Howlin' T-Wolf A Fresh Perspective and Completely Biased Blog About Everything Minnesota Timberwolves

Recaps: ESPN-AP, Star Tribune-Jerry Zgoda, ClipperBlog

UPDATE: Be sure to check out this piece on Al Jefferson by Kevin Arnovitz of ClipperBlog and Truehoop.

GameFlow @ PopcornMachine

Four Factors Courtesy of Statsheet.com

Quote of the Night: As the Wolves frantically moved the ball around late in the 4th quarter and the shot clock winding down, one of the Clippers announcers made this observation:

“The Wolves don’t really have many shooters on the court right now. {Pause} The Wolves don’t really have too many shooters on their roster though.”

H T-W Analysis:

Did anyone really think that they were going to pull it off last night? Me, neither. As the astute Clippers announcers noticed this team really doesn’t have (m)any shooters to hit shots down the stretch. Which is exactly how you lose a game when your effective field goal percentage is 5% better than the other team. Of course turning the ball over, especially down the stretch, 21 times doesn’t help much either. In the end though the Wolves only have one offensive play that seems to work, and even then last night it wasn’t that highly effective. Here’s how the play goes: Jonny Flynn dribbles down the court, passes to Brewer on the wing, Brewer passes it into the mid-post to Jefferson, and Jefferson does his thing. This is the only play the Wolves used last night that worked more than once. Jefferson blew by Camby on each of the first two plays and then continued to be flustered by the Clippers help defense the rest of the night on his way to 4 traveling violations including a biggie in the 4th, and 8 turnovers for the game. He just couldn’t get his feet in rhythm last night.

As for finding a second scorer, Jonny Flynn did what he could to put points on the board and finished with 17, however every single basket was out of a 1-on-1 situation and not out of the Wolves offense. It’s getting increasingly frustrating watching these games knowing that Flynn could be doing a lot more if Rambis seemingly let him. He did have 5 assists last night which also looked great against only two turnovers and two of those were kick-out threes from penetration, the best being his dish to Gomes in the last minute to cut the Clippers lead to two. (Which I should note was a play drawn up by Rambis during a timeout. Again we are waiting until the 4th to do these things why?) Patience, patience, patience Wolves fans. I’m still skeptical and still don’t see how this is making Flynn a better player or a better point guard though. I also think it’s hard for him to lead when his best skills are being effectively neutered. At this point only 2 things can result in this early season short leash from Rambis: 1) Flynn blossoms later this season and next and continues to give credit to Rambis for keeping him at bay early, or 2) Rambis finally lets him loose and Flynn blossoms and then talks about how much better it is to just play his game out there. I’m still hoping it’s the former, but my gut tells me it’s the latter.

In regards to Corey Brewer’s better than normal performance, let me defer to Jerry Z:

This is more the kind of line they need to get from Corey Brewer — 5 for 12, 13 points, seven rebounds, two steals, an assist, two turnovers — rather than those 19-, 20-shot games he was producing in the season’s opening weeks. He’s going to be a pretty versatile, valuable reserve on a playoff team, but he’s no starting 2 guard.

I’d also like to show everyone Corey Brewer’s NBA.com Hot Spots Shot Chart for the season and let it do a little talking on its own:

Anyone else think he should go to the Josh Smith school of reform for poor shooting athletic wings? Can we at least not let him be on the right side of the floor?

Other random thoughts:

• Wayne Ellington must really be doing poorly in practice. For a team that desperately needs a shooter he has two straight DNP-Coach’s Decision and I’m not sure why he’s not in there while the team continues to struggle scoring the basketball.
• Three more weeks until we get Senor Amor back. That is WAY too long. At least he said he’s drinking lots of milk to help the healing.
• Al Thornton sure did have a big game against us. I need to go back and see how much Brewer was guarding him or whether it was mostly Gomes and Wilkins. Yet another wing that played well against the Wolves this season.
• Pecherov is playing his way into being the 3rd big man behind Jefferson and Love. At least until the Wolves find somebody else that can shoot.