Tag Archives: luke ridnour

by | February 13, 2012 · 9:54 pm

Exposed Again (MAGIC 102, Wolves 89)

Like recent seasons past, the Wolves are beginning to develop negative trends that play out over the course of an extended losing streak, this one now at four games.

  • Everybody (certainly this must include the bench and front office) knows that the team lacks a competent shooting guard. Luke Ridnour missed tonight’s game at Orlando for personal reasons. All the best to Luke and whatever he has going on, but his play at the off guard has not been good recently. Martell Webster didn’t help much tonight, scoring 5 points and turning it over twice in 22 minutes.
  • Everybody knows that the Wolves struggle to take care of the basketball. They had 18 turnovers tonight, with the increasingly erratic J.J. Barea leading the way with 7 of his own in only 23 minutes.
  • A new area of concern is three-point shooting.  Against the Magic, Wolves players shot 6 for 21 (28.6 percent) from downtown–this following recent games of 6-19, 6-23, and 4-19.  For the losing streak, they are a combined 26.8 percent from downtown, a rate that would put them dead last in the league by more than a couple of percentage points. Ricky creates a ton of three-point opportunities, but the Wolves won’t win many games if his teammates can’t convert them.
  • Why is Wes Johnson still starting?  This is the question that nobody has a good answer to.  He isn’t even playing good defense, anymore.  Jason Richardson scored 17 tonight, 5 over his average and many while baiting Wes into bad fouls or slamming him off screens for open jumpers.  Wes’ 3 for 7 shooting night was good for him, but his minutes need to go elsewhere.  Michael Beasley had a pretty average night by his standards (13 points in 25 minutes, a (-2) in a 13-point loss) and could play the same mediocre defense with better offensive punch.

I’m already beating dead horses, so I’ll keep this brief.

The Magic spread the floor around Dwight Howard and shoot a lot of threes. They make a lot of threes. In fact, they lead the league by a wide margin in made 3′s per game (9.9, next in NBA is New Jersey with 8.8). They made 12 tonight, and shot at a 40 percent clip.

J.J. Redick could run a basketball camp solely dedicated to using screens. He’s really made it into an artform. It’s silly what he does to defenders by running them off picks in all directions.

Ryan Anderson spreads the floor by being a 6’10″ sharpshooter. All of this works beautifully around Superman Howard. It’s a shame that he’s going to leave the Florida Sun and this nice team chemistry. In a season as wide open as this one, Orlando has a real chance to win an improbable title, just as Dallas did last year.

Bottom line: the Wolves lost because they a) didn’t take care of the ball; b) didn’t defend the three ; c) took and missed lots of jumpers; and d) don’t have an NBA shooting guard.

Until next time.

Season Record: 13-16

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by | February 11, 2012 · 11:34 am

The Return of Dirk (Mavericks 104, WOLVES 97)

As you probably know, the Wolves have twice defeated the defending-champion Mavericks in this short season, each game by a decided margin of victory.  Although I joined the excitement of other Wolves fans about last year’s worst dominating last year’s best, it was impossible not to notice two things about those games:

1) In the first game, Dirk wasn’t Dirk (as Bill Simmons explained yesterday, Dirk showed up for training camp way out of shape, not yet recovering from the championship hangover).

2) In the second game, Dirk wasn’t playing.  (His legs were broken down from playing his way into shape, for the above reason.)

Last night’s game would include neither of those beneficial factors.  After beginning the season 3-5, Dallas had won 12 of its last 18 games, returning to contender form.  After his worst start to a season in over a decade, Dirk had finally caught fire.  In the three games leading up to last night’s, Dirk was averaging over 26 points per game on 61.5 percent shooting.  It appeared as though he’d be the matchup nightmare that fans have grown accustomed to watching.

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by | February 8, 2012 · 12:03 am

A Loveless Victory (WOLVES 86, Kings 84)

Nobody quite knew what to predict for Minny’s first game of the season without its best player.  In fact, PJ published two separate posts in anticipation and speculation on exactly how this should shake out.  While the Kings are pretty lousy, they were coming off three consecutive wins and had big man DeMarcus Cousins playing the best basketball of his short career.  To eek out a win, even if ugly and way-too-close for comfort, is impressive in Love’s absence.

No Love

First things first: How did they do at replacing Kevin Love?

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by | February 5, 2012 · 11:35 pm

Stomping the Rockets (WOLVES 100, Rockets 91)

I wasn’t going to post a game wrap, but with the Wolves off tomorrow night (next game Tuesday at home versus Sacramento) I thought we should have something up to acknowledge some events of Saturday Night, and to continue the ongoing discussion of all things Wolves as the season moves into its second trimester.

.500

Minnesota has, finally, reached the elusive distinction of having won exactly one half of its games.  At 12-12, the Wolves have hit .500 for the first time since Kevin Garnett donned the blue and green, in 2007.  In case you forgot, Dwayne Casey had Ricky Buckets and Company at 20-20 before being fired.  Randy Wittman replaced him, closing out that season by going 12-30.  Yikes.  Decidedly-average pro basketball never felt so good.  The road of improvement continues ahead.

The Stomp

As I’m sure you’ve already seen or read about, Kevin Love stomped on Luis Scola’s face, last night.  Footage here.  Although no announcement (that I read, at least) was made today, I’d guess he’ll be suspended.  Love was apologetic after the game, without admitting any ill intent.  Scola was classy in his interview, deflecting all stomp questions away as if it was no big deal.  These kinds of things happen, and the Wolves are usually on the receiving end (Wally kicked in face by Bowen, Jaric slapped in face by Kobe, Beasley jacked up by Bynum, list goes on…) rather than dishing out cheap shots.  My griping at the time had more to do with how he was playing immediately before the stomp.  It was more of the begging for a bailout stuff that irks me as a fan.  He actually got away with at least two obvious fouls (both against Scola, one offensive, one defensive) but seemed to be getting really upset that calls weren’t actually being made in his favor.  Love can play a really clean game of great basketball when he wants (and did so for large parts of this one–he was great in this win) but sometimes resorts to this bush league crap that is annoying to watch.

Miller Looking Back Door

Brad Miller threw 4 backdoor passes in 6 minutes of action.  He was whipping them off the catch without regard for anything.  Think this guy has played for Carrill Adelman before?  Coach has spoken recently about wanting to get his offense installed to lessen the burden on Rubio’s pick-and-roll sets.  Perhaps Miller has been assigned to expedite this process.  On one backdoor attempt that ended in a turnover, Beasley cut out instead of toward the hoop.  Miller looked upset, letting him know that an easy scoring opportunity was wasted.  If this team can add Princeton halfcourt offense to Everything Else Rubio… whoa.

The Rotation

If you remove Brad Miller and his six minutes of tick, Adelman’s Saturday rotation was of nine players; the number he has pointed out as being ideal.  The heavy lifters appear to be Rubio, Ridnour, Love and Pekovic.  Middle guys are Barea, Beasley, Webster, and Wes.  D-Thrill is a limited reserve.  Randolph is in street clothes, and Ellington and Tolliver don’t take off their sweats.

Bullets:

* J.J. was pretty awesome in this game with his one-man circus routine of buzzing around the halfcourt and eventually fooling five defenders into allowing him an open layup.

* Patrick Patterson will play many years in the league with that mid-range jumper he’s already mastered.

* Luke bounced back quickly from an ugly performance at New Jersey.  4-6 from downtown and 22 points. There are 10 or so minutes in each game that he and Barea will always fight for.

* Big Pek followed up his career night with an efficient 11 points and 9 rebounds with only 1 turnover.  If he becomes as consistent as he already is powerful, popular and cool, we’ve got ourselves a legitimate starter of an NBA center.

* Kevin Martin shot the ball horribly in this game.  He was 1 for 10 with 2 points in 31 minutes.  Basically, the exact opposite of his last Target Center performance.  Perhaps the non-Ellington defense (I can’t recall if it was Luke or Wes) was a factor.  This, as much as anything, explains the victory.

Season Record: 12-12

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by | January 17, 2012 · 12:09 am

Playing the Matchups (WOLVES 99, Kings 86)

Luke Ridnour had 25 pts and 9 asts in Monday's victory over Sacramento

Wesley Johnson, the player selected fourth overall in the 2010 NBA Draft in large part due to shooting prowess, is now hitting 31.7 percent of all shots from the floor and 12.5 percent of three-point attempts.  So, why did Johnson log 34 minutes on a night when his shooting woes (3-11 total; 0-4 3PT) continued?  My only guess is that the coaches felt that the matchups dictated Wes being out there.  JOHN SALMONS! is actually a pretty good isolation scorer.  He’s played this role on decent teams (Chicago, Milwaukee) unlike many nondescript ballers of his ilk.  Wes, shooting struggles aside, stayed right with Salmons all night, leaving the scoring specialist with a 4-11 shooting line, with 11 points and 2 turnovers.  In this respect, Wes did his job.  But man–he’s missing WIDE OPEN SHOTS.  Wayne Ellington is not missing these shots and is a noticeably-better offensive player than the second-year wing from The ‘Cuse.

The Wolves hit a rough patch in the 2nd Quarter.  After a pair of Derrick Williams free throws (his only points of the evening–more on this below) the Wolves led 30-22.  Over the next 11:21 to end the half, the Kings ripped off a 24-12 stretch that had Wolves fans a little-bit restless at the break.  Much of these struggles was directly attributable to missing jumpshots.  On some of these–particularly with Derrick Williams and Kevin Love–there was hesitation to shoot after a solid pass, usually from Rubio.  I thought we were done with this.  The Rule of Rubio is that he passes, you shoot.  How many of the great Wolves moments from this early season HAVEN’T been tied to catch-and-shoot basketball?  In any case, the Wolves went to halftime with a 4-point deficit and some talking points ready made for the coaching staff.

In the third, the shooting wasn’t hot, but the Wolves (specifically, Kevin Love) grinded it out with a combination of free throws and better defense.  Love had 11 points total in the quarter, en route to a 33-point, 11-rebound, 3-assist, 2-steal gem of a performance.  This was classic Love, baiting officials into questionable foul calls, and hitting opportune jumpers to break the opponent’s back.  His interaction with the refs reached a tipping point tonight, earning him a technical foul and later flirting with an ejection.  He is quickly approaching the Kobe and LeBron level of getting utmost respect from the refs, and giving thanks by way of whiny gestures.  Oh well — it’s a lot-less annoying when it’s your team getting the calls.  On this night Love was a team-best (+22).

The lid came all the way off the basket in the fourth, with Ellington, Ridnour and Love taking turns making it rain at Target Center.  After a Jason Thompson dunk cut the lead to 1 (72-71) Adelman called timeout.  The Wolves then proceeded to a 27-15 closing stretch over 8:51.  Rubio hit a trey to extend the lead to 9 at the 5:11 mark and swung a fist of celebration to the crowd.  This was a frustrating game for him, in part due to his own misfiring on jumpers (3-10 total) but also because teammates (Darko, Wes, Pekovic) blew easy scoring opportunities that only Ricky can provide.  Pekovic and Milicic, as was pointed out by David Thorpe who attended this game, are not at all Rubio’s kinda guys on the court.  His (-3) was a rare negative +/- for the young phenom.

All in all, it was a hard-fought win against a bad team.  In years past, a win was a win was a win.  Since this year is DIFFERENT (the Wolves currently own a 0.5 game edge over the BOSTON CELTICS!) a struggle-fest against the Kings that requires a Wellington Bailout feels less satisfying.  I hope they dispose of the shitty Pistons on Wednesday with relative ease.

A few bullets:

* DeMarcus Cousins can’t get no respect.  I don’t even mean this as a joke–sure, he invites criticism by his constant whining, but so does Kendrick Perkins and it doesn’t seem to prevent Perk from getting a call or two.  Cousins must have been hacked or pushed a half dozen times in this game by the Serbian-Montenagran combo of Darko and Pek.  He shot 0 free throws for his efforts and was called for 4 fouls of his own in 25 minutes of action.  From my view it looked like the refs had it out for the enigmatic big man.  For what it was worth, he hit some nice jumpers and really does show off excellent footwork.  For his sake, I hope he finds some sort of comfort level in the NBA so we can all watch his talent on a consistent basis.  The league needs more talented bigs to balance out this wave of awesome lead guards.

* Since Rubio looks like the business as a true point guard, I’ll make what some might consider to be a BOLD STATEMENT: Steph Curry wouldn’t be any better for this team than Luke Ridnour is.  Luke is playing off the ball now, and is shooting as well as any Timberwolf I can ever remember.  He had 25 points and 9 assists tonight on 10-14 shooting (4-4 from 3.)  Curry is an awesome point guard, but if you’re sticking each slightly-built point guard off the ball, I don’t see a big difference between he and Luke Ridnour.  Not only did Luke shoot well tonight, but he also defended Marcus Thornton just fine.  I doubt very much that Curry would have been able to handle that matchup the way Ridnour did.  (OBVIOUS REBUTTAL: Curry would have trade value that Luke doesn’t.)

* The Kings might improve some if Francisco Garcia played more.  He “fits in” out there and doesn’t need to dominate the ball.  They’ve got a surplus of ball-dominant wings (without a single true point) who like to slash.  The lone saving grace is that they penetrate-and-kick.  On some similarly-built offenses (the Dunleavy-led Clips come to mind) the isolation is without passing.  Sacramento doesn’t seem quite as selfish as they do mismanaged.  Jimmer was a stupid draft pick for that roster.

* Pekovic fouls on damn-near every possession.  He was called for 4 tonight in 16 minutes and none of those were the time he threw DMC to the ground after a missed free throw.

* Derrick Williams made exactly one move tonight that got me excited.  He squared up a defender from 14 feet and went right at him to the cup.  This is the Amar’e stuff that he seems to have the potential to try.  He got fouled and made a pair of free throws; his only points.  The next time he found himself on the elbow with one-on-one coverage, he looked lost and passed it off after a hesitation.  He is battling some confidence issues.  Given this team’s propensity to start chucking from three (perhaps the best way to win games, right now) it sure would be nice if it could incorporate D-Thrill as an interior scoring presence.

Season Record: 5-8

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by | December 31, 2011 · 11:37 am

Game 3: The Heatles (Heat 103, Wolves 101)

The Wolves lost a 103-101 heartbreaker Friday night against the Heat and Birthday Boy LeBron James.  It was a heartbreaker both because of the promise the Wolves showed and the mistakes they made, as well as because the defeat is the latest tick in a growing tally of losses to start the 2011/12 season.

The Wolves looked like a different team from the group that suffered the lackluster defeat in Milwaukee Tuesday night. Kevin Love dropped a workmanlike (for him) 25/12/3, and Ricky Rubio f*cked around and got his first career double-double with a 12/12/6 line.

Before diving into Wolves takeaways from the game, first thing’s first: the Heat are good. Real good. Bosh, Wade, and James are gelling like the trio everyone expected coming out of the gates in 2010/11. LeBron is the best player in the world. He turned 27 today.

Takeaways

  • Turnovers: Adelman said prior to the game that if the Wolves failed to protect the ball, it would lead to a Heat dunk contest. His concern couldn’t have been more prophetic. Unforced errors and Heat ball-hawking led to 25 Wolves turnovers and what felt like a million transition buckets for Miami. Every Wolves player had at last one turnover. Love and Rubio were the chief offenders, with six and five, respectively, but their turnovers stung less than their teammates’, as aggressive play underlay the bulk of their mistakes, while the rest of the team played the kind of sloppy basketball that James, Wade, and company are only too happy to exploit. Adelman has lamented the Wolves’ sloppiness since the beginning of camp, and while the shortened preseason, the new system, and adjusting to new personnel all point to turnovers continuing to plague the Wolves for the foreseeable future, Adelman’s rotations are puzzling and he could ease the players’ burden by firming them up sooner rather than later.
  • The point guard situation: Rubio-mania has overtaken Minneapolis; Ridnour is no longer trying to mask his consternation with his declining role. Luke played just six minutes in the first half, missing his only field goal attempt. He had a nice stretch early in the third in which he made a quick three and then got a steal that led to a transition opportunity. But he started pressing in the middle of the third, taking an ill-advised three off the dribble that missed very badly, leading the already antsy Target Center crowd to clamor loudly for Rubio, who’d had a hot first half with 8 points, 6 assists, and a +7 in 15 minutes. When Rubio finally reported to the scorer’s table with 4:00 in the third, Ridnour retaliated with two difficult rapid-fire three-point attempts before exiting at the dead ball. Ridnour did not return, and finished the night with 6 points on 2-6 shooting and a -11 in 17 minutes. Rubio played the rest of the way, looking extremely good en route to 12 assists (which could’ve easily been 18+ with some help) and a +9 in 31 minutes. The stats are telling–the Wolves’ offensive sets and overall energy were markedly better when Rubio was in the game. With Rubio’s play exceeding expectations and Ridnour’s ineffectiveness and attitude forcing Adelman’s hand, the Wolves’ point guard situation is coming to a head sooner than expected. Kahn should be shopping the aggravated vet aggressively, but with Barea and Lee battling injuries, trading Ridnour would leave the Wolves thin at the point and so might not happen anytime soon.
  • Close but no cigar: In the three games thus far, the Wolves have been within three points with less than two minutes to go against two potential title contenders. They’ve failed to close each time. This year’s team clearly has more talent and a better culture than last year’s, but the Wolves’ inability to compete down the stretch is reminiscent of some of the ugly things we saw last year. Hopefully Adelman can instill some lessons about #winningtime where Rambis failed.
  • The last shot: A third-string guard seeing his first significant minutes of the season should never be in a position to take a potential game-tying or winning shot against anybody, let alone the Heat. Yet that’s what happened tonight in the game’s closing seconds when Wayne Ellington flung an extremely difficult dribble-jumper from 22 feet that clanked off the iron. Part of the reason the Wolves struggle to win close games is their lack of a go-to player down the stretch. Michael Beasley has the talent to get difficult baskets time-after-time when opposing defenses have hunkered down in the fourth quarter, but can he do it for this team? Beasley played poorly tonight, scoring only 4 points on 2-6 shooting in 22 minutes before getting benched in the fourth quarter. Yet Beasley is the Wolves’ only player who can create a decent shot for himself almost every time he touches the ball, as he showed during stretches of last season. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to second-guess Adelman’s decision to leave Beasley on the bench with four seconds left in a dead-ball situation in which the Timberwolves had possession. The Wolves will start to win close games against playoff-caliber teams when/if Adelman is able to trust Beasley or someone else to take and make big shots down the stretch. Ideally Beasley would need to earn that trust, but given his de facto role as the team’s sole 1-on-1 creator, Adelman should give Beasley a longer leash to earn it as he goes, despite the inevitable lumps that’ll come along the way.
Quick Hits
  • The Wolves sorely missed J.J. Barea at both guard positions. Get well soon J.J.!
  • Anthony Tolliver has so much heart. After getting slapped with a blocking foul on what appeared to be a LeBron charge late in the 4th, AT went hard to the cup and tried to CRAM on the entire Heat interior, drawing a foul. He’s proud and he worked his ass off on both ends.
  • That said, AT needs to work on his free-throws. He made the first shot and missed the second on at least three trips during the second half.
  • AR15 finally showed some signs and was a game high +18 in 25 minutes of action. He still has a long way to go before he’ll gain Adelman’s trust.
  • Randolph looks so much better when his 12-15 face-up is falling like it was tonight. It prevents him from trying to do too much off the dribble, which is when he tends to get out of control.
  • Derrick Williams looked better after a down game against Milwaukee on Tuesday. He mostly let the game come to him, and he hit two of three from downtown and had 10 points in 21 minutes.
  • Wes Johnson apparently didn’t read our letter.

It all starts again on Sunday against Dallas. Until then.

Season Record: 0-3

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