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

The Wolves go back-to-back games this weekend with losing efforts. Anything new? Didn’t think so.

Heat 97, Wolves 84

Starting with the Miami contest, Dwayne Wade and the Heat took it to the mouths of the Timberwolves. Literally. A Jamaal Magloire elbow to the jaw of Darko Milicic knocked out the only standing chance the Wolves’ defense had at stopping a smokin’-hot Dwayne Wade. Wade finished with 39 points and took the game over in the second half, which really put this one out of reach of the Wolves’ grasp.

Other than a great start for Darko, there is nothing positive to say about the Wolves’ performance. Players looked frustrated, especially Kevin Love. Some players excel when playing with anger and raw aggression but not Love. He forces shots and then gets lazy after things don’t end in his favor. The worst part of it all is that he being upset upsets me as a fan. Seeing our best player give up on their team is one of the more depressing sights in the NBA. It has happened often this season, mostly during the long 16-game losing streak. Love just needs an attitude check; he needs to realize that this team has no real talent and is not competitive and won’t be for the rest of the year and possibly longer. As fans, we’ve accepted that and so, it’s time for him to as well.

Back to Darko. Before leaving for the hospital in the second quarter, Darko was playing magnificent. The Heat had severe difficulty getting the ball inside on him. Three terrifying blocks from the big guy was frightening enough for the Heat to start forcing jump shots. From this, the Wolves were given multiple credible opportunities to take advantage but couldn’t quite do so. On the offensive end, things were going great for Darko as well. He went 5-7 from the field and left with 10 points. An injured Jermaine O’Neal opened the lane up for Darko to go to work in and so he did. But when Darko was bopped in the jaw and left the game, the lane was more open than a 24-hour Holiday on defense. And you would think that Al Jefferson and Love would make up for Darko’s absence on the offensive end at least but they couldn’t overcome their own struggles.

In the end, it was another pitiful effort from the Wolves. A bare Target Center didn’t care and neither did the players. Wade was practically out there embarrassing the Wolves while posing for pictures and I guess the Wolves felt that it was un-needed to step in and put an end to the glamorous photo shoot. So much for caring.

Thunder 116, Wolves 108

Sunday’s contest against the Thunder started out similar to that of the Phoenix beat down. I’m sure most of you still remember that; giving up 79 points to the Suns in the first half. Does that ring a bell?

The Thunder literally shot out of the gun and scored 43 points shooting 71% in the first quarter led by Kevin Durant’s 20 points. They were draining three’s and were  buzzing like bees on defense giving no margin of error whatsoever for the Wolves to capitalize on.

As the first half came to a conclusion, a 73-50 deficit was enough for me to kick back and catch up on some Z’s before my blood pressure rose high enough to the point where a heart attack was a probability if I continued to watch the game.

To my surprise, I woke up mid-third quarter to the Wolves cutting the mammoth Thunder lead to only nine points with a few minutes left. Ryan Gomes displayed some range and helped lead the charge back into the game — He finished with 22. Dwelling on whether this was a dream or not, I pinched myself to assure it’s credibility. With the reassurance of reality, the fourth quarter began. The quarter started off positively and things were still looking good. Al Jefferson looked back to form, utilizing his quick post moves and making Nenad Kristic and Jeff Green look like children. A big key though was that he was getting to the line; something the Wolves weren’t used to in the first half. The quarter stayed tight and the lead eventually dwindled down to six but in came “Durantula”.

Quiet in the second and third quarters after his eruption in the first, Durant blew up yet again in the fourth with 10 points while pushing the Thunder lead back into double-digits. It was too late for a final push on the Wolves’ behalf and they fell in defeat in Oklahoma City.

The Wolves truly missed Darko’s inside presence tonight. He sat with a “minor concussion” in fear of getting another blow to the head. In the first quarter, the Thunder kept flying in from every which way for some thunderous dunks because no one on the inside were willing to stop them. That trend continued all game long thus proving that Big Al, Love and Hollins will never be defensive maestros. Too often did guys like Russell Westbrook and Durant slice their way into the lane capping it off with a slam or an easy, uncontested lay-up. This kind of thing is getting very old, very fast and will be one of the top needs to address this offseason.

The offense played well down the stretch. Jonny Flynn conducted most of this game and did a very good job at it. He shot just over 70% and finished with 22 points. Ever since given the freedom to be more creative and play his own style of game, Flynn has produced better numbers. The past five games he’s posted an average of 14.4 points and 4.2 assists per game. He’s turning the ball over less which is very surprising considering he’s attacking the hoop more often but what comes along with attacking the hoop is a better chance of getting fouled. Flynn got to the line seven times tonight and is cashing in when he gets there — 15-17 in the past five games.

With nothing good left to say about the Wolves, let’s turn our attention to the Thunder. Being a Wolves fan, I do not let myself cave into rooting for another Western Conference team. Occasionally, I root for an Eastern Conference team like my pick this year, the Bucks, just because the Wolves don’t see them very often in the season. But devoting my attention to another Western Conference team would be like a cardinal sin. Well, count me a sinner because Kevin Durant has turned me into a believer of this Thunder squad. I enjoy watching their games; they make me feel as if I’m watching the NCAA tournament and rooting for the underdog in every single game. Only difference is that they aren’t the underdogs anymore. They are legitimately a top eight team in the NBA this year, in my solid opinion, and it’s all owed to Durant.

The way Durant takes over a game gives you that feeling. You know, like you throw your head back and close your eyes saying “Oh my god” or “You’ve got to be kidding me!” but in a good, entertaining way. Durant is so silky-smooth in all aspects of his game, not just his jump shot, which is absolutely lethal by the way. You can tell he’s starting to put more emphasis on his individual defense, which then in turn improves the Thunder’s team defense. If I had a dollar for every time Durant steals a ball then makes a basket or a fantastic play in transition, I’d have, well, I don’t know, but a lot of damn money! But what probably makes him more enjoyable to watch besides his fluent style of play and game-changing abilities is the fact that Durant seems like just a good, genuine guy. He appears nice and is cool-headed on the court while keeping to himself as he does his thing. Watching Lebron jaw back-and-forth with Kevin Garnett earlier today in the Celtics-Cavaliers match-up made me feel dirty inside. It’s surprising how many cuss words you can read off a person’s lips while watching television. But see, Durant doesn’t do that. He is a stern guy who takes his job seriously but still knows the appropriate time to crack a smile and think, “Man, I’m having a good time.” And that is why I will be rooting for the Oklahoma City Thunder in this year’s NBA Playoffs. Also, I hope K.D. knows that if I were to have an MVP vote, it would be going straight to him.

Cheers to you Heat and Thunder. You beat probably the worst team in the NBA this weekend, but don’t think of this as a momentum booster in much of any way. More difficult challenges lie ahead as you continue your journeys to the NBA Playoffs. As for the Wolves, things are already as difficult as they can be but with the not-so-good Golden State Warriors coming to town this Wednesday, things could possibly be looking up…Or not.

Take a deep breath in… And release.

All Wolves fans can release a full and relieving breath of air tonight after the win over the Sacramento Kings. On the brink of pushing their losing streak to 17, as well as the possibility of tying the NBA’s longest losing streak ever at 24 games, the Wolves came through with an impressive victory at the Target Center. The victory was thorough in all aspects, besides a tiny meltdown in the fourth, but the Wolves did a good job of not letting up completely to allow the Kings to get back in this one.

After a tight first quarter, the Wolves jumped out on top in the second utilizing some intensity — mostly on defense — to take a solid nine point lead going into halftime. Now, normally, this is the point of the game that makes Wolves fans quiver with fear of a let-down or causes them to blow up with sheer animosity towards the players of coach Rambis for completely falling apart, as you throw your remote across the room. But not tonight. The Wolves came out of the tunnel and played the third quarter with their hearts on their sleeves, as if they were playing in the NBA playoffs. Passes were crisp. Shots were falling from all over and best of all, the defense looked as stout as ever.

Fans were probably in awe to see that the Wolves, at one point, owned a 20 point lead and looked as if they were going to cruise to victory. But, wait. Oh, no. Can it be? The fourth quarter starts and so does an 11-0 run for the Kings. Crap, here we go again.

As things got even closer, the Wolves started to buckle down as they told themselves that they would not lose this game. The Kings continued to get decent opportunities to keep hacking into the Wolves lead but made a few too many mistakes down the stretch and the Wolves capitalized. Corey Brewer scored the last 10 points for the Wolves, including a monstrous open-court slam, and the rest was history.

Probably the most profound thing to take away from this game was the fact that the three-headed monster — Al Jefferson, Kevin Love and Darko Milicic — played fantastic together. Together is the key word there. Usually, we see one, maybe two, of them go off for a good stat line, but not tonight. All three came up big and notched double-doubles against a paltry effort from the frontcourt of the Kings. Jefferson looked like he has returned to ‘08-’09 season form, especially when rebounding. He finished with 12 boards, which is three better than his season average. And who said the big guy can’t play defense? Jefferson tied his career high in blocks tonight with an astounding six rejections. Darko also had a good game on the defensive end. He finished with four blocks and also put up 15 points and 10 rebounds in a solid, and lengthy, 38 minutes. With the success of these two, you would think that Love may have had an off-night when going to check the box score. Well, he finished with a respectable 12 points and 11 rebounds in only 23 minutes. Sure, the amount of minutes he played is a bit alarming but the way he sounded after the game in his interview, he seemed pretty happy about the final outcome of the game no matter how many minutes he got to play.

I think this win was generated for a few reasons. 1) The Kings played poorly. They only turned it over nine times but shot 10% worse than the Wolves at 46%. Their frontcourt, which just pounded ours the last time these two teams met, didn’t seem nearly as aggressive or efficient tonight. Carl Landry, their new studly power forward, went 10-24 from the field and just didn’t seem like his-self out there. 2) As I stated earlier, the Wolves frontcourt dominated tonight and was rewarded with three double-doubles across the board. 3) But perhaps the main reason for tonight’s win and why the big men succeeded so well was due in large part to the play of Jonny Flynn.

Everyone has grown frustrated with Flynn, including himself, but he came up big tonight. He had five assists in the first half and ended up with eight. That’s his highest total dating back to the beat down in Phoenix on the 16th. Flynn was moving the ball to open people, and even open spots, on the floor. He was attacking the hoop, and maybe best of all, he shot around 50%. Hallelujah! And so with that said, MVP of the night goes to Jonny Flynn for his 18 points, eight assists and only three turnovers. He was what kept things together for the Wolves, and he was a key contributor to helping the Wolves establish that large lead in the second and third quarters.

Team defense is the name of the game and I quickly want to point out that this is the first time since February 24th that the Wolves have held a team under 100 points. Talk about a defensive improvement! Or the Kings’ own suckiness! Either way works.

Keep breathing, fans. Sure, things still aren’t looking peachy but isn’t it nice to get a breath of fresh air? For the first time in over a month we can all take advantage of breathing in some clean air; air that is not poisoned with the odor of suckiness, and simply inhale the sweetest scent the NBA can offer: A victory.

A toast to you, T-Wolves!

“Drink it in! It always goes down smooth.” – The Anchorman, Ron Burgandy, a.k.a Will Ferrell

ESPN’s Game Box Score

Here we go again…

The Wolves came into Sacramento looking for a competitive contest against another one of the league’s worst teams but found themselves attending the “Tyreke Evans Show” instead. Only one rebound short of his second career triple double, Evans showed again why he should be named this season’s Rookie of the Year. He finished with 29 points, 11 assists and 9 rebounds, leading the Kings to their 23rd win of the season.

Evans took advantage of a lackluster transition defense and took it hard to the rack on multiple occasions. Probably at least three times, Evans took a defensive rebound and went coast-to-coast with it untouched by any Wolves defender. This put tons of pressure on the Wolves to play more efficiently on offense but they just couldn’t answer. They ended the game shooting almost 42% but couldn’t find a basket when it mattered most.

The first half proved to be a close contest. Both teams were allowing the offenses to shoot open looks, inside and out, but it wasn’t until the end of the 2nd where the tide really turned. Evans started heating up from everywhere on the floor and the Wolves couldn’t answer. With a halftime score of 62-49 in favor of the Kings, the Wolves started to panic. Between the end of the second and beginning of the third, the Kings went on a 23-0 run that wasn’t broken until a Ryan Gomes jumper with under seven minutes to go in the third. It’s these kinds of runs that separate the bad teams from the really bad teams. And honestly, the Wolves are a really bad team right now. They couldn’t even buy a basket if they wanted to during that run and the loss of confidence is a direct factor of the pitiful performance here tonight.

The Wolves gave the Kings a few different looks on defense, like switching from man-to-man to a 2-3 zone in hopes of slowing Evans and the Kings down but to no avail. Andreas Nocioni, Donte Green and Evans covered the perimeter while Carl Landry, Spencer Hawes and Jason Thompson dominated in the paint. The Wolves had difficulty contesting the outside shooters and defending the mid-range jumpers from the big men, as well as their physical play in the paint. Nothing new there. As for those big guys, Landry started off hot in the first, going 4-4 with 11 points, then cooled off but was replaced nicely by Thompson. He ended up with 15 points, shooting 6-7 from the field and provided a nice spark from the bench.

Speaking of bench play, try this on for size. The Wolves bench actually outscored all starters minus Al Jefferson. Jonny Flynn, Corey Brewer, Ryan Gomes and Ryan Hollins scored a combined 37 points while Ramon Sessions, Wayne Ellington, Oleksey Pecherov, Damien Wilkins and even Sash Pavolic combined for 41. I’m not so sure whether this is because they had so much garbage time to handle or if its because of the amount of inefficiency we received from the starters.

As for Jefferson, he had a nice game, finishing with 22 points and 10 rebounds. He looked unstoppable in the first half, perturbing Landry and Hawes from the block, but for some apparent reason they stopped giving it to the big fella in the second half. Maybe its because they were already down by too much or maybe the Kings defense stiffened up underneath. I really don’t know because, frankly, this game left me scratching my head, which was filled with questions like “What the hell are they doing?!”

Another question I thought about and will pose, which is a little more specific than the last: Why isn’t Sessions playing more minutes than Flynn on a nightly basis? He doesn’t necessarily need to start but his production off the bench was superb tonight. He was playing defense — Evans actually started cooling off when Sessions came in the game in the third — and he ran the offense correctly, all while hitting open shots from all over. He finished with an impressive 13 points, four assists and four rebounds in 27 minutes. As for Flynn, he had 12 points, in which five were during garbage time at the end of the fourth quarter, and didn’t record his first assist until the clock hit 1:20 left in the game. All of that in 21 minutes from the 6th overall pick in last summer’s draft. With that kind of performance, I am officially going to start a petition that Sessions and Flynn should completely split minutes, or better yet, Sessions plays more than Flynn each game for the rest of the season. Sessions, only 23, is a young guard too, searching for his role on an NBA team just like Flynn, so I think the Wolves ought to give Sessions more time to prove himself as a legitimate role-player on this team. Who knows, maybe playing Sessions more will light a fire under Flynn’s kiester and kick him into a whole other gear.

A quick little note with more on the bench play, Wayne Ellington posted his second consecutive double-digit performance. He had 15 points, while shooting 4-5 from three-point land. It surely does look like he has found his stroke that he had back in January. He is creating shots and taking what the defense gives him. It’s good to see that going forward for the Wolves’ rookie.

The Wolves will be leaving Sacramento, and the home to the “Tyreke Evans Show,” to head to Phoenix for a showdown in the desert Tuesday night. The losing streak is now at eight losses in a row, and even worse 15 out of their last 16. Its safe to say that their confidence has left the building as well as any sense of immediate change in the future. If the Wolves want to have any shot at up-ending the Suns, they will probably want to fix their defense. Easier said than done but the biggest open-sore for the Wolves right now is their transition defense, and going against the league’s most run-oriented team, it will be exploited like no other. It’ll be like the Suns pouring sulfuric acid into the gaping gash known as the Wolves’ transition defense. And I’m predicting it will hurt. Badly.

Well, good luck in Phoenix, boys.

ESPN’s Box Score

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.

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.