out that when Brewer missed the free throw with 10 seconds to play, the Wolves gambled on two steal attempts that enabled Durant to glide for a layup in transition just 6 seconds later to send the game to overtime. And he correctly noted that those types of steal attempts are what you do when you’re behind, not protecting a lead. Point taken. But is anyone else enjoying the tone Brewer (and, when healthy, Jaric) seems to be setting for the entire defense in terms of ambushing the passing lanes. Just a week after falling one steal short of the team-record 17 in a win over Utah, Minnesota filched 14 more last night, including Snyder’s five and three apiece from Brewer and Smith (who stuffed the stat line).

    Folks are fond of blasting Wittman’s end of game manuevers, and I’ve been fond of calling out Foye’s crunchtime ego. So let’s everybody note that Foye properly and conscientiously deferred to Jefferson during that 4th quarter glory and stepped up with two overtime buckets (after registering just a free throw in the 3rd and 4th quarters) when Jefferson was clanking in OT. And let’s note that both Wittman and Foye did everything right on the final play of regulation, when the ball went to Foye, he saw Jefferson covered, and kicked it to a wide open Ryan Gomes near the corner, who flat-lined the jumper off the back iron.

    Durant’s 25 points don’t compensate for his lackadaisical mien, indifferent defense, and tendency to ball hog. The kid is long, and is going to be a very potent scorer for a long time, but I’d hold off on the superstar jabber, or even rookie of the year talk. Luis Scola over in Houston is proving the Rockets don’t necessarily need the overrated Yao Ming to continue their playoff push. He’s my ROY.

     

  • 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: Ongoing Progress

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

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

    Season record: 10-37

    1. Telfair and Jaric Stake Their Claims

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    2. Shaddy’s Snit

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

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

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

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

    3. Honorable Mentions

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

  • The Three Pointer: Two Straight

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

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

    Season record: 7-34

    1. About That Small Lineup…

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

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

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

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

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

    2. Kudos Chorus Line

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

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

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

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

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

    3. Hype On the Horizon

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

  • The Three Pointer: A Golden Breakthrough

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

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

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

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

    Season record: 6-34

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

    1. Foul Play

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    2. The Mystery of Small Ball

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    3. Last Thought

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

     

  • The Three Pointer: Awfully Casual

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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