Game Recap: Houston please don't laugh at our problem.
by MoreJuice on Mar 6, 2010 10:41 PM CST
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Print(Ed Note: Many thanks to MoreJuice for writing Houston's game wrap. He volunteered to write this last week and I am more than happy to bump it up to the front page. Wyn and I have talked about throwing some game wraps open for FanPosts and if this sounds like a good idea, and if you would like to share your game wrap thoughts with thousands of your fellow Wolves fans on some upcoming contests, I'll put a thread up later in the week with some open dates and you can sign up then. For now, let's thank MoreJuice for his work and talk about the Houston game.)
Ugh.
That was one of those games in which I often wondered why I even bothered spending 2 hours of my day watching Ryan Hollins, Damien Wilkins, Sasha Pavlovic, Darko Milicic, and Ryan Gomes bumble around the court at Target Center when it's highly unlikely that any of those players will have provide any meaningful contributions if and when this team returns to the land of relevance. When your a diehard and your team sucks, you don't continue to watch every game hoping they reach 25 wins, you watch to see the young players develop, you watch for hope, and when that hope, due to suspension and injury, consists of just four players (Kevin Love, Jonny Flynn, Corey Brewer, and to a lesser extent, Ramon Sessions) it makes for an awfully boring game.
The Wolves were out-worked from the start, and the first half was less of a competitive basketball game and more of a highlight reel of Rocket's swishing wide open three point jumpers, each punctuated with a Jim Peterson: "Man...". Aaron Brooks repeatedly abused Jonny Flynn and any other Minnesota defender, either scoring or penetrating and finding an open shooter. Luis Scola looked like Wilt Chamberlain circa 1965 with 25 points and 21 rebounds, 8 of which were offensive mostly due to lazy or non existent seal offs by Ryan Hollins and Darko Milicic. The Wolves made a late run and came within 7 points, but Ryan Gomes blew back to back nice finds from Flynn, a wide open three pointer and a layup, and they never got closer. On the positive side, Kevin Love again proved to be the best player on the team with another mostly solid performance that included a couple highlight reel outlets, each of which produced fantastic overreactions by Hanneman and Peterson (both reacted as though he had just thrown the single greatest outlet passes in the history of the NBA).
Cliche alert!
Keys to the game: Points off Turnovers (HOU 23) and Offensive Rebounding (HOU wins 15-9)
Notes:
Darko is a fantastic passer and a solid defensive presence, and I understand he hasn't played regularly since November, but wow, he is wheezing 2 minutes in to the game, he looks like a fat kid in gym class out there. Even if he decided to stay, I'm not sure the Wolves need someone with that type of work ethic on their roster.
Sasha Pavlovic may be the single worst player to ever play semi regularly in the NBA, I miss Rodney Carney.
Who had "And the Rockets, red glare!" in the Tom Hanneman cheesy play call pool?
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Yeah
Darko was moving really slowly up and down the court in the second half especially. Really nice to see his passes though. He really needs to be a better rebounder. If he wants an offense to run through him, he needs to score more than what he did on the shots he was taking (easy baby hooks where he should be making 50%+ and he made 1/5 I believe).
Corey was fun to watch, sans the mistakes
Love’s outlet passes really were a thing of beauty. And he had 4 this game! With a chance at 5, but it got blocked. I mean, that’s gonna look REALLY nice in the future
Flynn had a decent game, but a terrible +/- while Sessions had a decent game and (comparably) a tremendous +/-
Wilkins, Gomes, and Darko are upset that you just lumped them in with guys who have yet to realize they are playing basketball.
Wilkins, Gomes, and Darko aren't bad players
But it’s likely that none are in the long term plans for the team. So when I tune in to watch the future and it’s those guys losing by 18 out there it becomes a buzz kill.
Darko is a solid part time player
If he wants to stick around, he might be worth $4 mil or so for 25 MPG, but I don’t see enough out of him to think he is a 35 MPG starting center. Still would like him around if he could accept the above terms.
beating a dead horse
I know I have mentioned this many times before, but I need to mention it again since you did in your post. Yes, Sasha is a complete waste of time, money, and burn that we just can’t seem to understand. Amen, Carney was many times better. Where is he playing this year by the way? Is he doing well? A guy doesn’t hear much.
76ers
He’s barely getting off the bench in Philly and putting up some pretty uninspiring numbers. I was never a big fan of Carney because he wasn’t that productive. He could run, jump high, and make the occasional 3-pointer, which made him pretty exciting when he did make a play. But he is just another example of Wolves fans longing for a mediocre player that used to be here because the current product is so bad.
by Rascal Flatts on Mar 7, 2010 6:47 AM CST up reply actions
I just miss him in comparison to Sasha
Sasha is a total waste of space out there, he commits dumb turnovers, always looks to shoot and usually misses, gets absolutely worked over on defense, etc…
Agree
I believe Rambis was the one that wanted Sasha. What an awful assessment on his part. I was never on board when they did it. I just didn’t see how he could help, especially after drafting Wayne Ellington.
by Rascal Flatts on Mar 7, 2010 11:02 AM CST up reply actions
Well
if he had somehow duplicated his one good year from Cleveland, we might have another win right now…
Wolves should not have signed Sasha
or Carney for that matter. They should have gone with a shortened roster and saved the money for next season. Also would have given more PT to guys who might be around in the future.
on the upside
we did have an Alando Tucker sighting last night. Replaced by Pavs minutes in the second half.
The fact that Sasha plays even one minute...
Lends credence to the theory that the Wolves are secretly tanking.
(I know Ellington is injured and Pavs only played 6 minutes, but it felt like 25 and Sasha gets inexplicable minutes even when Ellington is healthy)
I don't get
How one can question Darko’s work ethic when he is out of shape and still hustling harder than several people on this team. His work ethic has actually impressed me if anything.
Because he's out of shape?
I know he was sitting on the bench, but most NBA players get more exercise than one 48 minute game every other day (or so). He could’ve stayed in shape by working hard off the court, but he obviously didn’t.
Sure he hustles
But he is a professional athlete who used his lack of playing time as an excuse to get way out of shape and eat cheeseburgers in the Knicks locker room before games. His stamina was a big reason why Luis Scola went crazy last night.
Hopefully he proves me wrong in the next few weeks.
Playing hard during games is easy. If you have any competitive fire at all you’re going to try as hard as you can to win games. Putting in the work outside of games is the part that takes a strong work ethic, passion and desire. Darko either lost that after all these years of disappointment or, more likely, he never had it.
How can a guy go from playing shape
to totally out of shape in 3 months?? Something tells me D’Antoni would say he wasn’t in that good of shape back in November. Even getting out of playing shape, after two weeks he should be able to be on the court for five minutes without looking like he is spent. Seriously, in a five minute stint, there are at least a few stoppages for fouls or turnovers, not to mention a TV timeout…just shouldn’t be that tough.
I imagine it’s hard to not be winded when you probably smoke two packs a day. Isn’t that a graduation standard for middle school in Eastern Europe?
When I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.
Geez people
Ya, Darko’s out of shape. And ya, maybe he could have/should have done more to stay in shape while in NY. But ya, he was also playing for a coach who’s ego is bigger than NYC and who’s consistently jerking players around (first Darko, now Danilo).
Also, from everything I’ve read so far, Darko is putting the work in to get in shape right now. However, the human body being what it is, that doesn’t happen overnight. My guess is that if anything watching Darko recently serves as a good illustration of just how phenomenally in shape these guys are compared to the average in shape, athletic person.
Growing my own "Darko-stache" since last Monday.
Not really relevant to our game
but it’s more relevant here than anywhere else as it’s about a game :)
But I am watching the Orl LA game right now and the refs are absolutely murdering Orlando. There have been 3 calls now that even the ESPN game crew is talking about how bad they are. Somehow Orlando is still up. Probably because Barnes is pissing Kobe off (it’s kind of funny to watch them both whine and then wonder why they get techincals) and Kobe has taken a bunch of dumb shots (though he has also hit 3 or 4 dumb shots).
Howard is absolutely manhandling Gasol and Gasol looks like he is about to start crying on the court right now. The refs are giving Gasol all of the calls of course (one where he looked like an 8 year old absolutely throwing a fit and grabbing and almost hitting Howard and they called it a foul on Howard). Makes me really want Orl to win and I don’t even like Orlando.
That was a good game
I enjoyed Kobe missing the final shot and jogging into the locker room looking annoyed all in one motion.
hmm
“hope, due to suspension and injury, consists of just four players (Kevin Love, Jonny Flynn, Corey Brewer, and to a lesser extent, Ramon Sessions) it makes for an awfully boring game.”
I don’t know if it says more about Jonny, Darko, or me, but I have more hope and interest in watching Darko than in Jonny Flynn, Darko’s stated desire to go to Europe included.
Lol
I sure hope you are in the minority.
I’m a Flynn defender probably to my detriment but please don’t forget he’s only recently 21 years old, far too early to accurately judge him.
Oh, it's probably too easy to "accurately" judge him
But it’s NEVER too early to judge.
FLYNN SUCKKSSKSKSKSKSSSSSSS.
/sarcasm
bring carney back
he played some great ball last season…why did we get rid of him
Sasha showed terrible shot selection because he was 'angry' ?
Forward Sasha Pavlovic took four long, ill-advised shots Saturday night and missed them all, dropping his shooting percentage since Jan. 26 to 28.2 percent. “Those shots were born out of anger and frustration. He admitted it,” Rambis said. “He talked to me about it. He apologized for it.”
http://www.startribune.com/sports/wolves/86771007.html?page=2&c=y
"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." -- Yogi Berra
I could really use some emoticons right now...
perhaps an exploding smiley, or one smashing the computer, or drinking heavily…
Wayne, come back soon. I yearn for a Sasha DNP-CD.
Dark Love is a-Brewin...
99.99% chance we're tanking
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/players/3722/gamelog;_ylt=Atdp6tRfbM6k3yUJg9BSzfzXPKB4
I see a 4-2 record when he gets 0 minutes. 2-2 in the games he played < 5.
Can anyone create a chart with the direct correlation between Sasha and losing?
Dark Love is a-Brewin...
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