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Minnesota Timberwolves 77, Los Angeles Clippers 90

January 18, 2013 by

Love game winnerGame Summary

(We didn’t have the opportunity to see a repeat performance of the lead picture here, so let’s live in the past for a few seconds!  Man that was a fun night!)

The Timberwolves returned home for Thursday night’s game against the LA Clippers, arriving with a four game losing streak in tow.  The Clippers came in with a two game winning streak and holding the second best record in the league.  Adding a little bit of drama (see what I’m doing there?) to tonight’s game, Kevin Harlan returned to the Target Center to call Thursday’s game for TNT’s national broadcast!

There were a few changes to the starting lineup for the Pups this evening.  This is likely due to a number of factors: able bodies, terrible losses, some type of spark being needed.  The Wolves opened up with Rubio, Ridnour, Kirilenko, Williams, and Pekovic.  Prior to tipoff, the Clippers announced that Chris Paul would miss his third straight game.  The Clippers opened up with Eric Bledsoe, Willie Green, Caron Butler, Blake Griffin, and DeAndre Jordan.

The first quarter was flying by as the first timeout wasn’t called until there were under five minutes left to go in the period.  The Wolves found themselves down 14-9.  Unfortunately, and stop me if you have heard this before, the team struggled to hit a jump shot.  The four offensive rebounds the team already collected to that point couldn’t make up for the 4-16 (25%) shooting.

After the TO, the Pups went 3-5 from the field to cut the Clippers lead to two points, 19-17.  This was preceded by a few nice defensive plays in the paint by DWill, including a blocked shot that led to a layup, which forced the Clippers to burn a TO.  DWill clearly plays better with Rubio on the floor and while they both struggled shooting the ball, they were clearly very active.  Pekovic also struggled from the floor, going 0-5 while not getting to the line.  Clearly, he wasn’t paying attention to my comments in the preview.  At the end of the 1st quarter, the Clippers held a 27-22 lead.

The Pups opened up the 2nd quarter in a rut, as the Clip-Joint went on an 8-2 run and opened up a 35-24 lead, forcing Terry Porter to burn another TO.  There were too many easy buckets for the Clippers and the Wolves fell back into “another” shooting slump.  Somehow (read: the Clippers taking a few minutes off), the Twolves slowly made a comeback to cut the lead to three points with less than two minutes to play in the half.  However, with a chance to cut the lead to one, Rubio missed a wide open layup and then turned the ball over the next time down the court, leading to a Jamal Crawford three pointer.

With the last possession of the half, Ridnour had a chance to cut the lead to one possession and missed a floater.  At halftime, the Clippers held a 47-43 lead.  Here are a couple halftime thoughts through my Wolves lens:

  • That missed layup and TO from Rubio felt like a major opportunity lost and seemed to deflate the building a bit.
  • Help might be on the way for the Wolves, as the expected signing of Mickael Gelabale might become official tomorrow when Lazar Hayward’s contract runs out.  Thanks to Jon K on this one …

To be perfectly honest, for the first few minutes of the 3rd quarter I found myself just listening to Kevin Harlan and Mike Fratello.  For the record, that is a complement to Harlan and Fratello.  I usually find myself trying to drain out the noise of the broadcast but really enjoy listening to the two of them.  In any case, the Wolves and Clippers went back and forth for the first six minutes but the home team continued to trail.

With less than four minutes to play in the 3rd quarter, TNT panned to the Pups bench.  Sadly, what they were showing was Pekovic walking to the locker room with a trainer.  Seriously?!  Seriously.  Pek was injured when he fell to the floor after being tied up with Griffin.  Sometimes, life just isn’t fair.  Before the end of the quarter, it was reported that Pek had a right quad contusion and his return was questionable.  (He never returned to the court.)

For the first time in at least a week (Atlanta game on 1/8?), the Wolves played a pretty decent 3rd quarter and kept the game well within striking distance.  Going into the 4th quarter, the Clips led 68-63.

File this under “this is really getting depressing”: Halfway through the 4th quarter Alexey Shved came down on Lamar Odom’s foot wrong and twisted his ankle.  Shved walked directly to the locker room after the play and didn’t return.  I’m relatively positive this season must be the last piece of bad karma from the Joe Smith signing.

By the way, the Pups fell apart in the 4th quarter and it is hard to find a reason to blame them for doing so.  If the building wasn’t deflated after Pek’s injury, it certainly was after Shved left the game.  The Clippers outscored the Wolves 22-14 in the 4th to pull away and win, 90-77.  The loss was the Pups 5th in a row and there are many more questions right now than answers.  We’ll see what the injury report looks like for Saturday’s game in Houston.

Keys of the Game

  • Nikola Pekovic – Pekovic was having one of his weakest games of the season, shooting 1-8 for 4 points.  Then he went down in the 3rd quarter and didn’t return.
  • Shooting – I’m “dumbing” this down to the most basic summary feasible.  You aren’t going to win many games when you shoot 36% from the field, 21% (4-19) from 3PT range, and 65% (13-20) from the FT line.  All systems are broken right now.

Three Stars of the Game

  1. Jamal Crawford – Led the Clippers in scoring with 22 points, with a few rebounds, assists, and steals sprinkled in.
  2. Blake Griffin – While by no means dominant, Griffin had a decent game with 20 points and decent defense.
  3. Luke Ridnour – Moved over to the SG position tonight with Rubio at PG and looked much more comfortable.  Finished with 21 points, 5 assists, and 4 rebounds.
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Minnesota Timberwolves 91 – Cleveland Cavaliers 73

December 8, 2012 by

Friday night’s game against the Cavs was set up perfectly for the Timberwolves – they had an off night the day before to rest after their quick trip to the East coast.  They also don’t play again until next Wednesday.  Therefore, it was an opportune time to try to get AK47 back on the court to test his back.  The time off after this game was a good reason to keep Ricky Rubio off the court for one more night.  As an aside, I fully expect the Unicorn to be in action next week and the Wolves announcers did virtually nothing to temper those expectations.

The Wolves starting five consisted of Ridnour, Lee, Kirilenko, Love, and Pekovic.  The Cavs opened up with Jeremy Pargo, Boobie Gibson (sorry, had to), Alonzo Gee, Tristan Thompson, and Anderson Varejao.  As expected, the Cavs were without Dion Waiters and Kyrie Irving.  “Supremely overconfident” could be used to best describe how I felt about this game and the Wolves getting the win.

The Mayans might be right because I actually had this one correct.  Less than three minutes into the game and this felt appropriate:

Kevin Love and Luke Ridnour led the way for the Pups with real strong first quarters.  Love finished with 15 points and 4 rebounds, while Luke did a little bit of everything – 4 assists, 3 rebounds, 2 points, and 1 steal.  (Given it is December, here’s the obligatory “and a partridge in a pear tree” wit.)  The Wolves had a nine point lead (25-16) after the quarter and it didn’t really feel that close at all.  The only watch-out worth mentioning is the continuation of sub-par free throw shooting, with the team going 7-11 in the quarter.

At the beginning of the game, Jim Pete offered up his three keys to the game and they all had to do with “2nd” stages; “2nd chance points”, “2nd half performance” and “2nd effort”.  Unfortunately, that second one should or could have said “2nd quarter woes” as the team struggled once again in the quarter.  The Cavs were able to cut the lead to a single point about half way through the quarter.  Going into a timeout, it was time for Adelman to bring back a few starters as the second unit was not working, putting up only 2 points in the quarter with several minutes already gone by.

After the Cavs tied the game at 35, the Pups woke up and finished the quarter on a 9-2 run to go into the half with a 44-37 lead.  Thank goodness for Kevin Love and his 20 points because no one else on the Wolves was scoring.  The second leading scorer for the team at the half was Ridnour with 6 points.

Here are a few halftime thoughts through my Wolves lens:

  • Pekovic and Varejao were both scoreless in the half.  That deserves a kudos to both guys’ efforts on the defensive end
  • Paging healthy wings … the Pups were 1-11 from three point range in the half
  • Paging a FT consultant to come into practice over the weekend; the Wolves were 13-19 in the half.  They continue to get there but continue to struggle from the line
  • Alonzo Gee had 8 points at the half but was a -9 in +/- for the half and did virtually nothing else on the court.  However, he’s the biggest call-out for the Cavs at half time.  This is going to be another tough sports season for Cleveland

The Wolves built their lead going into the first time out of the 3rd quarter, finally getting to the fifty point mark, while still holding the Cavs to under forty points.  Luke Ridnour continued to impress with a few assists that gave AK47 a few easy buckets in the early minutes.  This was just as much about Kirilenko’s ability to see the court and be in the right spot at the right time.

Aside from when the Wolves were running in transition, it was surprising at how little they went into the paint to feed Kevin Love.  They tried to feed Pekovic quite a bit, but it wasn’t working against Varejao.  Conversely, Love owned Tristan Thompson when given the opportunity to post up.  This really could have and should have been a set play every trip down the floor when they ran the half court offense.

At the end of the 3rd, the Wolves maintained their nine point lead, 66-57.  This wasn’t exactly a free flowing, offensive game by any stretch of the imagination.  The Cavs were shooting 34% from the field, while the Wolves were at a 42% clip.  Love already collected his double-double for the evening with a quarter to go, finishing the 3rd with 30 & 10.  The only Cavs player worth noting (sorry Cleveland fans) was Alonzo Gee, who had several highlight reel dunks in the quarter and leading the Cavs with 16 points.

The 4th quarter got a little interesting as the Cavs cut the lead to just six points.  However, similar to every other run that was made the Pups were able to answer with their own small run to increase the lead to right around double digits.  As the quarter wore on, the Cavs wore down.  The Wolves built the lead thanks to … well, frankly, the same players that you’ve read about multiple times throughout this summary + JJ Barea.

I don’t have evidence of this, but I feel like JJ plays under more control when he’s on the floor with AK47.  This may just be Kirilenko’s overall presence on the game and the team.  He simply makes the game look easy and makes everyone else look that much better.  AK’s final line of the night is quite impressive: 8 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists, 4 steals, and 3 blocks.  Seriously?

The final score of the game was 91-73 with the Wolves continuing to run away with the game as the minutes wound down in the final quarter.  This was a good team win against a team that the Pups should beat and need to beat if they have playoff aspirations.

Three Stars of the Game:

  1. Kevin Love
  2. Andrei Kirilenko
  3. Luke Ridnour
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Minnesota Timberwolves 90 – Dallas Mavericks 82

November 13, 2012 by

Photo Credits: SunHerald.com

Somehow, some way, the Minnesota Timberwolves continue to win games. Following yesterdays news that SF Chase Budinger suffered a lateral torn meniscus in his left knee, the Wolves suffered yet another key injury in the third quarter of tonight’s matchup in Dallas as Nikola Pekovic suffered a sprained left ankle in the third quarter and was unable to return. On top of that, JJ Barea and Brandon Roy were unavailable tonight with day-to-day injuries, and Kevin Love and Ricky Rubio will be missed until approximately mid-December. Despite all of the adversity, the Timberpups gave a gutsy performance and went on to take one from the Dallas Mavericks on the road, winning by a score of 90-82.

Before leaving the game in the mid-third quarter with a sprained left ankle, Nikola Pekovic was the focus of Minnesota’s offense as he scored 20 points (8-13 FG) while racking up 6 boards and posting a game-high +21 on the floor. Pek made mincemeat out of the defense brought by Dallas centers Chris Kaman, Brandan Wright, and Bernard James, and used a bevvy of post moves to near perfection. He has elevated his post game to a superior level of intelligence and proficiency, and although he stated that his ankle is fine and that he should be ready for Wednesday’s matchup against Charlotte, the thought of losing Pek for any amount of time remains very concerning.

As the Timberwolves were once again without second unit PG Barea, Luke Ridnour was called upon to be a major part of the offense – and he answered effectively. Ridnour did not play his best game, but he did enough on both sides of the court to get the better end of a tough matchup against Darren Collison. Ridnour finished the game with 12 points (3-9 FG, 2-5 3PFG), 7 assists, 5 rebounds, and an impressive 4 steals in 37 minutes of play.

The chemistry between Alexey Shved and Andrei Kirilenko was extremely evident tonight, as both players were crucial to tonight’s victory. Shved, coming off the bench as one of the Pups primary reserve players, was vital in the fourth quarter due to his defense and playmaking abilities on the offensive end. Shved reminded me a lot of Rubio tonight, as he scored 16 points on just 3-12 shooting, but was able to effectively change the flow of the game with an intangible presence that seemed to guide the team during crunch time. He was very smart with the ball and dished out 5 assists to pair with 4 rebounds, 3 blocks, and only 2 turnovers in 33 minutes of action. The Toni Kukoc look-alike got it done at the free throw line as he sunk 9 of his 11 attempts, and did a very good job attacking the rim and not settling for poor looks. I cannot say enough about Shved and I dream of the day that we are able to witness him paired in the backcourt with Ricky.

What can I say about AK-47 that I do not say about him every time I write a game summary. The thing that astounds me about Kirilenko is his consistency on a game-by-game basis. It seems as if he ends with the same stat line every night, and his presence is felt on almost every possession that he is in the game for. The defense that he brings coupled with his poise and veteran acumen on offense has effectively guided this team to where they are now. Although he is a forward, he has been the “quarterback” for the Timberwolves and continuously creates opportunities for his teammates to be successful. At 31, AK-47 is as wise as he ever was and is as physically nimble and elegant as during even his best years for the Jazz. If MVP was to be voted on right now, I truly believe that Kirilenko would get votes. Now that is saying something.

Before tonight, Dallas was previously averaging 116 points per game on their home floor. However, things did not go as swimmingly against the T-wolves as they combined to shoot a miserable 29-80 as a team from the field. Minnesota played tough, scrappy defense as a unit, but were not the reason behind Dallas’ 4-16 from three-point range. The Mavs missed far too many wide-open looks in a game that was well within reach, and they were unable to gain any momentum when the Wolves continued to do them favors following Pekovic’s injury.

Dante Cunningham continues to bring the Wolves a much needed lift off the bench and posted another solid line of 14 points (6-9 FG), 8 rebounds, 2 assists, and a mere 1 turnover in an efficient 33 minutes for the Pups. Cunningham has thrived in his role in the offense and continues to knock down top of the key and mid-range jumpers off the pick-and-roll. He looks extremely comfortable with what is being asked of him and continues to build on his previous performances. Although his game is not the sexiest, it is of intangible value to the Pups.

With Cunningham thriving, Derrick Williams appears to be in Rick Adelman’s doghouse. Despite starting tonight, D-Will logged only 12 minutes and attempted only 2 FG in that short span of time. His only points of the night came on a spectacular first-quarter reverse slam that wowed the Dallas crowd, and I believed that it would be enough to loosen up the former number-2 pick to have a decent ballgame. However, Williams made a few mental mistakes and looked lost on defense, and Adelman held very little patience for the Arizona product. With Cunningham playing well, Williams saw very little time beyond the first half.

With Williams struggling, it opened the door for Lou Amundson to see his highest single-game minutes as a Pup. In 15 minutes, Amundson worked his tail off defending the much bigger and stronger Kaman, and I am pleased with what he was able to provide in relief. Although he failed to score a point, Amundson grabbed 3 rebounds and was a +3 on the floor.

Malcolm Lee made his first start of the season and logged 22 minutes, scoring 4 points on 2-6 shooting while grabbing 3 rebounds. Lee made a game-securing steal on OJ Mayo at the end of the game, but was otherwise a neutral force in this one. I do like what Lee has shown thus far in his career, and I do believe that he is competent enough defensively to have a future as a serviceable backup combo guard.

Finally, Greg Stiemsma and Will Conroy each received very limited time on the floor tonight. Stiemsma, who has been very effective thus far, committed 4 fouls in only 8 minutes and was left out of the rotation for the second half. Conroy made a single free throw in 4 minutes and was otherwise a non-contributor.

When breaking down the team numbers, the Wolves were able to outrebound the Mavericks 49-35, and much of it was due to the outhustling of the Mavs frontcourt by the Pups bigs. Although shot-blocking was a tremendous need for Minnesota last season, it has been a major plus this year and the Wolves out-blocked Dallas 7-2. All of this was vital for Minnesota, and was enough to overcome the Wolves 17 turnovers compared to only 8 for Dallas.

More will be known on the extent of Pekovic’s injury tomorrow, and he will most likely be questionable heading into Wednesday nights home matchup against Charlotte. All in all, great win for the Pups. Get well soon, Wolves nation. Here are tonight’s three stars of the game.

  1. Andrei Kirilenko
  2. Luke Ridnour
  3. Alexey Shved
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Minnesota Timberwolves 90 – Orlando Magic 75

November 7, 2012 by

Photo Credits: Orlando Sentinel

For the first time this season, I got to see the Timberwolves from beginning to end with the electricity and cable back in my section of NJ.  Thanks to Big Al for running the show here to begin the season.

Given tonight’s impressive win, barring anymore weather-related problems, I’m committing to Game Recaps until the Wolves lose.  We’ll look to continue the streak this coming Friday.  Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s look back at another strong performance from the Wolves.

The Twolves opened the game with the same starting five leveraged in the first few games – Ridnour, Roy, AK47, DWill, and Pekovic.  The Magic starting five consisted of Moore, Afflalo, McRoberts, Davis, and Vucevic.  In other words, the Magic were playing without Jameer Nelson in the lineup, which immediately increased my confidence in a Wolves win about five-fold.

With that still fresh in mind, the Wolves jumped out to an early 13-6 lead going into the first timeout.  By that time, everyone in the starting five was in the books with at least a point.  Williams and Kirilenko looked very active to start the game.  In fact, Derrick must have been aware that it was my time to put together the game recap, as he had a very strong start – active hands on defense, running the floor, and hitting his first 3-pointer of the season.

After the first quarter, the Twolves more than doubled up the Magic, leading 25-12 on 67% shooting.  Brandon Roy had a very nice quarter, leading the team with 5 rebounds and 3 assists, to go with 3 points.  The only ‘negative’ you could say about the opening quarter is that in the final few minutes, the Wolves turned the ball over a couple more times and closed the quarter with 5 TO’s.  That’s still too many, but the Magic were not able to do much with it, shooting 6-21 from the field for a putrid 29%.

The Wolves opened the second quarter with AK47 and the second string rotation – Barea, Budinger, Cunningham, and Stiemsma.  This rotation, along with Shved (who entered the game early in the second quarter) is night and day compared to last year’s squad and full of active bodies to keep this team afloat while the franchise players recuperate from their injuries.  The quarter started with a lot of ball movement.  Unfortunately, the ball rarely moved through the hoop, as the Wolves remained scoreless for the first four plus minutes.  The team fired up a number of three pointers and the scoring drought finally ended with Chase hitting 1 of 2 FT’s.  It actually wasn’t until after six minutes had past in the quarter that the Wolves got a bucket – a pretty, driving layup from Shved, who’s quickly becoming one of my favorite Wolves.

At halftime, the Pups led 38-34, with the Magic outscoring the home team by nine in the second quarter.  To put it nicely, that wasn’t a pretty second quarter of basketball at all.  The Wolves shooting dramatically declined and sunk to 43% for the half, while the team continues to miss FT’s, only making 6 of 11.  Here are a few miscellaneous notes from the first half with my Wolves lens:

  • AK47 – worth every penny
  • Barea – when he doesn’t have his shot going, he needs to be given a quick hook to remind him to play within the offense.  This is one of the most important aspects of Rubio’s return where the team won’t have to rely heavily on Barea as a true PG and more of a sparkplug.
  • Stiemsma – a very solid backup 5 for this team, bringing a different presence to the position vs. Pekovic, protecting the rim and knocking guys and/or the ball around underneath the basket.

The Twolves started the third quarter with another run, increasing the lead back to double digits with a 13-6 run and forcing a TO from the Magic.  This included two three-pointers from Ridnour and another from DWill.  Adelman must have told the locker room to get the ball to Pekovic down low as that was a glaring shortfall in the first half and a focal point of the offense in the third quarter.  Within a few minutes there were two big highlights: First, a beautiful follow-up dunk from DWill off of a missed jump shot, and second, Pekovic introducing Harkless to the league with a huge block/rejection in the paint.

After a little back and forth in the middle of the quarter, the Wolves finished the third on a 10-2 run to take a 68-55 lead into the fourth quarter.  Lots of good ball movement and we saw flashes of what I’ll start to call “Good Barea”, dishing the ball and creating havoc on the floor.

The fourth quarter started with more of the same, with the Pups really pouring it on and building the lead to 20+ points.  Once the lead got to this level, it felt insurmountable for this Magic team to overcome and the game was over.  The good news; it was.  Without Jameer Nelson and Al Harrington, there wasn’t a chance for the Magic to make a comeback.  The final score from the Target Center was Minnesota 90 – Orlando 75, with the Pups moving to 3-1 on the season.

Unfortunately, it looks like Barea is banged up again, after spraining his foot in the final quarter.  He’ll be evaluated tomorrow according to early reports from the Wolves digital team.  Hopefully, this isn’t something that will linger or a continuation of last year’s string of small injuries that eat into his ability to suit up for the team.

Overall, tonight was a great performance from those in the regular rotation – the end of the bench left a little to desire to close the game, but it is what it is.  This is a little tough because tonight was the epitome of a team win, but here are my Three Stars of the Game:

  1. Luke Ridnour
  2. Derrick Williams
  3. Brandon Roy

Looked to be a good number of available seats #WolvesNation – let’s keep up these good vibes and get those seats filled!  Let’s go Wolves!

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Timberwolves Summer 2012 Recap

September 21, 2012 by

Since David Kahn took over as President of Basketball Operations in May 2009, we have heard the continual promotion of flexibility, youth, rebuilding, cap space, etc. etc.  Shortly after Kahn was able to convince Kevin Love to sign an extension back in January, this all changed, as Love started to provide his own thoughts to the media on how the Twolves needed to start showing improvement and to get to the playoffs.  With a decent amount of flexibility and the added pressure of appeasing one of team’s core pieces, Kahn and the rest of the front office had their work cut out for them this offseason.  To Kahn’s credit, at least he didn’t take a month off to go fishing …

Here’s my take on the Timberpups offseason.

NBA Draft

Heading into Draft week, the Twolves held the 18th and 58th picks.  Two nights before the draft, Kahn sent the 18th pick to Houston for Chase Budinger.  In general, I hate seeing trades like this.  If you have something like this lined up, why not wait until draft night?  I understand that Houston was looking for ways to get Dwight Howard, but I still hate the notion of giving up your pick so far in advance.  I would like to think there will be a time when the Twolves actually take advantage of someone else’s panic move over the course of a draft night.  When this happens, I’ll immediately drive to Shop Rite to stock up on their can-can special.

As for the trade itself, I like Budinger as a complementary wing / role player at SF.  If nothing else, he’s competent and that is more than what we can say about any wing on last year’s roster.  As an added bonus – based off of his Twitter feed – he seems to have a great personality.

With the 58th pick, the Twolves selected Robbie Hummel, who has had quite the busy summer.  Given the moves that the Wolves have made since (we’re getting there, promise), Hummel decided to sign with a team in Spain (Obradoiro).  I think that was a wise choice for Hummel given the team’s other moves and the lack of PT that would have come his way, if any at all.  More than likely, he would have wound up in the D-League.  However, since going over to join the team in Spain, Hummel has since torn his meniscus again and will be out for several weeks.

I had high hopes going into the draft; A. trading Derrick Williams and filler for MKG or Beal and B. trading Wes Johnson for Crowder / anyone worthwhile.  The DWill moves were a bit of a pipedream.  However, Kahn technically had 34 chances to find a way to get Jae Crowder and trading Wes to anyone in the late first round / early second would have been a fantastic move.  Alas, no avail.

This wasn’t the start of the offseason that I was looking for.  Beyond Ricky Rubio falling into Kahn’s lap with the fifth pick in ’09, his draft night performances have been 50 shades of abysmal.  (See what I did there?  Building your female audience 101)

My draft grade: C-
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