The Wolves really missed Big Al tonight.
Simply put, the Wolves lacked any physical presence tonight. Even when things got chippy, especially between Luis Scola and Ryan Hollins, the Wolves failed to elevate their intensity and level of play to match that of the Rockets. And I think the Rockets used their stiff mentality to push their lead beyond the threshold of the T-Wolves.
First off, I’d like to pose this question: When a team shoots a high percentage, is it a result of bad, lazy defense? Or does it correlate with the “Hot-hand” theory? Well, the Rockets began the game shooting 66.7% in the first quarter and didn’t decline much from there. The Wolves got off to a good start shooting as well but in the last two minutes of the first threw up some poor shots to sharply decline their percentage to 47%. The Rockets ended the game shooting a respectable 47.4%. The Wolves shot 45%.
In the second, the Rockets started to take over. I might add they did it subtly, as the Wolves didn’t seem to play bad, just not great. But the Rockets still went into halftime with a 10 point lead, 60-50.
The third started similar to the second, with the Rockets slowly playing better than the Wolves but never stepping on their throats to keep them out of it. For example, the Rockets started the quarter 3-3 from 3-point range but it never held the Wolves out for good. They slowly kept chipping away a couple of points at a time.
The fourth, once again, was no different. The Wolves kept cutting the lead, then went into a funk that led to another double-digit lead for the Rockets. At one point late, the Wolves were down by nearly 20 but fought back to cut the lead to nine only to give it right back and allow the Rockets to nail two 3-pointers to bury us into the court. Needless to say, it was an odd basketball game to watch considering we were never out of it despite shooting terribly and being down by almost 20 at one point. Very up-and-down.
The big story of tonight’s game was Luis Scola, sadly enough. His oddly cocky and burly (I don’t know if I can call him “burly” with that girlish hair-du) attitude led the way for the Rockets. He started off early, going 4-4 at one point and ended the first quarter with 11 points and six rebounds. He never looked back from there. The Wolves had difficulty getting him to miss mid-range jumpers in which he had success with all night. Quick curl plays and pick-and-rolls from the top of the key weren’t defended properly and usually left a wide open Scola to hit an 18-foot jumper. Even when someone got a hand up, it was usually Darko flailing into the air then falling onto Scola sending him to the foul line. He ended up with an impressive double-double of 25 points and 21 rebounds.
One highlight for the Wolves was Kevin Love. Nothing new, right? His full-court length outlet passes (I counted three of them) and rugged rebounding gave the Wolves opportunities to get back in the game, and they did at times but it just wasn’t enough. Only problem with Love tonight was his shot wasn’t as money as usual and he seemed to play less tonight. Sure he played 33 minutes but it just didn’t seem like his presence was felt as much as we needed it to be. When he was on the court good things happened, when he was sitting, well, it was vice-versa. It just seemed like he never got into the right groove. He ended up with 20 points, 11 rebounds and four assists. Outside of Love, we lacked the sniper like shooting we needed tonight in order to keep on the heels of the Rockets consistently.
The only Wolf willing and able to score tonight other than Love was Ryan Gomes, whom is my new favorite player because he gave my mother an autographed pair of game worn shoes earlier this week. What a sweetheart? Gomes unleashed this brutal spin move which he utilized brilliantly from the high post tonight. He simply wound his body up tightly, then whirled around defenders and took it hard to the rack which resulted in either an open lay up or a trip to the line. He ended up with 17 points.
As for the other Wolves, none simply played hard enough to stick with the Rockets. I was again impressed with Darko’s basketball I.Q. tonight. He seemed to sense where people were on the court and made adjustments accordingly like tip passes through two defenders to Hollins underneath for some slams. Hollins was 7-7 tonight but probably five of them were dunks and all a result of beautiful passes set up by another player. He only created one shot for himself. A nice little hook-shot I might add. Flynn shot well and had 14 points and limited his turnovers to three but he wasn’t enough of a stickler on defense to frustrate Aaron Brooks, whom shot the lights out from everywhere on the floor finishing with 25 points of his own. Brewer looked so-so as, like I said in the pre-game piece, he was trying to make too many plays especially at the wrong moments. He’s not Kobe Bryant nor even close, so the off-balanced-”I hope you go in”-shots don’t work and just seem awkward. Brewer was a feisty defender tonight as he poked at dribblers from behind causing them to lose control of the ball. But he never quite slowed down his own counterpart though. Kevin Martin shot well tonight going 11-23, 4-10 from 3-point land and ended with 30 points. He was a tough man to tackle and not many people contested his shots from outside, giving him some good, open looks all night.
All in all, tonight was not the best performance for the Wolves. The bench play wasn’t as solid as we could’ve hoped, despite Kevin Love’s performance. There were a lot of open shots bricked off the rim which resulted in Scola’s impressive rebounding numbers. But it still comes down to defense. Going back to the question I posed earlier, which do you think is the correct answer? Is it a copout for me to say both answers are right? Because it truly was a lack of intensity on the Wolves part on defense as well as some hot hands on the Rockets like Scola, Martin and Brooks, who kept throwing daggers into the bullseye from 10-22 feet out all night. Sure, you could argue 47% isn’t that great, but I’ll bet that if tonight’s game wasn’t as fast paced, both teams would have less possessions and the Rockets would’ve shot above 50% for sure, because when they were on, they were on.
The Wolves have now lost 10 of their last 11 and are not looking like they desire to turn things around. The return of Al Jefferson should surely help but the team needs other players to step up as they hope to kick themselves out of this current funk. Up next will be another match-up with the Dallas Mavericks at the Target Center. Let’s hope for good things to come starting then on Monday night.
