Howlin' T-Wolf

Darko Milicic is one of the culprits this season for not his hitting free throws

The free throw is the simplest shot on the court behind only the dunk and layup — and even those can be pretty tough given the circumstance. Thanks in large part to Kevin Love’s bruising style underneath, the Timberwolves are fifth in the NBA in free throws attempted per game. But our Puppies are finding it difficult to bury their free points, making only 70-percent of their 30.3 attempts per game.

According to Hoopdata, the Wolves are third in the league in free throw rate, meaning they’re shooting nearly 45-percent of their shots from the free throw line. Dean Oliver, when creating the Four Factors, stood by free throw rate saying “the biggest aspect of ‘free throws’ is actually attempting them, not making them. Teams that get to the line more are more effective than teams that make a higher percentage of their free throws . . .,” (Harvard Sports Analysis). This is really interesting to me, mainly because it hasn’t pertained to the Wolves yet this season; they’re getting to the line at will, as told by the 45-percent rate, but they’re missing too many free throws causing these painful losses. Therefore Oliver’s hypothesis isn’t exactly true, but why?

The Wolves have been battling late in games for wins and have come out empty three straight times. You could check the standings and see that the lowly Wolves are back to their losing ways this season with three losses to start the season but that’s misleading. What no one sees until you dig deeper is that the Wolves have lost three games by a total of just nine points. That’s it, even against some of the NBA’s best in the Oklahoma City Thunder and Miami Heat. Pretty impressive, if you ask me.

Nine points in three games isn’t a lot. It could easily be forgiven, you know what I’m gonna say, at the free throw line. Their proving effective at getting to the free throw line but aren’t cashing in the opportunities, especially in key moments, thus proving Oliver wrong in his theory.

The Wolves have missed big, big opportunities at the charity stripe down the stretch of big games. Last night we saw Anthony Tolliver make one of two, which would’ve actually given the Wolves a lead over the Heat, which may or may not have changed the outcome. The game before that we watched in awe at Love’s ability to get to the free throw line in the first quarter alone. He ended the game with 24 free throw attempts but only made 19 of them. As last season’s second-best free throw shooter on the squad, those five misses were huge, obviously because they only dropped the game by three to the Milwaukee Bucks.

The young Wolves are not only having trouble hitting their free strokes but they’re missing them in key, opportune moments in crunch time of important ball games. The Wolves haven’t won a game in 18 games, dating back to last season. That streak is obviously a little unfair to bring up given this current squad’s outlook but you can’t ignore the fact that they still have trouble with the fundamentals of the game. Free throws are a simple shot turned daunting task with the added pressure, but these young players need to learn to buckle down and hit the shot when the team needs it most. So perhaps free-throws-made-in-crunch-time ought to be changed in to the Four Factors in place of free throw rate because, in the Wolves case, it’s one of the reasons we’re not winning right now. And until they change that, they may not win for quite a few more teams just based off the upcoming schedule.

The Wolves were as scrappy as I've ever seen tonight, playing physical until the final buzzer

In the huddle with just six seconds left, head coach Rick Adelman warned the players of a lob to Dwyane Wade for the go-ahead basket. He knew it was coming, the man’s obviously been around the block a few times. But in just two seconds time, Wade lept and caught a beautifully thrown pass from Lebron James, rolling it off his fingers into the net to take the lead.

It was as if Adelman had predicted the future and did his best attempt to stop it. But what happens happens, especially when you stick two rookies and two reserves on the court for the final seconds of the closest, most nerve-racking games in recent Wolves’ history.

The Wolves’ answer to the go-ahead lob? A contested long two-pointer by no other than . . . Wayne Ellington?! Well, make that 0-3 in game-winning/tying buckets this season.

You can’t blame it on the players. The sheer talent of the Miami Heat are a difficult task to overcome. Game-changing alley-oops have been in their repertoire since last season and no one has done much to stop them. But it hurts; it really, really hurts.

As for the rest of this one, it’s hard to come up with something to say; something that can properly portray the emotion and passion that went into this game. For starters, I’ve never seen the Target Center so packed before in a very long time. Granted there were glimpses of red and black all over, but the majority was there to support Rubio and the Wolves. Kevin Love had great stats (Who knew?) and Derrick Williams showed spurts of his versatile inside-out offensive onslaught.

If ever there was a statement made by Rick Rubio to the coach saying ‘Hey, I should be the starter,’ tonight was the night. Rubio’s immaculate play hyped up the crowd to full-capacity and kept the Wolves in this one the whole way through. Even when things were rough — The Heat really started to pull away in the second quarter — Rubio was the glue that held it all together by making himself and others around him better (Who knew Anthony Randolph would go off for 14 points and play stellar defense; he was a whole new man with newfound confidence.) Sure, Rubio made major mistakes, ones that costed the Wolves dearly but never detrimental enough to count them out for good. The dazzling passes and assists were to be expected but the two three-pointers, one of which that blew the roof off the Target Center late in the fourth that added onto the Wolves’ itty-bitty lead, were novel and special. It’s time for the kid to start, give ‘em a shot.

But you really have to hand this one to the defense and reserves. As stated earlier, Adelman left the hot hands in the game, all the way from about five minutes left in the fourth all the way down til the clock struck 0.0. Rubio and Williams were in for obvious reasons — it’s different watching a coach stick with the best players in the game’s most critical moments — but Anthony Tolliver? Wayne Ellington? They seem questionable to someone that didn’t watch but from my perspective, they earned their burn to be in during crunch time. Tolliver played some of the best defense I’ve seen in a long while on Bron Bron, and Ellington did a great job of sticking with Wade off of screens, one of the most difficult tasks in the NBA, honestly (Wade, despite Ellington’s defense, was still able to hit shots, including a step-back jumper that tied the game late).

But still, what more can you really say?

At what point do you start to say that moral victories don’t matter anymore? The Wolves have now played three very close games — two of which came against the NBA’s best — and really had a chance to actually win. But the petty mistakes — turnovers and bad fouls — keep them from reigning victorious.

Sidebar, and please, respect the sidebar: I don’t want to excuse the Wolves for their mistakes; the turnovers and fouls are on them. But it is the lack of balanced officiating, especially when smaller teams like the Wolves face-off against superstar-studded teams like the Heat, that really gets to me. There were plenty of questionable calls that didn’t go the Wolves’ way, and that’s to be expected. It’s to be expected because you’re usually granted a similar call on the other end of the court. The Heat lacked in the ‘questionable call’ department tonight in comparison to the Wolves. It is not the reason the Wolves lost — again, turnovers, fouls and missed free throws is why they lost — but you can’t look past games like this with bad officials in a league where officials are known to “influence” games before. Just sayin’.

So how much more can the Wolves take? Again, three very close losses may look respectable, especially taking last season into account, but to a player on this “new” Wolves squad, at what point do they lose this momentum and confidence and start to fall back with nothing credible to show for it? Many believe we’re “turning that corner” but these losses are truly heartbreaking and potentially damaging to this young team’s psychè. It’s a tough question to address but a fair one at that.

Coming up the Wolves take on some of the best of the West in the world champion Dallas Mavericks, San Antonio Spurs and Memphis Grizzlies. There must be at least one win our of those three games, otherwise the Wolves could stare straight into a decline, both mentally and emotionally.

Minnesota Timberwolves (0-2) vs Miami Heat (3-0)

Last game: Timberwolves: L, 98-95 vs Milwaukee; Miami: W, 96-95 vs CHA

Michael Beasley's defense will be key for the Timberwolves tonight.

For the second straight game, Minnesota faces a team coming off a one point decision against Charlotte. (File that under “weird things you don’t actually need to know.”)

The Heat defeated the Bobcats Wednesday night in Charlotte on Dwyane Wade’s controversial final shot.

The Timberwolves looked frustratingly like last year’s Timberwolves for much of Tuesday against the Bucks before rallying to lose by three.

The Key Questions

#1. How focused will Miami be?

When Miami roared out of the gates in their first two games against Dallas and Boston, the general consensus seemed to be “holy crap…they are going to go 66-0.”

While the Heat certainly looked like world beaters in those games, people seemed to forget how fired up the Heat were to play A) the team that beat them in the Finals and B) their oldest rivals in Boston. (HA! See what I did there? Oldest rivals? Haaa…never mind.)

So it shouldn’t really have been a surprise that Miami came out flat against a Charlotte team that wasn’t picked to pose much of a threat to anyone. After all, it was the second night of a back to back. They were on the road against an inferior team, and they had just won a huge home opener the night before.

The bad news for Minnesota is that the Heat won’t be on the second night of a tough back to back tonight. The Heat will be well rested and ready to go. Oh and the other bad news is that it’s the Heat, and even playing a mediocre game, they were still able to knock off the Bobcats.

Still, if Miami comes out complacent against the Timberwolves, it certainly can’t hurt, right?

#2. But for real though, what happened against Milwaukee?

Bad things. Even Kevin Love’s monster box score was marred by inefficient shooting numbers (6-18 from the field and a bad last second three that ended up being the difference). Luke Ridnour shot well, but turned the ball over more than he assisted (4 TOs, 3 assists). Barea was 1-9 from the field. Beas was 6-13. Williams was 1-3. Tolliver took only one shot in 21 minutes of play and he missed it.

Again, the Timberwolves looked disturbingly like last year’s model. Hopefully it was an aberration, and Adelman’s return to the bench will be the difference. Hopefully.

#3. How many more moral victories can this team take?

Let’s be completely honest: moral victories suck. While a Timberwolves victory tonight isn’t an impossibility, it certainly isn’t likely. Miami has enough talent to coast to a win against most teams and the Timberwolves need everything to go right to have a chance in this game.

So Minnesota keeps it close through three quarters until LeBron finally kicks it into overdrive and puts them away. The Heat win by 14. Sounds plausible, right? It also sounds disturbingly like last year. The Timberwolves kept losing close games to good opponents until they eventually became so discouraged from the mounting losses that they kept losing, but it wasn’t really very close any more. It would be worse to see that happen this year with an infinitely more talented team.

The Wolves need a win. If they could somehow pull this one out, it would be immeasurably huge to their progression as a team.

The Key Matchups

Different people saw different things from Michael Beasley on defense against the Thunder. Fortunately, I’M writing this preview, and what I saw was a committed defensive effort against an utterly unstoppable offensive force in Kevin Durant. LeBron James is also unstoppable, but in different ways. Where Durant pulls up and punishes you from midrange, LeBron powers to the basket. Where Durant uses his height and his length to his advantage, James uses his speed and strength.

LeBron is yet to attempt a three pointer this season, preferring to use his newfound post moves. Surprisingly, LeBron’s newfound efficiency might work to the advantage of Beasley. Instead of having to move his feet to guard a much faster LeBron on the perimeter, Beasley may be able to focus on trying to keep James out of the paint in the post, which presents a slightly less daunting task. Very slightly, of course.

Kevin Love and Chris Bosh played each other pretty well last season, so again, the biggest question for Love will be how many minutes he plays at power forward and how many he plays at center.

Which brings us to Wade. Is Minnesota’s best option for him Rubio?

I know. Your blood just went a little cold. But Rubio played excellent defense against Westbrook on Monday and Westbrook is considerably faster than Wade. It may be worth a shot. Rubio gambles too much on defense, but the alternatives are Wes Johnson, Barea (who probably won’t be playing due to a minor injury), and oh dear God, I’ve essentially exhausted the entire roster. So…try a zone like Boston did with some success?

Wade may have a big game.

The Outlook

The optimistic view: The Heat are a very, very good team. But even good teams are susceptible to letdowns and the Timberwolves showed Monday that they can scrap against better teams. If tonight’s home crowd can come close to equaling Monday’s, the Timberwolves could be spurred to greater heights and pull off the most important win for the franchise since 2007.

The pessimistic view: The Heat are a transcendently good team, and unlikely to fall to the likes of Minnesota. Even if the Wolves are able to stay with Miami, the sheer talent gap between the teams will eventually decide the game in favor of the Heat.

Team Optimist. Team Pessimist. Choose your side wisely.

Game starts at 7:30 PM on Fox Sports North

Tough loss on everyone tonight

Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, though? Well, that should be shame on all of us.

We can only ride the high of excitement for so long until we have to realize that winning is the ultimate prize. We can all be hopeful for the future and enjoy the new pieces that are pushing us into relevance. But they really should have won this one tonight, especially with a tough stretch of games in the next week, and there’s no excuse for it.

A barrage of mistakes had the Wolves shooting themselves in the foot all night long. Only a brief period where the Bucks seemed to have lost their confidence were the Wolves able to make their move and cut the lead down. But it all went for naught and the tilt had the same result as the Thunder opener: a loss.

A team as young as this will have their up-and-downs, and, by nature, those up-and-downs will be drastic and fluctuate faster than you can believe. So that’s why this makes sense; that’s why losing to arguably the best team in the West one night but playing them tough, and then losing to arguably one of the worst teams in the East on back-to-back nights is perfectly plausible.

It all started with the coach. As ready as Terry Porter could ever be, the emotional toll probably got the best of him in this one. Not to mention all of the non-sensical personal fouls and JJ Barea’s injury didn’t help his rotations in the least bit. But returning to Milwaukee to face the very team that gave him a chance at coaching in the NBA wasn’t easy. When they were going down in the second quarter, the Wolves lacked that spark they had against the Thunder to keep themselves in it. We didn’t see it until the end of the third when the Wolves made their run but by then it was a little too late, and the mistakes were insurmountable.

As I said earlier, young teams like this are going to fluctuate greatly as the season goes on. We watched the Wolves post just 12 turnovers on Monday night but somehow managed to choke the ball up 25 times tonight. Was it a suffocating defense from the Bucks that forced so many mistakes? Not even. It was stupidity and inexperience. Ricky Rubio, after lighting up the faces of Wolves fans on Monday night, made simple mental mistakes tonight. He only had three of the team’s 25 TO’s but it was his lack of confidence to shoot the ball and attack the basket that resulted in broken offensive opportunities.

We can’t just pin it on the new guy, though. Michael Beasley needed to have a much bigger presence in this one. He picked up four extremely quick fouls by the second quarter and spent much of the time on the bench until the end of the third and into the fourth quarters. Beas let those fouls get the best of him, which, in turn, corrupted his ability to persevere. When Beasley becomes disengaged within the offense, he himself checks out entirely both mentally and emotionally; it’s as if things aren’t going his way, it turns into a war: him vs. the world. All thoughts of team-ball and unselfish play go out the door just because Beas ain’t happy. It’s part of the culture change that Adelman talked about in the beginning of the year. And without his presence on the sideline tonight, Beasley let his old habits get in the way of him doing his thing on the court.

And Kevin Love, despite yet another terrific stat-line — the mother of all stat-lines, 31-20 including 19-24 free throw attempts — don’t honestly draw out the whole game. He cleaned up the boards and forced defenders to body him up, which put him at the charity stripe, but it’s the little things that go unnoticed in the boxscore that hurt him and the Wolves. His much-improved defense we’ve talked about was invisible at times we needed it most. His help defense often resulted in blocking fouls rather than the offensive charges he was looking for. But what really discouraged me tonight was the final play of the game. With a chance to tie the game only down by three, Porter took a timeout to draw the play up. The ball was inbounded, thrown to Love and he rises up from at least 4-feet from the three-point line for a horrible, contested shot. My guess is that wasn’t what Porter had in mind to tie it up. Sometimes I question Love’s thinking on the court. His rebounding skills are habitual, practically automatic, making his game look awfully robotic at times. Having said that, I sometimes wonder if Love has the basketball i.q. to lead this team in crunch time. Judging by tonight, it doesn’t always seem so.

Anywho, the Wolves lost a tough one, that’s it. With the upcoming schedule as brutal as it gets, the Wolves may struggle to find their first win within the next five games. Here’s to hoping that learning curve comes a bit early.

Milwaukee Bucks (0-1) VS Minnesota Timberwolves (0-1)

Here's to 48 more minutes of Rubio!

Last game: Timberwolves: L, 104-100 vs OKC, Bucks: L, 96-95 vs CHA

The Timberwolves are coming off a simultaneously disappointing and very much encouraging loss to one of the best teams in the Western Conference. Milwaukee choked away a last minute lead to the Charlotte Bobcats, allowing Cardiac Kemba Walker to beat them with two free throws in the last 9 seconds. Don’t feel bad, Milwaukee. You aren’t the first. Or the second. Or the third.

The Key Questions

#1. So about those three pointers…

3-22 last night against the Thunder. 3 for freaking 22. So much positive stuff went down yesterday that it’s hard to REALLY fault a young team for missing some jittery threes, but if the Wolves had even shot 5-22, that makes up for the point differential (and then some) in a game against (did we mention this?) the best team in the Western Conference. 5-22 is roughly 22%. I don’t ask for much guys.

In the first preseason game against the Bucks, Minnesota was much more impressive from long range, shooting 15-24 for 62% from behind the arc. Look for some of the nervous jitters to be gone, and hopefully for some more shots to fall.

#2. How much will Minnesota’s depth and youth help on the second night of a back to back?

As we have mentioned several times before, one advantage Minnesota may have this season is the ability to play in a compressed schedule without being too gassed from the night before. Not only do the Wolves have multiple quality backups at pretty much every position, but the entire team has roughly the same age and energy level of Hickory High School.

This will be a nice test for Minnesota. Milwaukee is clearly not as good as OKC, but this game is on the road, and these teams have faced each other twice already in the preseason. It will be interesting to see if the Wolves can use their talented youth to their advantage.

#3. Which Michael Beasley will show up?

Ok, so I really just wanted an excuse to talk about his performance last night.

Beasley’s box score last night was SO Michael Beasley. He was 11-27, scoring 24 points. A super inefficient shooting percentage, 20+ points, ho hum. Same old, same old, right? That’s what I thought too, especially when his first three shots of the night were contested jumpers that he bricked badly, or airballed entirely.

But to me, Beasley actually demonstrated some incredibly encouraging signs. For starters, he played excellent defense on Kevin Durant, as Jonah pointed out in his recap. He contested, he moved his feet, he bothered Durant, he worked hard. Read that last one again: Michael Beasley worked really hard on defense. I’m aware Durant dropped 33, but take it from an eyewitness: without Beasley’s hard work, it could have been 50. Easily.

But Beasley looked a lot better on offense as well. STOP LAUGHING. Yes, there were still inefficient jumpers, and he missed most of them. But there were also lots of possessions when he played more like a power forward, and that is one of his strengths. When Beasley plays the three, his opponent was very much mismatched, and Beasley seemed to recognize who would be out of position guarding him in the post. Even better, there were several times when Beasley could have settled for a long two pointer, but instead used his blazing speed to drive to the rim. Again: his stat line was inefficient, but he made some really encouraging plays that look like positive first steps. With some patience, maybe Adelman really can work a miracle. Lots of people will think I’m crazy for that last paragraph, and that’s fine. Just don’t write Beasley off as trade bait quite yet.

The Key Match-ups

Speaking of stat lines that are SO Michael Beasley, the Wolves face Brandon Jennings tonight! Jennings scored 22 points on 8-21 shooting against the Bobcats. I wasn’t able to watch the game, so I honestly don’t know if he showed any improvement efficiency-wise, but the smart money is on “no.”

On Minnesota’s end, it’ll be interesting to see how long Adelman keeps Rubio out of the starting lineup. As much as I like Ridnour (and I really do, his mid-range jumper is truly superb), the Timberwolves play their favorite style of basketball with Rubio running the show, as they demonstrated last night, ending the game with Rubio, Barea, Williams, Beasley, and Love in crunch time. For the record, Kurt Rambis would NEVER have thought to put those five players on the floor at the same time. (”Play my best five players and make the defense adjust to us? YOU ARE SPEAKING CRAZY WORDS, SIR. Burn the witch and run the Triangle.”)

Elsewhere, Andrew Bogut did Andrew Bogut-y things, with 17 points and 9 rebounds. Bogut sometimes struggles against Darko’s length, so we’ll see if Kevin Love gets as much time at center as he did last night.

It will also be interesting to see if Michael Beasley can bring the same kind of defensive focus against Ersan Ilyasova that he did against Durant. Ilyasova isn’t the kind of punisher that Durant is, but he’s sneaky good, and it will be a really good sign for Beas if he can exhibit similar defensive focus against a team like Milwaukee.

A bench battle that only geeky idiots like myself could truly appreciate: Beno Udrih and Luke Ridnour are actually exactly the same player. Please, Adelman and Scott Skiles? Give me this match-up just for funsies.

The Outlook

Expect another fun game. Worst case scenario, the Wolves have a letdown and let a winnable game slip through their fingers, which would be painful entering a week in which they play Miami, Dallas, San Antonio, and Memphis. Best case scenario: the first win of the Ricky Rubio era.

Game starts at 7:30 on Fox Sports North

The new era I speak of doesn’t relate to the losing ways of old. No, we still lost and it was heartbreaking; rather the new era is one with glamorous hope, heavy on the glam, by the way.

But Ricky Rubio and Derrick Williams made big impressions in their NBA debuts depsite losing to Kevin Durant and the Thunder 104-100.

In the most anticipated opener for the Wolves in the last seven years, the Wolves rode that high provided by the 19,000+ fans in the Target Center tonight. The game started off chippy — a shove here, a shove back — but all within reason. Michael Beasley came out shooting (Shocker!) and dropped 11 points to lead the Wolves to a 24-23 lead at the end of the quarter.

The second quarter was a much different story. Beasley kept shooting but the Thunder kept contesting. Russell Westbrook and Durant formed the deadly one-two scoring punch, taking it straight to the gut of the Wolves’ defense.

(Note this crossover; Luke Ridnour was taken to a nearby hospital after this accident*)

*He wasn’t actually injured on the play.

Now this is where the Wolves of old would normally lose all hope, all ability to persevere. They’d walk poutingly into the locker room and come out in even worse ‘a shape than before.

But these Wolves are different. Behind newfound leadership in guys like world champion JJ Barea and the elevated vocalism from Kevin Love, they came out of the locker room looking to put up a fight. And that they did.

Trading blows, back and forth, with Durant and the Thunder, the Wolves slowly picked at the lead, thanks largely in part to Barea’s kamikaze-like efforts. Barea posted an impressive +13 while on the court, justifying the type of spark he injects into this team. Even covering larger players like James Harden, Barea fought through screens, contested shots and then made defenders pay by slashing into the paint at will.

The Wolves eventually cut the lead to one when and eventually captured it after Rubio ran a break down court and sliced a precise bounce-pass between two defenders to a slashing Williams, who took it up for an uncontested reverse slam. Unfortuantely, the Wolves didn’t take advantage of the momentum for long, as the Thunder went down court and Daequan Cook nailed a three-pointer to go ahead by two.

It just got to be too much for the Wolves. A couple questionable calls and Durant-daggers later, the Wolves fell to the hands of the impressive Thunder.

But like I said, this wasn’t your average loss we’ve come to know. This one harnessed special qualities: first off, it was fun. The Target Center was trembling at times from all of the screams and hollers. Secondly, the team looked good. You can tell that Adelman is a better coach than Kurt Rambis will ever be. The offense clicked more efficiently and was much more fluid than the “triangle” ever was. And lastly, this team has some special players. Beyond what Rubio and Williams did tonight, we saw great things from Darko Milicic — yes, Darko — and Barea.

This team is much better equipped to challenge great teams like the Thunder throughout the league — Miami may be a different story but we’ll find out on Friday. Rubio is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. His repertoire of passes is unmatchable and he sports an intelligence to culminate it all together. After defending Rubio for a majority of the fourth quarter, you could see the frustration on Westbrook’s face. After beating him on a back-door cut — and I mean beating him bad — Westbrook had a few words to say to the rookie. Rubio’s response? How about a pass between Westbrook’s legs to Love turning Westbrook red. It sure was a beaute. It’s that kind of mentality that will elevate him into the starting lineup — perhaps as early as tomorrow night. But then don’t forget about the big additions of Williams and Barea, both of which played great games and won minutes in crunch time at the end.

It’s unfortunate it had to end the way it did. Before everyone goes off, checks the boxscore and blames Beasley and his 27 shots for this loss, don’t look past the little things he did. His 27 shots did turn into 24 points, and, although that may not seem very efficient, he made up for it by playing pretty decent defense on Durant all night. Durant was just ridiculous at times — even that could be considered an understatement, — but Beasley always made sure to at least get a hand in his face. Beasley’s way at going about scoring is worth a head-scratch but just don’t forget: this is game one and this is vintage Beasley. You’re just gonna have to get used to it.

That’s all for now. Great game from the Wolves, they definitely earned the attention of the league tonight and, who knows, maybe they can turn these types of efforts into wins this season unlike last year.

Michael Beasley faces off against childhood friend Kevin Durant in the Wolves season opener

OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER (1-0) VS MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES (0-0)

Last game: Timberwolves: None, Thunder: W, 97-89 over ORL

Oklahoma City began their season yesterday at home with a business-like win over the Magic, beating Dwight Howard and company in a battle of teams with confusing, singular sounding nicknames. Kevin Durant, unsurprisingly, showed no signs of lockout legs, dropping 30 points in the opener. James Harden also played well, earning 12 trips to the line on his way to 19 points. Westbrook shot 6-17 from the field and was as oxymoronical as usual, both effective and inefficient.

More importantly, OKC played an excellent defensive game, limiting the perimeter shooting Magic to just 28% from the three point line, and holding Dwight Howard to just 11 points.

Key Questions:

1. How much did Minnesota learn in a short preseason?

This, of course, will be the wild card all season. But early tests against Milwaukee were quite encouraging. Rubio looked confident. Love looked incredibly fit. Williams looked athletic. Anthony Randolph looked bad (oops).

But that was the Bucks, and this is the Thunder. Oklahoma City is a bona fide favorite to represent the Western Conference in the Finals. More importantly, they have demonstrated the kind of model that a team like Minnesota can follow for success. They are a small market team made good by a combination of excellent moves and luck. This will be an interesting measuring stick for the Wolves.

2. How tired will Oklahoma City be?

I’ll be honest, I was really hoping Orlando would prove to be more of a test for the Thunder. But after some blazingly hot shooting early on, the Magic folded quickly. Don’t let the final score fool you, they didn’t prove to be enough of a challenge to truly wear down the Thunder. Flying several hours north might affect the Thunder negatively, and it’s possible the Timberwolves could be a sort of trap game for OKC, but Minnesota played the Thunder surprisingly well last season, and don’t expect a quality coach like Scott Brooks to let his team forget that.

3. Where will Kevin Love play most of his minutes?

It’s kind of impossible to guess where Kevin Love will be playing. Love played very well against the Thunder last year, but will Adelman have him running at the customary 4, or will he play (very) small ball and have Love play center? At the five, he would be matched up with Kendrick Perkins, another player who lost a considerable amount of weight in the offseason. But Perk, despite being in excellent shape, isn’t the type of player who can chase Love around the perimeter if he starts shooting threes.

A player who CAN chase sharp shooting big men around is Serge Ibaka, Love’s likely opponent if Adelman plays him mostly at the four. When these teams last met, the Thunder were nowhere near as complete as they are now, as they didn’t have Perkins and were forced to let an overmatched Jeff Green try to slow down Love for much of the game. Ibaka would likely perform better.

The Key Match-ups:

This is difficult because the Timberwolves’ starting lineups haven’t been announced yet and we haven’t seen, well, ANY real rotations yet. But I’ll give it my best shot.

One of the biggest concerns for Rubio is how he will handle the newest breed of NBA point guard, strong, aggressive, freakishly athletic players like Westbrook. So for his first matchup, Rubio gets…Westbrook. Woof.

The good news, of course, is that Minnesota doesn’t need Rubio to score a lot of points. They need him to distribute and handle the ball well. The bad news is that they also need Rubio to play effective defense. Minnesota can’t afford to let Westbrook to destroy them offensively all game, since Kevin Durant will probably be doing plenty of that himself.

Durant will be covered by Michael Beasley who got so utterly torched by Durant in Oklahoma City’s last visit to the Target Center, I expect the burn marks left scars. If Beasley isn’t covering Durant? It’s possible that rookie Derrick Williams will get thrown into the fire, but Williams lost his chance at starting at the 3 when he was unable to guard Beasley. And though Beasley has many admirable offensive traits, he is no Durant, and it’s hard to imagine Williams being able to do…well…anything against the two-time defending NBA scoring champs.

The Wolves are much improved and this will be a fun, interesting game. Expect the home crowd to be surprisingly loud and energetic thanks to the new faces, and expect the young players to be spurred on by this.

I was asked recently what I’m most excited for this season, and it gave me pause. Was I most excited for Lob City? To cheer violently against the Heat until I lose a tonsil? To see a Timberwolves team that isn’t morbidly depressing?

I came up with my answer an hour later, when I was no longer with the questioner (naturally). See, I became interested in sports because I am an avid reader. I love stories and story lines. I love the development. I love the drama. I love the conclusion, sad or happy. I love seeing everything tie together. In 2008, NBA fans got to see three future Hall of Famers win their first championship together, the ultimate happy ending. Recently, the Brandon Roy saga has given us the opposite. (Seriously, read this article and watch this video knowing what we know now, and if you can honestly tell me you don’t get a little choked up, I can only conclude you are made of stone.)

Anyway. What I decided I’m most excited for is the story lines. Here are six from the Timberwolves that I am most interested in following this year. Give me yours in the comments or on Twitter. Read more…

It’s about that time. After finishing the preseason out with two wins over the lowly Milwaukee Bucks (Seriously, they got issues), the Timberwolves are set to open up the season against the Oklahoma City Thunder at the Target Center the night after Christmas.

I have to be honest, after the strenuous lockout, I thought the Wolves were in trouble with such little time to break everything in and incorporate the new pieces. A new point guard, more lineup headaches on the frontline and a new coach all had to learn on the fly in just two weeks time. Practices had to be efficient, to say the least, and the two preseason games had to be taken advantage of. Luckily, the Wolves did just that. Although the two victories were quite sloppy, they pulled out on top, which is something new they’re trying.

It’s called winning. This team will turn heads with their outstanding athleticism and hotshot point guard. This team will also make a lot of mistakes on both sides of the ball because of their inexperience in the league and lack of chemistry due to limited practice time. But what this team does have a shot at is winning more games this season.

With that said, I’m going to make my preseason prediction: the Timberwolves will win 30-35 games and fight for and, I believe win, the 8th seed in the Western Playoffs.

Before you move on to other places on the World Wide Web, allow me to justify. Read more…

Ooftah…

The Timberwolves pulled off one hell of a comeback in Milwaukee tonight to steal their second preseason victory over the Bucks, 85-84.

The game started off awfully slow; both teams weren’t hitting shots, rather racking up the turnovers. Once everything settled in, the Timberwolves hung around the Bucks all night long, not allowing them to pull ahead, thanks to solid defense. But it was a 12-0 run at the end of the game that pulled the Wolves in front, ultimately grabbing the win.

I know what you’re thinking: it’s preseason, not a big deal. But it was. Kevin Love, who led the comeback with big hustle plays on both ends and free throws down the stretch, said it best at the end of the game by saying that this is the type of culture the new Wolves are trying to establish; one that prides itself off effort and plays hard to the final whistle. Despite shooting themselves in the foot all night long, they were able to muster up enough in the end to pull out the win, a very different result to what we would’ve seen just last season.

Love’s leadership is clearly paving a way for the Wolves to install that new culture within the franchise. He took charge in huddles and let his game do the talking. The team as a whole started off slow and sluggish, but not Love; he had 5 rebounds in the first quarter. Love finished with 22 points and 16 rebounds on the night, and I have to mention that his defense was looked much improved.

Here are just a few other points on tonight’s game:

• With JJ Barea and Ricky Rubio out, Malcolm Lee had to step up and play backup to Luke Ridnour, and he did really well. Lee has a special quickness that allows him to go two drastic speeds on offense when he needs to. And his size and strength are tough for smaller guards to counter when he’s on defense. I can safely say that just tonight’s effort may have notched him above Wayne Ellington in the battle for minutes.
• Sorry, Bonzi. It was nice knowing ya.
• Watching Wes Johnson play the 3-spot tonight was like day and night. He definitely looks more comfortable at the 3 than the 2, but it’s just unfortunate our roster doesn’t allow him that opportunity enough.
• Michael Beasley went 4-13 tonight. Yuck.
• Anthony Randolph is trying soo hard. He hustles on both sides of the ball but it’s the little things that burn him the most. He misses easy transitions on defense and he’s cancerous to the offense’s chance at getting quality shots off. But, again, he’s trying.

Again, Love’s play is leading the Wolves into a very difficult start to the season; they’ll meet the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday and also host the Miami Heat and Dallas Mavericks later in the week. Look for Love and the Wolves to clean up their mistakes and harness this momentous win to start up the regular season.