Game Thread #8: Can the Wolves get a win?

can’t give Blake that much space on the perimeter

Wow hear that? McCants hearing some boos.

lol Foye must lead in the league in foot-on-the-line 2s

play him!

gotta comment on Wittman’s nice suit too, I don’t know about the tie but the suit is sweet

what the fuck is with these calls Roy gets, he must pay the refs

goes into the lane completely out of control and the refs bail him out

Roy is involved in a play, so the refs call a foul on whoever is near him

Blake elbows Telfair in the face, then mauls Miller, and nothing, but when Brewer boxes him out he flops and gets the call

then Love ties up Oden and gets called for a foul

I usually think the refs are great but these guys seem lazy to me

Roy flails himself at the basket and gets a phantom call. The Wolves announcers are dumbfounded.

the fans are right too, he had Foye wide open in the corner

Odens elbows Collins and Collins gets the call

and neither Love nor Jefferson is in the game

and the Wolves are running iso plays for Collins

still no sign of Love, but Wittman decides it’s a good idea to put Kevin Ollie in the game. Fernandez immediately dribbles around him on 2 straight plays.

push by Blake on Telfair. That dude is a punk.

wow that is one strange out of bounds play – make the passer throw a 40-foot pass?

I will puke. Projectile style.

the Wolves or these stupid Overbeck commercials. Bring back that dude from last year.

7 three-point attempts for the team the entire night? 7? That’s…not acceptable.

Witt’s just over his head. Although part of the bizaare roles players are forced to play are due to a flawed roster design.

Also, Love’s shooting % is beginning to trouble me. A low shooting % is characteristic for rookies, but he’s had some horrible shooting nights (although he has the ability to collect points as he’s their best player at getting to the line, and he’s really good at the charity stripe).

I’d like to see a couple things considering this. 1) I’d like to see him add some more gather-and-jump/pump fakes to his game. I think he’s trying a few too many putbacks/tip-ins, and he too often either gets blocked out too far or his opponent’s too long. I think if he brought some rebounds down first and then either go up hard or draw the foul we’d see some improvement. Which leads me to 2) the guy’s role right now in the offense seems to be to set screens and crash for weakside boards, usually shooting only if he has a wide open J (and his jumper just isn’t falling right now) or at the end of the shot clock. I understand he’s a rookie, and that Al’s the alpha dog, but we’re talking about a supremely efficient offensive player at an elite NCAA program last year who was at his best working mid-range (where Al usually establishes position) and given leeway to operate with the ball. Since he’s basically getting played in a Tyrus-Thomas-like role right now, I wonder if that’s draining his efficiency. And 3) as I said, his jumper just isn’t falling right now; although I’m not that worried about that. It should come around.

So, even though in my opinion he’s not being utilized all that brightly (shocking) and in fact, offensively, his strengths aren’t being used, at the very least it looks like Love’s downside is a very good rotational big, and he could fill that role even on a legitimate contending team. From that standpoint, he’s probably the team’s most successful draft night acquisition in a long time.

But…I suspect if they ever get a coach in here who has a creative bone in his body or even merely modest evaluation skills, his upside is much more exciting. Or, maybe this is Witt’s version of tough love, giving the guy scattershot playing patterns and marginalizing him in the offensive sets because he’s a rookie and rookie’s have to earn their stripes on this 1-7 team. I don’t know.

Or maybe our fears about the alchemy of Love and Jefferson on the same team are founded, or perhaps we even underestimated the sum-less-than-the-parts quality of it on the offense. That is, offensively, Love probably thrives working the mid-to-high post with the ball in his hands and creating; Jefferson thrives working the mid-to-low post and scoring. So, is there just some incompatibility there?

I still would love to see if a different coach with some fresh ideas come in here to see if he could make it work.