Timberwolves makes good winning run
January 14th 2009 17:46
Just recently, the Minnesota Timberwolves' 5-game winning streak was snapped with a loss to the Miami Heat at home thus suffering their first loss of the new year.
Regardless of that streak being halted, the Wolves still managed to put together a remarkable stretch by taking full advantage of a schedule that pit them with teams below .500 in five straight games. The potential of Minnesota's rebuilding squad was in full display in those 5 games and there are also glaring weaknesses that coach Kevin McHale will have to fine tune as the team grows and progresses.
Minnesota was pretty much the picture of one, if not the most, hardluck teams this season. They may have won their season opener but it was down hill from there with 8 straight losses. They snapped that losing streak by winning 3 of their next 5 games. After that, the Wolves had a franchise third worst 13-game losing streak.
At 4-23, it was safe to say that the rebuilding Wolves will still be a lottery team at season's end. Minnesota had poor performances and heart-breaking losses littered all over their early campaign this season.
Randy Wittman got fired and Kevin McHale took over as head coach and was relieved of his General Manager duties. 8 more losses followed after the coaching change and it seemed that Minnesota boss Glen Taylor, once again made an unreasonable move because nothing changed. The Wolves remained also-rans.
The Taylor-McHale duo in Minnesota has got to be one of the most criticized NBA front office heads of this generation. A lot has been written about how they cheated the salary cap and made bad draft day decisions and some actually labeled them as examples of league market destroyers.
Quite harsh remarks for those two but it doesn't seem to matter to them because they're here to stay and they will be sticking to what they have. After all, they're the bosses. Taylor runs the show while McHale is a Minnesota legend that will probably remain a fixture with his 13 years on the job as proof notwithstanding detractors.
They traded Kevin Garnett to Boston 17 months ago and they have a bunch of young players that weren't regarded highly enough to merit to be saviors of a team that is going on a different direction opposite Garnett. They changed uniform and hardwood designs for the Target Center hoping to rid themselves of the harsh reality of Garnett's departure but they remain in a gritty dust bowl trying to find ways to return to respectability.
Minnesota finally snapped the 13-game losing streak after Christmas Day by winning at Madison Square Garden with a 120-107 count it also was their first win with McHale as coach this season. The Wolves looked totally different in that game considering that they shot awfully well (51.4% from the field). They also beat the Knicks at their own game by going 13 of 24 from deep for 54.2%. That was pretty astonishing given that the Wolves are 28th in the league in 3-point percentage and were making only 4.6 per game!
The Wolves went on to split their remaining 4 games in 2008 which included their win against the Knicks. They fell to the Orlando Magic at home but rebounded well against the Memphis Grizzlies also at home. But the most ditinguishing game was their last game of the year where they squandered a 29-point lead and lost to the Dallas Mavericks. It was the biggest blown lead in franchise history for Minnesota. Coming out of a game like that is pretty depressing knowing that a win was actually at hand against an aspiring playoff team such as the Mavericks.
Despite that debacle, the Wolves were given a nice schedule to take advantage of. Starting the the new year they were scheduled to play their first five games of the year against teams below the .500 mark. Fortunately, fate smiled on this hard luck ballclub for the first time this season sweeping it all up thus their 5-game winning run that somehow gave the Minnesota faithful something to remember this season.
Minnesota successfully racked up wins against the Golden State Warriors, Chicago Bulls, Memphis Grizzlies, Oklahoma City Thunder and the Milwaukee Bucks to somehow build momentum and confidence for the long road ahead.
In their last loss against the Heat, the Wolves actually fared well up to the last minute. Too bad the breaks of the game didn't went their way but showed signs that these Wolves now know how to fight tooth and nail. They just got to keep their heads up and musn't be discouraged in defeat against playoff caliber teams.
Among the key players that really turned heads for the Wolves in their recent run were Al Jefferson and Randy Foye.
Jefferson has been even more devastating this season averaging 22.2 ppg, 10.4 rpg, 1.7bpg and 1.6 apg. He surely made a run for the Most Improved Player award last season by serving as the Wolves go-to-guy at the post and is turning out All-Star performances in his recent games where he has been topping the 30-point mark with much regularity and dominating off the boards.
Foye, meanwhile, has been on the rise proving to be the team's resident clutch player as of late. We keep seeing the ball in his hands in tight game situations for Minnesota and he has been pulling through in his best way in their best stretch of the season.
Everybody knows that Minnesota doesn't have much on the forward spots but their starters there has been putting on the work lately. Ryan Gomes has been steady and has shown his touch from the perimeter while Craig Smith has been doing his darnest best to stay toe to toe with other players at power forward. Gomes and Smith can sometimes be interchangeable depending on game situations.
The starting point guard is actually Kevin Ollie, but since he has been bugged by injuries as of late, Sebastian Telfair has been quite productive especially in distributing the ball may it be as a starter or a contributor off the bench.
Talk about the Wolves' bench, they won't make rave reviews but they deserve to be commended for a good job in their winning run. Rookie Kevin Love has been marked with inconsistency and disappointments thus far here in his first season in the league but he still has a long way to go and has a great room for improvement. Coming off the bench for now will not hurt this UCLA standout. His 8.2 ppg and 8.3 rpg averages are just fine giving good frontline help. Rashad McCants also found himself top scoring for the Wolves in some of their wins and stepped up greatly when Mike Miller was in the injured list. Rodney Carney has also found his range lately contributing well with quality minutes on the floor.
As a team, their main strength that carried them in their wins was their shooting performance especially from beyond the arc. Where did that came from? The Wolves aren't supposed to be shooting like 50 or 60 percent from deep in games yet they have been doing it with more frequency this time and now has the ability to outshoot their opponents in any game. That explains the Wolves' ability to jump to big leads right out of the gates. In the loss to Dallas, Minnesota actually converted 9 of 14 from deep for a staggering 64.3% success rate. And in their last win against Milwaukee, they went 13 of 22 for 59.1%! There will surely be more to come if they don't let up. That type of shooting will keep them in the hunt in any game they will play.
Another strong point for the Wolves is their rebounding. They have been pretty consistent by not being terribly out-rebounded and they can dominate opponents when they outwill them on the boards especially in the offensive glass. Their rebounding strength was on display like in the wins against Chicago and Oklahoma City wherein they had 51 and 57 rebounds respectively including 17 and 18 offensive boards in the same respect.
Weaknesses can also be traced in spite of winning as far as Minnesota is concerned. The Wolves are still prone to cold shooting spells which is the reason why they lose the big leads that they build and they are dragged to close games, most of which, they hadn't been sucessful.
They're also not great shakes as far as their defensive game goes that's why they will have trouble against the better teams in the league. The Minnesota staff had better fine tune this aspect of their game in order to fare much better in the foreseeable future. Giving up too many points won't get any team that far.
Of course this article can be perceived with a grain of salt considering that Minnesota's last 7 wins all came against sub-.500 teams only but it serves as a good notice of what a young rebuilding team like the Wolves are capable of doing against any team in the future if not the present season.
Photos by AP
Randy Foye and the T-Wolves seized the opportunity to rack up 5 straight wins
Regardless of that streak being halted, the Wolves still managed to put together a remarkable stretch by taking full advantage of a schedule that pit them with teams below .500 in five straight games. The potential of Minnesota's rebuilding squad was in full display in those 5 games and there are also glaring weaknesses that coach Kevin McHale will have to fine tune as the team grows and progresses.
Minnesota was pretty much the picture of one, if not the most, hardluck teams this season. They may have won their season opener but it was down hill from there with 8 straight losses. They snapped that losing streak by winning 3 of their next 5 games. After that, the Wolves had a franchise third worst 13-game losing streak.
At 4-23, it was safe to say that the rebuilding Wolves will still be a lottery team at season's end. Minnesota had poor performances and heart-breaking losses littered all over their early campaign this season.
Randy Wittman got fired and Kevin McHale took over as head coach and was relieved of his General Manager duties. 8 more losses followed after the coaching change and it seemed that Minnesota boss Glen Taylor, once again made an unreasonable move because nothing changed. The Wolves remained also-rans.
Minnesota Timberwolves head coach Kevin McHale
The Taylor-McHale duo in Minnesota has got to be one of the most criticized NBA front office heads of this generation. A lot has been written about how they cheated the salary cap and made bad draft day decisions and some actually labeled them as examples of league market destroyers.
Quite harsh remarks for those two but it doesn't seem to matter to them because they're here to stay and they will be sticking to what they have. After all, they're the bosses. Taylor runs the show while McHale is a Minnesota legend that will probably remain a fixture with his 13 years on the job as proof notwithstanding detractors.
They traded Kevin Garnett to Boston 17 months ago and they have a bunch of young players that weren't regarded highly enough to merit to be saviors of a team that is going on a different direction opposite Garnett. They changed uniform and hardwood designs for the Target Center hoping to rid themselves of the harsh reality of Garnett's departure but they remain in a gritty dust bowl trying to find ways to return to respectability.
Minnesota finally snapped the 13-game losing streak after Christmas Day by winning at Madison Square Garden with a 120-107 count it also was their first win with McHale as coach this season. The Wolves looked totally different in that game considering that they shot awfully well (51.4% from the field). They also beat the Knicks at their own game by going 13 of 24 from deep for 54.2%. That was pretty astonishing given that the Wolves are 28th in the league in 3-point percentage and were making only 4.6 per game!
The Wolves went on to split their remaining 4 games in 2008 which included their win against the Knicks. They fell to the Orlando Magic at home but rebounded well against the Memphis Grizzlies also at home. But the most ditinguishing game was their last game of the year where they squandered a 29-point lead and lost to the Dallas Mavericks. It was the biggest blown lead in franchise history for Minnesota. Coming out of a game like that is pretty depressing knowing that a win was actually at hand against an aspiring playoff team such as the Mavericks.
Despite that debacle, the Wolves were given a nice schedule to take advantage of. Starting the the new year they were scheduled to play their first five games of the year against teams below the .500 mark. Fortunately, fate smiled on this hard luck ballclub for the first time this season sweeping it all up thus their 5-game winning run that somehow gave the Minnesota faithful something to remember this season.
Minnesota successfully racked up wins against the Golden State Warriors, Chicago Bulls, Memphis Grizzlies, Oklahoma City Thunder and the Milwaukee Bucks to somehow build momentum and confidence for the long road ahead.
In their last loss against the Heat, the Wolves actually fared well up to the last minute. Too bad the breaks of the game didn't went their way but showed signs that these Wolves now know how to fight tooth and nail. They just got to keep their heads up and musn't be discouraged in defeat against playoff caliber teams.
Among the key players that really turned heads for the Wolves in their recent run were Al Jefferson and Randy Foye.
Jefferson has been even more devastating this season averaging 22.2 ppg, 10.4 rpg, 1.7bpg and 1.6 apg. He surely made a run for the Most Improved Player award last season by serving as the Wolves go-to-guy at the post and is turning out All-Star performances in his recent games where he has been topping the 30-point mark with much regularity and dominating off the boards.
Foye, meanwhile, has been on the rise proving to be the team's resident clutch player as of late. We keep seeing the ball in his hands in tight game situations for Minnesota and he has been pulling through in his best way in their best stretch of the season.
Everybody knows that Minnesota doesn't have much on the forward spots but their starters there has been putting on the work lately. Ryan Gomes has been steady and has shown his touch from the perimeter while Craig Smith has been doing his darnest best to stay toe to toe with other players at power forward. Gomes and Smith can sometimes be interchangeable depending on game situations.
The starting point guard is actually Kevin Ollie, but since he has been bugged by injuries as of late, Sebastian Telfair has been quite productive especially in distributing the ball may it be as a starter or a contributor off the bench.
Talk about the Wolves' bench, they won't make rave reviews but they deserve to be commended for a good job in their winning run. Rookie Kevin Love has been marked with inconsistency and disappointments thus far here in his first season in the league but he still has a long way to go and has a great room for improvement. Coming off the bench for now will not hurt this UCLA standout. His 8.2 ppg and 8.3 rpg averages are just fine giving good frontline help. Rashad McCants also found himself top scoring for the Wolves in some of their wins and stepped up greatly when Mike Miller was in the injured list. Rodney Carney has also found his range lately contributing well with quality minutes on the floor.
As a team, their main strength that carried them in their wins was their shooting performance especially from beyond the arc. Where did that came from? The Wolves aren't supposed to be shooting like 50 or 60 percent from deep in games yet they have been doing it with more frequency this time and now has the ability to outshoot their opponents in any game. That explains the Wolves' ability to jump to big leads right out of the gates. In the loss to Dallas, Minnesota actually converted 9 of 14 from deep for a staggering 64.3% success rate. And in their last win against Milwaukee, they went 13 of 22 for 59.1%! There will surely be more to come if they don't let up. That type of shooting will keep them in the hunt in any game they will play.
Another strong point for the Wolves is their rebounding. They have been pretty consistent by not being terribly out-rebounded and they can dominate opponents when they outwill them on the boards especially in the offensive glass. Their rebounding strength was on display like in the wins against Chicago and Oklahoma City wherein they had 51 and 57 rebounds respectively including 17 and 18 offensive boards in the same respect.
Weaknesses can also be traced in spite of winning as far as Minnesota is concerned. The Wolves are still prone to cold shooting spells which is the reason why they lose the big leads that they build and they are dragged to close games, most of which, they hadn't been sucessful.
They're also not great shakes as far as their defensive game goes that's why they will have trouble against the better teams in the league. The Minnesota staff had better fine tune this aspect of their game in order to fare much better in the foreseeable future. Giving up too many points won't get any team that far.
Of course this article can be perceived with a grain of salt considering that Minnesota's last 7 wins all came against sub-.500 teams only but it serves as a good notice of what a young rebuilding team like the Wolves are capable of doing against any team in the future if not the present season.
Photos by AP
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