he raises his arms in the air in classic “I want to make it look like I didn’t just knock the crap out of somebody” fashion?

and it might be more important than all the rest. We got the ball back with 17 seconds left and didn’t get the timeout until 10. Rambis was jumping up and down screaming for it, because all three of the refs were stupidly looking the other way down the court.

So what happened? With less time, Brewer was the one who had to drive into the best defender of the past decade. After the jump ball went out of bounds, we had .9 seconds to put up a shot rather than 7.9. Major screw-up.

There’s a lot of similarity between a Paul Pierce drive and a Corey Brewer drive. Sure, NBA conventional wisdom tells us that Pierce is moving with precision while Brewer is out of control, but in terms of what actually happens, it’s a herky-jerk drive with erratic motion and lots of bumping into people.

I’m not sure if Pierce was being shut down or just never showed up for this game, but twice in the fourth quarter, you could see him decide to drive it, and from the moment he starts dribbling at the top of the 3 point line, you knew there was going to be a foul. Simply put, he was going all the way to the rim, regardless of what kind of defense there was in front of him, and nothing we could do would keep the refs from blowing the whistle. Could Brewer get away with that? No chance.

I think refs may give more calls to star players in some occassions, give make-up calls, and use their own biases to make some judgments, but I’ve never seen any evidence (the for sale ‘confession’ of a convicted felon aside) that would make me believe that David Stern or the NBA at large is rigging games.

That the NBA is missing out on an opportunity to enter a new golden age of interest and profitability. The NFL is king of the crop these days mostly because of it’s parity. Sure, some people still think that the Favre’s, Brady’s, and Manning’s of the world will get some calls other guys won’t, but with instant replay there’s a least some level of in-game accountability. Furthermore I think most fans think it’s exciting that their team can come together and make the playoffs after a disastrous previous year. In other words, you don’t need dynasties to be exciting as the storylines of fairytale teams (like last year’s Falcons) is more than enough. The current renaissance of great young QB play is great for the NFL, and the NBA could have the same thing if they just let people discover it by letting the guys play it out. I’d rather know that KG is better than Pech and Hollins because he proved it on the court, not because he knows how to cheat and not get caught.

..meant to write “large stage” instead of “large scale”

..something more along the lines of issuing credit default swaps on assistant coaches.

….and as an individual stat it isn’t all that effective. However, if you use it to determine lineup effectiveness, it’s a fairly decent tool. The basic premise goes like this: How well does the team do with Brewer on the court compared to when he is off? How do the Wolves perform on both sides of the ball in terms of generic +/-, pts/48, and whatever other stat you want to throw in there. You can look at 5 man rotations here:

http://basketballvalue.com/teamunits.php?year=2009-2010&team=MIN

And Brewer here:

http://basketballvalue.com/player.php?year=2009-2010&id=712

Just for the sake of an example, let’s look at the points the Wolves score and give up when Brewer is on the court: 293/304. That’s a -11. When Brewer is on the bench, the Wolves put up a 91/106, good for a -15. However, they put up the -15 in significantly less time than the minutes he is on the court. If you put this on a per possession basis, the Wolves give up a total of -5.08 points/100 possessions with Brewer out there compared to -11.57 pts/100 possessions when he is on the bench. This really doesn’t tell us much about his overall worth; rather, just how valuable he is in relative terms to the guys and lineups who replace him. Again, this is a team measurement more than anything else and his adjusted plus/minus numbers simply could mean that the Wolves have terrible options all around. Whatever the case, the Wolves do better on both offense and defense in terms of points/100 possessions and pts/48 minutes when Brewer is out there jacking up all sorts of crazy shots than they are when he’s on the bench. There are a lot of other factors that go into this sort of thing but it’s pretty interesting.

BTW: There are some pretty decent attempts at figuring out an individual defensive player rating. The latest one is here:

http://www.basketballgeek.com/2009/10/30/individual-defensive-efficiency-ratings-extracted-from-play-by-play-data/

It’s from last year’s data but it’s pretty clear that Brewer was the best defensive player on the team.

Exactly;

+- is simple how much the player’s team has scored more than the opposing time during the time the player is on the court.

So if Brewer has a +3 in the game against Dallas .. then this means that during the time that Brewer was on the court the T-Wolves scored 3 more points than the Mavs.

This is a stat that has to be met (like all others too actually) with the right mindset. As this is a teamgame, being on the court with 4 other good guys on your team, playing against the opposing teams bench, playing garbage time minutes etc etc are all factors that might influence the game quite a bit.

Because of this there’s a site “popcornmachine” that shows how the +- goes during certain stretches of the game. So you can for instance see that Brewer registered a +5 during playing against the other teams bench team with Al of the floor but had a -6 against the other teams starters without Al on the floor (I’m just pulling these numbers out of my hat).

So all in all, it’s definitly a good stat for finding chemistry between 2 players. If 2 players some to have better +- numbers when they’re on the floor together but worse +- when playing seperate than that could indicate that there might be some good chemistry between the two.

Especially in large quantities it can also be used as a gauge of a player’s all-around performance (and I see SnP just was a tad quicker :p)

I just don’t think KG can bring it like he used to. I know that he could two years ago, but he doesn’t look the same now, as he did then. He missed an easy dunk (because he didn’t get up high enough) in the opener against Cleveland. He bear-hugged Brewer in a situation where he’d normally play honest defense. He clanked a few 21-footers down the stretch, en route to a 12-point effort against the mighty Wolves interior defenders.

From what I’ve seen of Garnett, post-injury, he’s not the same. Since his injury (by the accounts I have read) was mostly a wear-and-tear sort of thing, and not an operable ligament tear or something, I don’t anticipate much progress from here on in.

The Celtics are LOADED with talent, right now, don’t get me wrong. In fact, Rasheed might be one of their three best players, this year, when it’s all said and done. Marquis Daniels was the most underrated pickup of the off-season. I don’t think Garnett needs to be what he once was for them to win this year’s title. And good for them, because I don’t think he’s got that same type of ability. We shall see…

….and I view KG as something of a 21st Century Bill Russell-esqe talent who was betrayed by bad management. The “could have been a contender” character who finally got to prove his worth in a title fight after being put together with a good trainer/staff. The guy was a transcendent talent and he was squandered by a Minnesota basketball folk hero. There’s all sorts of fantastic layers to the story but the heart of it, for me, remains that he was one of the very best, if not the best, player in the league for a stretch of ball in the early to mid 90s. He’s one of those guys that if you have to pick a team to bet your life on, you’d want him in the starting lineup.

BTW: To tie together a few bits and pieces of this thread, Bill Simmons has a “vintage team” he picks in his book to square off in the ultimate death match. His team:

86 Larry Bird
03 Tim Duncan (which really chaps my hide considering the time frame)
85 Magic
92 Jordan
77 Kareem
86 McHale
92 Pippen
77 Walton
01 Kobe
09 Wade
09 CPE
09 LBJ
01 Ray Allen

His rules are that he had to have seen the team/player play and that they had to fit the generic mold of his favorite team: the 86 Celtics.

My team goes as follows:

1- 87/88 Jordan (people forget that he was his craziest before he figured out the mental part of winning it all)
2- 08/09 LBJ (as close as it gets to MJ)
3- 03/04 KG
4- 93/94 David Robinson
5- 05/06 Dirk
6- 86 Bird
7- 89/90 Barkley
8- 84 Magic
9- 94/95 John Stockton
10- 02/03 T-Mac
11- 99/00 Shaq
12- 97/98 Karl Malone

I’m not sure that there’s a noticeable difference between guys like Mario Elie/Avery Johnson/Aging Robinson and Terrell Brandon, Pre-foot-problems Wally, and Joe Smith. In any case, Duncan had a legit supporting cast for two of his titles, but it still wasn’t in Boston KG’s category. His first two titles came with a cast that was about like KG’s in Minnesota. When KG had those guys around him, it was one-and-done every year.

and this is purely speculation that Rambis has some players flagged as having more potential and so long as they haven’t been playing like crap and making poor decisions he will leave them on the floor during crunch time. Just a guess but it would seem to go with his overall MO IMO

nice.

…with all of the corn still standing. Normally deer don’t have that type of shelter on the eve of deer hunting season. They are typically back in the woods and off the main roads. Some of these fields have significant acreage of corn still standing right next to the road and the deer are just popping out of nowhere. I can’t wait until 500,000 Minnesotans with guns start to thin them out a bit.

….was one of the most entertaining games I’ve watched in a long, long time. It was amazing.

Whether he makes it or not, I don’t know — but his role is a starter’s. He’s the opposite of a Ben Gordon or Randy Foye, who go in the game to blow up for a stretch of scoring when the more structured first-team offense is in the game.

Brewer, in a perfect world, where he learns how to calm down and knock down wide open shots, is the kind of guy that starts and finishes the game.

I love the idea of getting a Rudy Gay, adding Ricky Rubio, and drafting a third big man like Derrick Favors. I think Ricky Rubio could perhaps do what Nash did in Phoenix, by way of pushing the tempo to a point that you no longer need much size up front. That would be ideal for what the Wolves have started to build.