If you’re looking for any optimism out of tonight’s recap, please look elsewhere and continue reading at your own risk.
Head coach, Kurt Rambis, said that the Wolves focused on defense all week in practice. They worked on recovering from and fighting through screens, boxing out offenders on the defensive glass as well as keeping their hands up to contest shots. Or at least that’s what I figured they did work on. Because if anything from practice transferred over to tonight’s game, it looked as if they practiced standing around watching a basketball game, up-close from the best seats available. When you can’t play defense as a team, you will never win a game. It allows too many opportunities for the opposing team to score, utilizing multiple options because no one is on the same page and that was the story tonight for the Wolves.
As for the game, in the first, neither team started out of the gates blazing hot. Both teams were missing open shots and making questionable decisions that led to careless turnovers. Only problem was that that trend continued for only one team and you probably know who I’m referring to.
After a lackluster 1st quarter, the Wolves opened the second with a little bit of life led by Wayne Ellington. He hit a three-pointer while being fouled by a flailing Keith Bogans. He hit his free throw and completed the quite rare four-point play and ended up with a respectable team high 17 points. Damien Wilkins decided to follow suit after Ellington by playing some physical basketball that provided a tiny spark. A steal that led to a foul by Manu Ginobili started a nice six point streak for Wilkins, which four of them came from the charity stripe. After that little boost, our defense settled down, and I don’t mean they settled down and figured things out.
As a result of ultra lazy defense, Richard Jefferson started taking it to the rack uncontested for multiple slams, including a sick-nasty dunk over Darko Milicic. As the defense continued to sit back, the Spurs started pouring it on. Tim Duncan started heating up, hitting his signature 18-footer and George Hill began running wildly around screens, dodging any sense of a defender all while nailing open jumpers. Hill actually looked impressive and finished with 19 points, tying the game high with teammate Jefferson. With the defense playing lazily, the offense decided it would follow in the same tracks. So, the Wolves went cold from the field, started giving the ball up and there went the first half along with the team’s confidence.
The third quarter started with an 8-0 run from the Spurs, thus nailing the Wolves’ coffin shut and putting them to rest for the remainder of the game.
Some can argue that the Wolves missed Kevin Love, whom was scratched with a sprained foot, and his presence tonight. You may be right but the problem really took place on the defensive end. And no offense to Love, but his defensive skills wouldn’t have done any good for the Wolves either. Ironically, the problem for the Wolves tonight was that the Spurs played simple ball. They set screens and made cuts towards and away from the basket. Seems easy to defend right? Wrong. Every Wolf had trouble fighting through screens to catch up to their defender, leaving them with open looks from outside or easy paths to the hoop. When they slashed towards the hole, they were untouched nearly every time. The bigs like Al Jefferson, Nathan Jawai and Milicic all sat around staring in awe as if they were watching a dunk contest, asking themselves “What will he do next?!”
As for the offensive end, I didn’t see one play run to perfection that led to a basket all night. A lot of plays were broken up due to the classic defensive-knack of a Gregg Poppovich coached squad but the plays that I grew furious with were the boneheaded mistakes the Wolves kept making. Even a the basic skill of passing looked sloppy and lacked the crispness you’d expect from an NBA team, especially the ones that came from the hands of Jonny Flynn. The Wolves ended up shooting 39% and that’s actually surprising to me that it wasn’t even lower. At the start of the 4th quarter, I though they’d be lucky to break 75 because of the sheer crappiness they played with on the offensive end.
As for the individual efforts, I’ll allow Mr. Flynn to go first. Looking at the box score, Flynn played 28 minutes. Not that much for a starting point guard but I thought that he shouldn’t have even played that much. Flynn looked to lack intensity which resulted in lazy passes and shots deemed questionable to say the least. His defense followed a similar path (Do you see a pattern yet?). He couldn’t stick to George Hill even if he was covered in molasses.
I think I’ve finally figured Flynn out though. Coach Rambis wants him to play within a system which in turn allows the Wolves to gel nicely and play a team game. The problem is that Flynn is not that kind of guy. He is a free-stylist that takes what the defense gives him, then makes plays accordingly. You can’t tame a wild stallion to be pony in a petting zoo easily, or if even at all, and that is similar to the situation that we have with Flynn. I hate saying these things because I do like him a lot but with these performances becoming constant night in and night out, it’s hard not to call him out once and for all.
One positive from tonight was the play of Darko. He played well both offensively and defensively, except for that posterizing dunk he suffered at the strength of Jefferson. On offense, Darko used a beautiful skyhook that came close to grazing Duncan’s paw a few times but soared over on its way to hitting the bottom of the net. He ended up with a season high 12 points but got into foul trouble early in the game, slowing him down from finding a pure groove. He was the only threat on defense but even then, he usually was caught off guard like most of the Wolves.
As for Jefferson and Brewer, neither of them performed at the level we needed. Jefferson had only 13 points on 5-15 shooting, despite starting off the game looking like he was due for another nice game. To pick on him a little more, his plus/minus of -27 showed that he was a big reason to the lack of any conflicts in the paint with Spurs slashing into the lane. Brewer continued his consecutive streak of games with a 3-pointer tonight by hitting one early in the first but didn’t do much more than that. He ended up with seven points on 2-7 shooting, as his name wasn’t called upon as much as I would’ve liked.
The Wolves have now lost 14 of their last 15 games. Tonight gave no insight to what we can look forward to in the future either. Up next for the Wolves is a four-game road trip which starts in Sacramento, Sunday night. In no way do I believe that this team can pick themselves out of this funk alone. They will need a poor performance, as well as a great one on their part, if they plan to win a game any time soon. We’ll see if they can turn things around come Sunday night.
Howlin’ T-Wolf: Game 66 Recap: Spurs 103, Wolves 85: If you’re looking for any optimism out of tonight’s recap, pl… http://bit.ly/a9rf1j
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New @HowlinTWolf: Game 66 Recap: Spurs 103, Wolves 85 http://bit.ly/b2lbZQ #TWolves #NBA #MN
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Howlin’ T-Wolf >> Game 66 Recap: Spurs 103, Wolves 85 http://bit.ly/cTVlit
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So, I do for the most part agree with you on Flynn, but lets just give the young guy some time, I mean pg in NBA is much different than the NCAA he might just need to learn. I heard Khan on the radio talking about them not going to a more pick and roll take-what-the-defense-gives-you offense for a couple reasons but 1 of them: it would be a disservice to Johnny Flynns game to do so. If we let him just run wild his ceiling is not very high because he isn’t amazing at anything except his first step on people (which essentially makes him a 6-0 shooting guard) if this time next year he hasn’t grown I’ll be more-so on your side than I am now.
I think Flynn has Jameer Nelson-like ceiling a fast short guard who is a strong leader. He doesn’t have quite the jump shot Nelson does but Flynn possess that make contact-get a lot of free throws game that we basically have never seen here too
The thing I’m noticing about Flynn is that his ceiling, as of now, is a lot lower than what anyone thinks. He might be lucky even to become the league’s best back-up point guard for all I know. The skills aren’t there and the things he is good at are being limited within the triangle offense. I think with throwing him into a system where he directs instead acting, we’re limiting what he can do on the court, overall.
You’re still right. We need to see more and by that I mean next season he needs to show what he can do. I truly do like the guy but I felt it was time to call him out, especially with only 16 or so games left. I want to see some change in behavior. Not necessarily 20 pt games and double-digit assists but games where he makes good passes, drives the lane and FINISHES, takes SMART shots at the right times and plays some good, hard-nosed defense. If I continue to see him not even attempt to swat balls away from behind of slashing players, I’ll go crazy enough to pull my hair out. I’m sick of seeing him stand around out there. I am sick of all Wolves doing that but particularly him due to Kahn’s early season prediction of Flynn’s defense.
And just to make this clear, his defense is what really did me in to saying this about him. I don’t know if you watched the game but there was one play where the Wolves didn’t get back on defense well — that’s a shocker — but the Spurs missed the shot anyways. Gomes went up for the rebound and on the corner of the screen, you can see Flynn. Now you would think he would sprint in the midst of the action and help grab that board or whatever but instead you see him cut hard and turn the other way! As if he knew Gomes would get the rebound and hit him for an easy lay-up at the other end. Turns out that the 4 on 2 stayed a 4 on 2 for the Spurs after the shot, Gomes couldn’t grasp the ball and Richard Jefferson cleaned it up for an EASY lay-up. That kind of play disgraces the aspect of defense. He needs to get in there and play some hard-nosed ball from the defensive end, not just hope other people do it for him and hit him for open fast breaks on the other end.
Well, sure sure-I can agree but how long did it take Jameer Nelson or Ray Felton to get to the point where they where consistently factors? And now they are both legitimate point guards, how up and down has DJ Augustine’s career been so far? It wasn’t till Howard became top 5 that Nelson got to be good, it took Nash what 4-5 years to really come into his own as a player-heck Deron Williams and Baron Davis each had to essentially sit out their rookie year before their coaches would let them play. Chris Paul is the only stud pg I can think of that came right out of high school and looked like he knew what he was doing in that first year. Brandon Jennings started off with a bang but I honestly don’t know if I’d rather have him or Flynn at this point he makes just as many bad decisions. I’d def rather have Curry but he’s a little different player. My point is this: I am on no Flynn bandwagon I actually don’t understand why we don’t play Sessions more I mean he is only 23 himself and could develop into a real nice player I think, especially when playing with Love. But I dunno 60 games into his career…we’ve seen Flynn explode probably 5-7 times this season meaning about 10 percent of his games he is showing you the ceiling he has…which I think seems pretty accurate for a rookie right? I mean Durant didn’t score 30 ppg his rookie year and had awful shot selection but about 10 percent of the games he played he showed you what his ceiling was: unstoppable scorer. And about 10 percent of this year Flynn is showing us what his ceiling is: legit starting point guard but not the best player on a contending team a la Nelson/Felton.
I’m praying Rubio comes here, praying dude so I feel ya, but I think its too early to write off a player who has really nothing around him in terms of leadership and talent to boost his game or make him better. Lets have this same discussion next year same date and I’ll have a more definitive stance on what I think of Flynn.
Yeah I see where you’re going. He does need time to develop just like any player in this league. It took a little time for guys like Nelson, Nash and Felton to prove themselves but the difference between them and Flynn is that those guys had specific skills they brought to the table to begin with. Nash was a terrific passer and shooter and just needed someone beside him to really prove his point. Felton has been a fantastic defender since coming into the league as well as an above average shooter.
The only skill Flynn has to work with concurrently is his explosive first step. Sure it can get people off balance but he has proven that he can’t make a good pass each time to an open player on the outside nor finish strongly in the lane after he beats his defender. The other problem is that the system in which he is playing doesn’t allow him the freedom to utilize that step very often. Its quite sad to be honest.
Now, as for Nelson, I do agree with you there. He took a while to develop and Flynn may be in the same boat but you also brought up the reason why Nelson is as good as he is. Two words: Dwight Howard. Its easier to be top-notch point guard with a monster center like Howard underneath the hoop. The Wolves obviously don’t, and probably will never, have that kind of guy. That’s what truly separates Flynn from Nelson.
I will continue to forgive him because I do like him but I think everyone is growing frustrated with his play as well as the entire team. He has shown glimpses of his ceiling but not consistently enough to the point that we were expecting when drafting him with the 6th overall pick last year. Even Jennings has shown more consistency than Flynn, especially at the beginning of this season. So, I will keep waiting and watching but I’m really hoping for a slight, even subtle change before this season ends.
If the Wolves get Wall, our roster will be more expendable and flexible than any in the league and will answer many prayers of David Kahn, who’s hoping to build a team to get into the playoffs in a little while. Wall will put Flynn on the bench, where he belongs, while he learns how to run a basketball team. Rubio could do the same but Flynn is more of a legit all-around talent than Rubio, giving the Wolves the best option possible.