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Pressing business kept me away for the first half of tonight's thrilling Wolves' win over Phoenix, so I asked David Brauer (who severely underrates his hoops acumen) to sub in on the trey tonight. After watching the second half only, I believe he did a fabulous job.
Britt
1. Most Valuable Possessions
Trivia question: who was the last NBA MVP before Steve Nash's two-year run?
Answer: the guy who dominated tonight. Kevin Garnett racked up a
mind-boggling 44 points on just 29 shots, and the effect was even more
profound than the box score indicated. Playing what was largely a simple, two-man offense down the stretch - KG and whoever got him the ball down low - the Wolves committed an astounding two turnovers in the money half, which featured as many possessions as entire games usually do. Since Phoenix is death on giveaways, ball possession - as much as KG's makes, Mark Madsen's thick presence in the post, or Randy Wittman's deft mixture of man and zones - kept Minnesota in this one. The fast-flowing game exposed Randy Foye's defensive naiveté, but the rook had six assists, zero turnovers in 26 minutes. KG was responsible for converting those dimes, and you knew it was his night when, after torching the Suns on the left block, he effortlessly tossed in a late-game jumper from the unfamiliar right side on the way to a 121-112 win. It was a night to remember... 2003-2004.
1. Vintage KG
Kevin Garnett was relentless tonight against the Clippers, and the dominant reason why the Wolves ended their 6-game losing streak with a 101-87 victory. The key to KG's performance was that he never really let up: He tied his season-high of 32 points by scoring 12-4-8-8 respectively in the four quarters. He pocketed two steals in every period except his lone one in the third quarter, propelling the Clips to their highest turnover count of the season, 26, and the difference in points created off turnovers between the two teams had to be greater than the Wolves 14 point margin.
On a team beseiged by inconsistency, Garnett's reliability in this contest cannot be overstated (although I'm trying). Playing their fifth game in 7 nights and exhausted by a coaching change, losing, and the rigors of the West Coast road trip, it was vital that the team get off to a good start, and KG was the early sparkplug grabbing four of his 9 rebounds and doling out two of his three assists in lifting his team to a nine-point lead in the first quarter that held up until late in the third period and set a positive, energy-enhancing tone for the entire game.
Ditto in the 4th quarter, when the Wolves had fallen behind by a point with 6:36 to play and the specter of their previous two close losses looming large, KG teamed with the Wolves' other four veteran starters, rarely in together at crunchtime, for a 21-6 run to close out the game. This crucial spurt was keyed by defense: From the time Garnett reentered the game with exactly 8 minutes left to play, the Clips managed just one field goal.
A loss tonight would have sent the Wolves three behind .500 and two games in back of the Clips for the 8th and final playoff spot. Instead they are now tied for 8th and hold the tie-breaker advantage over the Clips (2-1 in head-to-head competition, which will remain in effect because the teams aren't scheduled together the rest of the season). A loss also would have sent the team back home to a surly crowd, saddled with a 7-game losing streak and looking at a schedule that includes Phoenix next, and Dallas and Houston on the road during their ensuring five games. When things get this bleak, a club relies on its superstar for sustenance, if not resurrection. Garnett delivered that in Los Angeles.
1. Second-Guessing the Rotation
For the second straight game under new coach Randy Wittman, the Wolves dropped a winnable game, losing to the Sonics 100-102 after being up 5 with 71 seconds to play. Consequently, Wittman left himself wide open to second-guessing on at least two substitution decisions.
The first is leaving Craig Smith on the bench for the entire third period. I understand that Wittman doesn't want to tax players for more than a dozen minutes at a time whenever possible. But Mark Blount has hit a bit of a trough lately, and once again didn't match up well with Seattle's quicker, grittier interior players. Blount continues to be a Wolves' big who shows hard and persistently on the perimeter pick and rolls. But Seattle was using that virtue against him in the first period, first making the pass out of the double team and then the second pass to a cutter--often Blount's man but occasionally just a response to Blount's venture to the perimeter--for a layup. Meanwhile, they simply owned the boards in the first period, grabbing six rebounds to the Wolves eight on their own glass and all 10 possible rebounds after Minnesota misses.
Mark Madsen but then mostly Smith changed that dynamic in the second period. Unlike Blount, Smith has natural, split-second timing on knowing when to go to the hoop, especially when opponents are double-teaming KG, and he has surer hands than Blount and can catch most zipped passes on the move. Smith mixed it up in the paint, meshed better on defense, and kept rebounds alive that he himself didn't snatch. Suffice to say that he had 15 points on weakside cuts and putbacks from offensive rebounds in the second period alone, shooting 7-8 from the field.
But in the third, no Smith. Huh? The guy who essentially carried your ballclub in the second period and clearly was in a zone for this game, rides the pine the entire third quarter? Ironically, one way you knew certain Wolves players were unhappy with ex-coach Casey was when they dubbed him "anti-freeze" for his ability to cool them off when they were on a roll. (I know it means the opposite, but derogatory nicknames aren't always the work of sages.) True, Wittman did play him the entire fourth quarter, but Smith's return to brilliance with another 11 points and six rebounds merely ratifies that he should have gotten some burn in the third too.
Second, like Dwane Casey, Wittman apparently feels like it a sacrilege not to play Ricky Davis in crunchtime. Tonight, Trenton Hassell was having one of his fabulously nuanced games, shooting only when necessary but for a high percentage, battling for rebounds, and setting up his teammates in both the half-court sets and in transition--he finished with 8 points, 9 rebounds, and 8 assists. And he put forth a yeoman effort on the Sonics' glorious Ray Allen, but Allen has that deadly accurate, hair-trigger jumper and has been the most prolific scorer in the entire NBA for most of this month. As it turned out, Marko Jaric had better success defending Allen in the 4th period. Ricky Davis, on the other hand, had one of those games where the highlights frequently showed him unsuccessfully rushing to close out on a shooter or trailing frantically as his man went for the hoop. Davis wasn't feeling it with his shot that much (4-11 FG, 2-6 from 3), and both Hassell and Jaric were passing the ball better (Jaric had 6 assists in 21:44, Davis 4 dimes in 36:42). So, why not alternate Hassell and Jaric on Allen and 6-7 Mickeal Gelabale, the rookie who bedeviled (mostly) Davis for 17 points (8-13 FG), including a crucial jumper with 29 seconds to go in the game? Why not let Davis sit for crunchtime this time? After all, one of the biggest reasons cited for Wittman taking over was that he was tougher, more of a disciplinarian, able to communicate more directly. I can't think of a better way to communicate with Davis than playing better options than his lackluster D when the game is on the line.
1. Rotation Changes
It's easy to overreact to one game and assume it's a trend, but the two most striking differences between Wittman's substitutions tonight versus Casey's general pattern was fewer minutes for KG and more crunchtime for Mike James at the expense of Randy Foye. The first is welcomed, and reprises one of the hallmarks of Kevin McHale's 30-some game stint. Had there been no overtime tonight, Garnett would have clocked in at just 34 minutes. Wittman gave him two 6-minute chunks on the bench, which were extended further by time out for the quarter changes (end of first/beginning second, end of third/beginning fourth). And maybe KG just had extra zip because the team is ensnared in a long losing streak and has a clean slate with a new coach, but he did seem more active and energetic at both ends of the court in the second half, completely getting inside Joel Pryzbylla's head in the third period, drawing a string of fouls that sent Pryz permanently to the pine.
The Foye pare-down was more problematic. You could see that James was giddy to be included for meaningful 4th quarter minutes (and all of the overtime), and he did nail a nice sideline jumper late in the game, played better defense than he has in a long while, and continued his series of impressive a/to ratios with a 5-dime, 1-miscue night. Further justifying the move, Foye didn't have a great night, especially his shot selection (2-6 FG, 0-2 from 3), although his lone assist (versus two turnovers) was a doozy, a dribble-penetration kick to the sideline for a Hassell trey.
But I digress. One of the few indisputably smart things Casey did, in my opinion at least, was give Foye the second quarter substition scrum to get his bearings and learn the point, and the fourth quarter crunch to strut his courage in the clutch and give oxygen to his confidence. Granted, Foye's decision-making is far from perfect; hence my constant hectoring about him not "being a point guard." But the rookie contemporary Foye was traded for and will forever be compared to, Brandon Roy, hadn't scored in the entire second half and yet was still flipped the keys to the game when it mattered in overtime, not Zach Randolph or a hot Martell Webster. On a team with KG, Foye doesn't rate that primacy, but for all sorts of reasons I think he belongs on the court. James had a solid game, has many millions and three more years coming to him as a Timberwolf, and needs to have his self-esteem rehabbed as one of Wittman's top priorities, so I understand the motivation. But the upside on Foye is such that he might be that worthy sidekick this franchise craves for KG, especially when the game is one the line. So it was disconcerting to see him sit the last 3:28 of regulation and all of overtime in a tight 3-point loss, especially since it felt like James was simply trying harder to pretend he was comfortable.
More >>Man, talk about a turbulent week: I just got off the phone with a Star Tribune reporter regarding my thoughts on the resignation of CP Editor Steve Perry and get word that the Wolves have fired Dwane Casey.
I've always believed that when someone dies or gets fired or otherwise meets with an unkind fate, it's better to grant them your respect via an honest appraisal rather than a rose-colored distortion. I have recently been critical of the way Coach Casey handled the Ricky Davis situation Friday night, and can't help but wonder if his behavior was related to the extreme job pressure he was under, or if the way he dealt with it contributed to his firing. Either way, Casey was not a particularly adept head coach during his short stint with the Wolves, for many reasons I have described in the past.
But I have also consistently said that as a human being, Dwane Casey is a class act, a man of enormous personal dignity. Last year, when I was criticizing his job performance on a fairly regular basis, he saw me standing on a streetcorner during a snowstorm, waiting for the light to change, and rolled down his window and asked if I needed a ride. So, no, I'm not going to sugar-coat his deficiencies as a coach, but I'm also not going to denigrate the way he represented himself and the organization for most of his tenure.
I'll close for now by mentioning that I think Casey has gotten a team with .500 personnel to play .500 basketball. For them to be better than that, Ricky Davis will have to grow up, Mike James will have to rediscover his self-confidence, and the rookies who profited under Casey's guidance, Rashad McCants and Randy Foye, will have to continue developing at warp speed. I'm not sure Randy Wittman will make a huge difference in any of those areas.
1. Point guard woes
Much as I would like to dwell on reading the tea leaves surrounding the play of Ricky Davis and Kevin Garnett and the coaching of Dwane Casey--and probably will in point 2 or 3--the dominant thing about tonight's loss to the Utah Jazz is the lack of stability at point guard for the Wolves.
Now the popcornmachine.net site will show you that Mike James has a mere minus 1 in the 15-point loss, best on the team except for Mark Madsen's plus 6, and that James dealt six assists versus only one turnover in his 25 and a half minutes of action. But watching his Utah counterpart Deron Williams carve up Minnesota for 21 points and a career-high 15 dimes, you realize how little floor generalship James exudes by comparison. James reminds me of Torii Hunter at the plate, a total "guess" hitter, meaning that he makes up his mind to do something rather than react to events as they unfold. How else to ascertain why he'll pull up for a trey one possession and try to penetrate the next when the defense seems to be giving him better odds on the other option. His passes are functional and occasionally creative, but rarely purposeful to the point of a *resounding* assist, where only a complete klutz could fail to execute the basket. Now, granted, Deron Williams has the enormous advantage of playing in Jerry Sloan's well-honed system of back-door cuts and beautiful screens, but there were a half-dozen dimes--most of them bounce-passes--that any Wolves' fan had to envy, or hope that one of our points could pull off perhaps half as frequently.
Is it time to give up on James as a starter and cede the position to Randy Foye's on-the-job training? Sure is tempting. After all, it is very close to half a season now, and even when Foye is being undressed, as often occurred tonight, there is no question that his style and carriage at both ends of the court inspire more confidence in his teammates and Wolves' fans than James's guesswork. The downside is that Foye is a rookie, and an unnatural point guard to boot, so that there will be plenty of nights where the turnovers and literally ignorant decisions are costly. That said, as an early and persistent naysayer, I think Foye's ball distribution, court vision, and shot selection, while still inconsistent, show much higher highs, and fairly significant improvement overall.
Last and least is Troy Hudson, who singed the twine for 15 points in 14:17 last night against Phoenix before falling to earth with the rest of the squad in the second half, shooting only 2-6 FG. Still the 22-point performance was enough to encourage Casey to use him with Marko Jaric and Foye in the second period tonight in Utah. Uh-oh. Sloan countered with a big lineup that had Jaric guarding Harpring and Huddy couldn't find his shooting eye, spraying wide on all five shots in 6:53 of playing, a period in which the Wolves dropped 12 points and essentially lost the ballgame.
A while back there was some discussion about whether an NBA team really needs a classic point guard, especially with such adept passers as KG, Davis, and Trenton Hassell in the lineup. I'm not sure. But I do know that if the point can't initiate the half-court offense in a commanding fashion, they need to be able to defend, or shoot, or stimulate intelligent ball movement in a fairly consistent manner. None of the Wolves' trio of points fits that description.
More >>I'm not going to write about the Phoenix game last night for a variety of reasons. I was switching back and forth between the game and the AFC Championship tilt in football, and after the Suns' 31-2 run in the third, you can imagine where most of my viewing time went. Secondly, playing without Garnett and Davis against a squad that had won 12 straight had a preordained conclusion that made the tilt sort of surreal, like a practice tuneup for the Suns. Minnesota made it close by shooting 8-11 from beyond the arc (Foye was 4-5, Hudson 3-4) in the first half, a better percentage than their free thorws (9-16), let alone their two-pointers.
We learned that Mark Blount really, really benefits from KG's presence, that Troy Hudson loves free-wheeling bombs away contests, and that Randy Foye has a remarkably complete package of skills for a rookie combo guard.
I'm going to let my anger settle over the way the franchise has portrayed the Ricky Davis incident before commenting further. But anything you want to add about the suspensions of either Garnett or Davis is also fair game here.
I'll be posting tonight after the Utah game.
1. Ricky's Rebellion
With 8:40 to play in the 3rd quarter and the Wolves down by 2 to Detroit at home tonight, Ricky Davis made a bad pass that led to a steal and a transition layup for the Pistons. One second after the ball went through the hoop, the Wolves called timeout and Coach Dwane Casey benched Davis in favor of Randy Foye. Davis was livid. As Casey and his club talked about game strategy, Davis appeared about the bolt from the bench and head for the locker room, only to be pulled back by a teammate going back to his days in Boston, Justin Reed. As he lingered with tense body language, Bracey Wright came over and wrapped an arm around his waist and talked to him. These things deterred him for a moment, but just before play was resumed as the Wolves took to the court, Davis walked along the baseline and out the middle aisle toward the locker room. Assistant coach Rex Kalamian and then Reed soon followed. Within a few minutes, all three returned individually, with Davis the last of the trio to come back.
For the rest of the game, Davis pouted on the bench. While others were leaning forward, most of them involved in the game, he leaned back and affected nonchalance. When the team huddled, he remained standing on the perimeter. He talked some with the players sitting by him near the end of the bench--Hudson, Reed, Jaric and McCants in street clothes, sometimes Mark Blount. It became an extremely exciting and highly competitive game, with Kevin Garnett tossed for a setto with Antonio McDyess and the game going double overtime before the Wolves ran out of steam, 98-104, and in the more exciting moments, Davis occasionally lent encouragement to a couple of players, especially Blount, another longtime teammate extending back to Boston, but was clearly the least animated player on the bench.
But here's the crux of it: After a couple of timeouts and various player substitutions, two different people I consider to be highly reliable and literally in a position to know what they were talking about, told me independently of each other that Davis was refusing to go back into the game. In between the time the first and the second person passed along this information, I saw co-captain Trenton Hassell get up during a timeout and come over and say some things in Davis's ear. I couldn't see if Davis responded to him, but saw Hassell return to his spot on the bench when the players going back in sit together. Then, after the second person had told me about Davis's refusal, I saw assistant coach Randy Wittman come over to Davis during another time out and seem to ask him something. In their exchange, Davis seemed to do most of the talking, and Wittman, holding eye contact and looking like a man receiving unpleasant news, returned to his end of the bench.
Davis was gone from the locker room after the game. I asked Reed why Davis was so angry in the 3rd quarter and he replied that Davis was just angry at himself. Mark Madsen said that the team was sticking together all for one and no one was going to take a small thing and blow it into a big thing. Then I caught Wittman as he was walking by and asked him point blank if Ricky Davis had refused to go back into the game. Wittman looked stricken, said "Coach Casey is having a press conference about the game right now," and ducked into the coach's chambers. Casey would not emerge for his press conference for another five minutes.
Once there, I asked the coach what had happened with Davis. He replied that he thought Davis had lost focus and needed to be replaced, and said he did not feel like he should put Davis back in the game. After a few more questions about other things, I persisted by saying that with all due respect it felt like something more than Davis simply losing focus; that he left the bench shortly after that and then was visited by Hassell and Wittman, and never came back into a double overtime game when the team had already lost KG. He replied that Davis took a bathroom break--which has happened in the past, but he never needed Kalamian and Reed to help him before--and then said with some exasperation that maybe I should have been in the huddle to hear what was said.
I felt like I was being spun, with a little pressure to accept Casey's version of events. I still feel that way. I don't believe Casey lied to me, but I think he preferred to leave out large chunks of context. Otherwise, we have to believe that with Garnett ejected with 5:18 to go in a tie ballgame, he decided to ride with the likes of 6-3 Bracey Wright, 6-4 Randy Foye, and 6-2 Mike James guarding the whippet quick and athletic Rip Hamilton, who stands 6-7, rather than the 6-7 athlete Ricky Davis, who is normally second on the team in minutes to KG. He decided to ride with those guys through a solid 15:18--the rest of the 4th and two five-minute overtimes--when it was clear that those players as well as Trenton Hassell were becoming fatigued. This was a game where the slightest advantage could have tilted the outcome in Minnesota's favor, and indeed, down the stretch, Casey was subbing Mark Madsen and Craig Smith in and out on every possession to take advantage of Madsen's defense and Smith's offense. But he couldn't put his second most-talented athlete back in the game because that player had lost focus. And he made this decision independently, without any knowledge that Davis might be refusing to go back in.
Maybe the two people who told me Davis was refusing to reenter the game somehow were mistaken, and misinterpreted what they heard and saw. Maybe Davis didn't tell Wittman he wasn't going back in. Maybe Casey did decide that a bad pass in the third quarter was the last straw and it was time to teach Ricky Davis a big lesson and not allow him back into a double overtime game. That was certainly the way Dwane Casey was wanting me to look at tonight's events. After the press conference, I told him that I was going to report what I saw and was told, and that it didn't square with his spin. For all concerned, me and the team, it is a matter of credibility--doing what we have to do with what we know.
More >>1. Par For the Course
As the starting lineups to tonight's Hawks-Wolves game were concluding, I said to the people around me in press row at the Target Center, "They [the Wolves] are taking this game for granted. Let's see if they're right or not."
They were wrong. Beating Detroit and nine other teams over the past 13 games didn't automatically mean they could mail it in versus Atlanta and walk away with a victory. Instead, they got waxed by a 12-23 team 88-105, and the score was closer than the spectacle. Ranked dead last among 30 NBA teams in field goal percentage, the Hawks shot better than 50% in each of the four quarters, finishing at 54.3% and 53.8% from beyond the three-point arc.
But what's significant is that the Wolves were so obviously loose and confident during the pregame warmups, in a manner slightly different than their usual mien. Another media member who likes to get the pregame mood in the locker room said there too the players were uncommonly relaxed and giddy. There's a fine line between enjoying the fruits of your labors and pacing yourself properly over the season's marathon grind, and lulling yourself into the unspoken but insidious perception that you can still win a ballgame with your second or third-best effort.
Bottom line, the Wolves were arrogant and lazy tonight and consequently had their asses handed to them by a pretty bad team.
At this point I should be working myself into a state of righteous indignation, at the very least on behalf of the poor fans who forked over good money to make this one of their few (or perhaps only) chances of the year to watch the team in the flesh. Because they got screwed. But there's a part of me that knows this happens to every team at some point in the season, and that the circumstances made the chance of it happening to the Wolves tonight especially ripe. You want to blame coach Dwane Casey for not having his squad mentally ready, you've got cause, but hopefully you also just credited him for the incredibly sharp performance his team put on at both the start and the finish of a rare afternoon weekday game against a tough team on the road. Knowing that I gave most of the credit to the players for that inspiring win, I'm feeling more charitible toward Case than I did in that brutal 4th quarter of the meltdown loss to the Lakers, or even that awful win at home against the 76ers. After tonight's game, the coach revealed that he warned his squad in practice today that Atlanta had already beaten Cleveland and Orlando this season, and shouldn't be taken lightly.
That said, if the Wolves miss out on the playoffs or something similarly significant by a one-game margin, here's one to highlight in neon.
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