Monthly Archives: March 2015

The Timberwolves and Lakers played a basketball game tonight.

Nobody is quite sure if either team wanted to win it.

The Wolves sat out the following players:

Ricky Rubio
Kevin Martin
Shabazz Muhammad
Kevin Garnett
Nikola Pekovic
Gary Neal
Anthony Bennett

The Lakers sat out the following players:

Kobe Bryant
Nick Young
Carlos Boozer
Jordan Hill

The remaining players, with the exception of Andrew Wiggins, were not good ones. There was a lighthearted feel to the crowd, the media section, and even the Timberwolves bench (which was heavily populated with players in suits). Everybody seemed to know what was going on. To their credit, the players on the floor — many of the “10-day contract” or “playing for their next contract” varieties — played hard. (When I and others talk about tanking, it should go without saying that we aren’t saying the players on the floor are not trying. It means the team leadership is not doing all they realistically can to try to win the game. The most frequent tactic is “shutting players down” for the year, citing subjective pain complaints or a vague injury that they would play through if the games mattered. The incredibly obvious reason for doing this is that more losses means a higher draft pick. I digress.) Wiggins and LaVine each played about 48 minutes (the game went to overtime) and tried their best. Chase Budinger scored 22 points off the bench, playing a lot of way-overmatched stretch four against Ed Davis.

The Lakers won by two in overtime.

After the game, Flip seemed tired. We all did. Nobody wanted THAT game to last longer than the standard four quarters. Wiggins had a nice game (27/6/4) which Flip acknowledged, but like he has all year, mentioned that Wiggins needs to be more aggressive. He said the same thing about LaVine, who also generated some offense for himself tonight, ending with 18 points, 7 of which coming from the free-throw line, to go along with 5 assists. What’s a little bit confusing (to me, at least) about the constant “aggressiveness” drum-beating is that it never seems like there are clear driving lanes to the basket in the current Timberwolves offense. I don’t really understand where those opportunities are supposed to come from, but this probably isn’t the time of year to be nitpicking x’s and o’s.

With the loss, the Wolves drop to 16-55, and the Lakers “improve” to 19-51. I include scare quotes because the Lakers forfeit their draft pick if it falls outside the top five. They are at risk of that happening and wins like tonight could seriously harm their future if they cause them to lose that pick.

The Wolves now have the second-worst record in the NBA, still only better than the Knicks. The win column is the one to watch, for tanking fans, and they currently have 2 more wins than the Knicks, 2 less than the 76ers and 3 less than the Lakers.

For your information, if they end with the “2nd Seed” in the lottery, their chances of landing each respective pick are as follows (via Wikipedia):

1st – 19.9%
2nd – 18.8%
3rd – 17.1%
4th – 31.9%
5th – 12.3%

I think the Wolves would very much like to get a Top-4 Pick, so that they can end up with one of Jahlil Okafor of Duke, Karl-Anthony Towns of Kentucky, or D’Angelo Russell of Ohio State. I saw “Top 4” to lock one of those guys in because Emmanuel Mudiay (Congo) is likely to go somewhere in the Top 4, and some of the teams that would likely pick ahead of the Wolves in the event they draft 4th, like the 76ers, might prefer Mudiay to the guys the Wolves want.

Just a hunch, but also based on what some of the best beat writers have been hinting at recently. For you math majors out there, the 2-seed gives them an 87.7 percent chance of landing a Top-4 spot, and I think Flip wants to keep that pace through the finish, if at all possible.

If you want to get a look at the possible future Wolves, Towns plays tomorrow night at 8:45 CST versus West Virginia, and Okafor plays at 8:45 CST on Friday night versus Utah. Russell is eliminated from the tourney.

Also, I should add that I discussed Anthony Bennett’s future with the Timberwolves with John Meyer of Canis Hoopus, in a post he published this morning. Link here. Be sure to check that out if you haven’t already.

This afternoon, Duke’s freshman center, Jahlil Okafor, played dominant basketball in front of a huge international audience. Showing off his “best since Duncan, maybe Alcindor” freshman post game, Okafor racked up 26 points on 12-16 shooting in an easy win over San Diego State. All signs point to Okafor entering the draft this summer (even Coach K, who has not traditionally been accepting of the one-and-done culture, seems to acknowledge this) and he’ll be one of the first two picks, depending on whether the lucky team picking wants his offense, or the defense of Kentucky’s Karl-Anthony Towns, going forward.

Tonight, the Minnesota Timberwolves played a game on their home court. They hosted a mediocre Charlotte Hornets team that entered the contest with a 29-38 record in the weak Eastern Conference. The Wolves could have won this game if they wanted to.

But they didn’t. And they didn’t.

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“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”

That’s a nice rule to live by in most situations. Writing about the Timberwolves is an exception. In many instances, such as this one, that rule would be straight up prohibitive.

Since I last posted nine days ago, the Wolves have played five games, and lost every one of them.

They lost by 13 to the Clippers, who were still without Blake Griffin. They actually trailed by 21 with 4 minutes to go in that one, but padded the deficit with some late, meaningless baskets. DeAndre Jordan, who tallied 20 points on 10-11 shooting, along with 17 rebounds, spent most of the game rolling through the lane and hammering down unchecked alley-oop dunks.

Next, the Wolves lost by 9 at Phoenix to a mediocre Suns team. That final was also a bit misleading; the Wolves trailed by 14 with a minute to go. Nobody on the team played well, aside from newbie Justin Hamilton who poured in a surprising 15 points off the bench.

On Friday night, the Wolves lost by 14 to the Thunder at Oklahoma City. The Thunder, as you probably know, are without Kevin Durant. No worry for OKC, Russell Westbrook and Enes Kanter provided plenty of fire to handle the TWolves. Russ, true to his recent MVP-like form, had a 29-point triple double. Kanter bullied the Wolves young, lean big men (Garnett and Pek sat out, more on this later) to the tune of 23 points and 15 rebounds. Like the others, the final score was a little closer than it could’ve been. The Wolves were down 18 with a minute and a half to go, and the outcome never really felt in doubt.

The game on Sunday in San Antonio was a joke. The Spurs won by 26 and actually lost by 4 points in the fourth quarter.

And last night, back at Target Center after returning from the miserable road trip, the Wolves lost again; this time to a poor Brooklyn Nets team that would not make the playoffs in the pathetic Eastern Conference if the season ended today. The Nets led by 4 after the first quarter, 12 at halftime, 19 after three, and then coasted to a 16-point victory. They scored what I understand was a Nets-record 78 points in the paint. They shot 58 percent from the field. They are a below-average offensive team, mind you.

Those are the miniature recaps of the last five games.

Some facts and statistics about this recent stretch:

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It’s hard to tell what’s worse: how badly the Wolves were beaten on their home floor tonight by the Denver Nuggets (who had won just 3 of their previous 22 games, and accordingly just fired their coach) or the lack of a good excuse for the loss. The Wolves had yesterday off; Denver did not. The Wolves had their healthy starting five, which is supposed to be a competitive group. After jumping out to a 19-12 lead with a nice mix of Andrew Wiggins baskets leading the way, Kevin Garnett checked out of the game. There was 5:04 to play in the first quarter when Payne subbed in for KG, and the Nuggets proceeded to go on a 14-8 run to close out the quarter.

The second quarter?

Denver won that one 34 to 16. (!)

Flip got T’d up walking off the floor for halftime, just for good measure, so the Wolves trailed by 18 when the ball was first inbounded to open the second half.

And things never really got competitive. There was a stretch where Gary Neal Hero Ball looked like it might lead a comeback, and a Zach LaVine three got it within 9 at one point, but there were never enough defensive stops; specifically, there were never enough defensive rebounds.  Kenneth Faried celebrated Brian Shaw’s recent termination by breaking out of a slump for 18 pounds and 14 rebounds.  Jameer Nelson led a Nuggets second unit that just ran the Wolves off the floor, and – in the halfcourt, broke them down time and time again with spread pick-and-roll action. Nelson had 12 points and 9 assists off the bench in +19 action.

A telling stat was Kevin Garnett’s +5 in 21 minutes of action, compared to Gorgui Dieng’s -15 and Adreian Payne’s -12. The defensive positioning of the Wolves second-string bigs is all over the place, right now. It was much less how great KG was than it was how undisciplined his backups were. Gorgui is getting barked at by just about everybody right now; even Ricky yelled at him when he expected a ball screen that wasn’t arriving like it should. After the game, in brief remarks, Flip seemed perplexed about Gorgui, and why he is a step slow on rotations. He wondered if he was hitting a “wall,” which is tough to interpret, considering Gorgui is not a rookie and hasn’t been playing heavy minutes this year (averaging 29.1). I don’t know what has stunted Gorgui’s development after such a promising first season, but he is struggling right now in certain ways that he has not in the past.

Along with their defensive struggles, the Wolves really played poorly on offense tonight. (It was possibly the worst game of the season, if you take into consideration that they had their entire starting five healthy, at home, against a struggling opponent.) Too many possessions had Ricky stationary dribbling and Martin or Neal running around in a Kyle Korver impression. The Wolves are at their best when Rubio is creating on the move, utilizing his unique vision and passing skills. Mo Williams was perfectly capable of executing the sets the Wolves ran tonight. That was disappointing to see. Martin shot 3-15 from the field. Neal shot 6-13, converting some difficult jumpers in a game-worst batch of -19 minutes.

Rubio had a points assists double double, with the minimum 10 and 10 of each. Wiggins actually played pretty well, perhaps joining KG as the only Wolf who could say that at game’s end. He was honored before tip-off for his fourth straight “Rookie of the Month” award. His Rookie of the Year honor is an inevitability at this point, and he continues to impress with different scoring moves.

Aside from Wiggins playing well, the silver lining was tanking-related: Denver was a sneaky contender to tank the rest of the season out, having quit on their last coach and losing so many games in a row. By beating the Wolves tonight, they move 8.5 games ahead of the Wolves which is pretty much out of reach. The Wolves should finish the year with the third or fourth worst record (and therefore the third or fourth best draft lottery position) depending on whether they catch the Lakers who are 3 games ahead in the standings right now.

The Wolves play next on Saturday, against a Portland Trailblazers team that is much better than the Denver Nuggets. Flip assured the media that there’d be a much better performance next game. I guess we’ll see.

Until then.

The Wolves have 4 power forwards right now, two of which will be free agents this summer, and the other two of which have player options due to be exercised or waived by October 31, 2015. The remainder of this season will be an audition of sorts for some of them.

The Wolves dropped both games in their weekend back-to-back.

On Friday at Chicago, they faced an undermanned Bulls team that was missing Derrick Rose and Pau Gasol, and lost Taj Gibson to an ankle sprain less than ten minutes into the contest. Despite the health advantage (to be fair, the Wolves were without Shabazz Muhammad, Kevin Garnett, Anthony Bennett, and Robbie Hummel, but none of those players are even as good as Gibson, let alone Rose or Gasol) the Wolves could not pull this one out. A theme throughout the game was a Timberwolf playing overaggressive defense, and being burned by a sharp backdoor cut, or spin move, or other intelligent counter that allowed an easy basket to a player who probably wouldn’t create a good shot by himself against disciplined defense.

In some ways, the Bulls game felt like the Wolves let one slip away. The final score was 96-89.

Saturday’s game was a more fun contest for two reasons: the Wolves played well, and they went down to the wire against a legit title contender; the same Grizzlies team they beat at Target Center a couple weeks ago behind Ricky Rubio heroics.

The Wolves opened last night’s game with a distinct defensive identity set by Ricky Rubio and Kevin Garnett. They forced turnovers on 7 of the Grizzlies first 14 possessions.  (The Grizz ended the game with 24 turnovers.) Of those 7 turnovers, 3 were Garnett steals, and 2 were Rubio steals. Watching this team defend with these two on the floor at the same time makes me wish the Wolves had pried Garnett from the East Coast a couple years ago. In the 34 minutes that Rubio and KG have played together, the Wolves have an absurd defensive rating of 79.7. They led 24-18 after the first quarter. Hot Grizzlies shooting combined with poor Timberwolves bench play in the second quarter (LaVine struggled like it was December 2014 or something) swung things, and the Grizz led by 5 at the half.

In the second half, the Grizzlies set the tone early, with punishing defense that forced the Wolves to settle for difficult jumpers; jumpers that did not fall. On offense, they had Marc Gasol scoring on Pekovic, and then when Pek went to the bench (he did not return, citing foot pain) Gasol went to work on rookie Adreian Payne. Gasol ended the game with 27 points and one of the best all-around performances we’ve seen at Target Center, this year. The newsworthy event of the game happened in the midst of a big Grizzlies run, when KG was hit with his second technical foul and was ejected from the game. Bennett Salvatore saw Garnett slam the ball on the ground and interpreted that as showing up the ref. According to Flip after the game, KG was mad at himself. In any case, the fans who came out to see KG play only got 2.5 quarters of it. He was done for the night. The technical foul call seemed unnecessary, putting it mildly, but it was also an embarrassing look for Garnett, who is here right now primarily for veteran leadership.

The early portion of the third quarter was disappointing, because the Wolves allowed themselves to be bullied by aggressive defense. That changed when Andrew Wiggins started attacking, drawing a pair of fouls that sent him to the free throw line. Payne also helped turn the game’s momentum by crashing the offensive glass. He kept two possessions alive that ended in Wolves points. The defense tightened up when Gorgui was assigned Gasol, and the Wolves turned a 15-point deficit into a 5-point lead in the fourth quarter. Payne’s stint following the Garnett ejection was the best ball he’s played in his short Wolves tenure. There is a lot that I don’t like about how his game looks right now (funky shooting form, poor defensive awareness, turnover prone) but when he simplified his approach and crashed the boards, he was effective.

Memphis pulled the game out down the stretch, largely because Gasol was such a difficult one-on-one matchup. He only missed 3 shots all night. Gorgui drew a “hooking” foul on one Gasol post up, which led to Marc getting a technical of his own. After that, Gasol knew he was getting the benefit of the doubt star treatment, and sure enough Gorgui was whistled for light contact on the next possession. Kevin Martin hit a pair of threes to make things interesting, but missed a third one — wide open after he head faked in the corner — that would’ve likely forced overtime.

Now that this team has (most of) its health back, I don’t really think moral victories in home games are possible. They play like a good team, and good teams should expect to win at home. That’s an encouraging sign for next year. Andrew Wiggins, who I have barely mentioned, had 25 points last night and looks like he’s quickly approaching star-caliber play. With Wiggins on the wing, Rubio at point guard, and at least three solid big men between Pekovic, Gorgui, and KG, the Wolves should have high expectations from now on.

Some scattered jottings on other Wolves happenings:

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