Timberwolves v Rockets Report Card 1/23/12

Kevin backed up his talk, saying that his shots were bound to start falling. This is good to see.
I think Ricky and Kevin’s TO came when they were trying to force things, after the slow start. I really hope that these hurt guys, mainly Barea, Beasley and Webster (Lee too but I think he’ll be a while still), will be able to get on the floor soon. Martell is capable, & Barea and Beasley can be great. We need them to come in a help on offense.

Ricky Rubio.

a few of my own admittedly not real basketball knowledged observations

-It seems to me Rubios shot not falling is getting to him a bit he is really pausing and thinking about taking them most of time there are times you can see him standing there with a wide open look and hes got this shit do I really have to shoot it look on his face. He also seemed like he was trying to press way to hard when all the turnovers happened, you must let the unicorn come to you not try to reign it in. Those negatives aside until the debacle at the end he was playing good defense and distributing well.

-Love was killing it shooting and driving but had a couple bad passes and a not so hot defensive night we really need a defensive big man to put beside him.

-Williams was decent but man he is awkward to watch weird drives and no outside threat I went back and watched some of his college highlight reel stuff and most of it (albeit a highlight film by definition) he was getting clean lanes or alley oops didnt see much of him actually posting anyone up or making to many moves hes not going to get a ton of easy looks in the nba and will need to find some of those abilities or at least be able to knock down jumpers to draw his man out some.

-Darko, Wayne-o, AR, Tolliver really didnt contribute much positively which is nothing new we need a 2 and big bad.

All in all disappointing game but not all that surprising going in with 9 players and no SF or competent SG please all the injured players get healthy already!

Nice work. I like reading the report cards. I also don’t claim to be a stats guy but I would have graded a little harsher for Rubio, Darko and DWill. It seemed just weird to see Ricky make a few bad passes.

- Playing 38 minutes, clearly, isn’t something Rubio is capable right now. We need to limit him to around 30-32. Most of his turnovers came at the end of the 3rd quarter, in which he played the full 12 minutes. Hed had no energy, no legs, and as a result made lazy passes, lazy turnovers etc.

- Rubio has been missing his first open J’s for the last several weeks. If he misses the second one, he totally loses confidence and starts to doubt himself and overthink throughout the game. He needs to get a comfort zone on the court, where he practices shooting 3x more than from any other spot, and that spot should be where he takes his first J. He would really benefit from learning a tear drop.

- DWill is slow and can’t dribble(or doesn’t know how keep his dribble alive)! His drives are horrific and don’t make any sense. In college, especially when he was tormenting my blue devils, he was too quick for our C/PF’s or too strong for SF’s. In NBA he’s playing too weak against PFs and too slow against SF’s. Needs to learn how to use his strengths and take advantage of mismatches.

- Darko needs dunks. Plain and simple. Adelman should just write “DUNK!!!” on his whiteboard. Sometimes I miss Rambis. Maybe if Darko gets a simple tattoo with “DUNK!!” written on it, he’ll remember to do that when he lifts his arms to try yet another finger roll.

- (Correct me if I’m wrong. Knowledge of the cap rules are not my strongest points) I hope Love doesn’t sign an extension. I hope he waits until we sign someone with the cap space we have in the summer, and then sign the extension, as we can go over the cap to sign our own players.

- Toliver, has sucked for the last 3 games. As much effort he gives, there is just not enough talent not just in offense but even in defense. Everybody’s just blowing by him.

- As I’ve said before, I’m really curious on how we’re going to integrate Big Easy, Webster, Lee, Brad Miller, and JJ.

Way too lethargic start to the game.

I think this is a troubling trend. Seems like the Wolves have gotten off to poor starts practically the whole year. When Ricky was coming off the bench we’d get a shot of energy and competent play and the team would start to dig out. Now Ricky is starting so that bench boost is not there.

That was just an awful game. It’s good I didn’t give out the grades. Otherwise it would have been Love B (produced despite being sick), Luke D (some made shots but bad passes and bad D), and everyone else F. Could not stop the HOU guards at all. Turnovers like crazy, including stupid backcourt ones that are instant fast breaks going the other way. Forcing the ball into KLove in the post, where he holds it for 10 seconds a la Beasley. Stupid, stupid fouls where they hit a shooter a little bit causing a 3 point play. EITHER FOUL HARD ENOUGH SO THEY CAN’T SHOOT OR DON’T FOUL. Man, what is this high school?

But I wish he wasn’t constantly on the refs. Rambis never seemed to lobby for his players. Rick does it all the time. While this may be mildly helpful in a vacuum, it has resulted in the players doing the same. Love is the chief offender, but several other players whine incessantly about missed fouls, resulting in their man being wide open on the other end as play continues.

To sum it up, leave the whining to the coach, or whine during stoppages in play.

well, I’ll give you a C for coming up with that excuse…

Thanks for the write-up SlowBreak. You were very generous with the grades considering the wolves lost by 15. But hey, everyone has their own scale :)

I know there’s an East/West discrepancy, but please.

Western Conf teams like MIN play every Eastern Conf team twice: once at home and once on the road. The remaining games are all vs. West Conf foes, with a few extra vs. divisional foes I believe.

In this truncated season, there are some Eastern Conf teams we only play once.

It is a pretty big advantage to be in the east. There are tons of terrible teams.

For the fourth overall pick, Johnson has been a crushing disappointment. While he’s a decent wing defender and has suffered from playing out of position as a shooting guard in Minnesota, the underlying big picture is that he’s a role player at best.

Johnson is already 24 and is neither an elite athlete nor an elite shooter; he’s emphatically proving that latter point at the moment by shooting 12-of-48 on 3-pointers. Meanwhile he’s earned 10 free throws the entire season and has a shockingly high turnover rate for a secondary offensive player. I’m sure he’s a better player than he’s shown thus far, but I’m equally sure the Timberwolves should have drafted Greg Monroe or Paul George.

can’t fix broke. No one else can, for that matter. We have some players who have clearly regressed from last year, and others that have been playing to their usual level of mediocrity. A new system, whatever it is, hasn’t fixed it. Only new faces can.

Right now Ricky’s talent is being wasted. He passes to guys that are in great position only to end up losing an assist because our guys can’t get the ball in the hoop. It’s got to be frustrating for the kid.

Fair criticism that I graded too high. I think that had I given this game a night to (in)digest before posting I would have lowered them a bit.

The difficulty for me with evaluating this team is that we have so few players who are clearly deserving of minutes at the professional level and most to the ones we do are very limited.

luke can shoot but can’t defend, Pek shows flashes of but makes dumb mistakes, Randolph is weird and Ellington is only useful when he is hitting shots (something Madison Dan showed us we can’t reasonably expect).

Two of our other two real looking pro players are rookies and, as such, are going to make rookie mistakes. I think that may even be why they call them that.

Even our super star is limited in that he is best playing off what is happening around him.

This all makes our beloved Wolves difficult to fully assess other than to say simply that they are still not a playoff team but finally may be heading in that direction.

We need more players Mr Kahn.

the hopes for this team seem a little bit high given the disappointment expressed by a majority of the Houston post-game comments. I heard a lot about this being Ricky’s worst game, which may be true, but Ricky had a 3-1 assist to turnover ratio in this game if you don’t count the 2-hand shove that Lowry delivered to cause one of his turnovers(and I don’t—terrible non-call, with a great “what was that?” shouted out from someone courtside that was clearly audible on TV). A 7-10 record for the youngest team in the league is impressive(could be 8-9 if Ellington passed to the wide open Kevin Love for a 3-point winner at the buzzer vs. Miami). More impressive is getting decent defense(with some notable exceptions) from a team that has very few solid defenders. Rubio is suprisingly good, bordering on excellent. Wes has good length to impact shots. As they mature, the shooting and defense will improve. I don’t agree with all of Adelman’s lineups or substitution patterns, but overall, he has this team playing vastly better than the 3 prior seasons. The Rockets game was the worst loss of the season, but they are a good team and we were short-handed. McHale has also shown that he’s more capable as a coach than as a GM. Looking forward, I hope we can replace Beasley’s contract with help at the 2 or 5 and make a big jump next season given an offseason to implement the offense and focus on team defense. Still believe Wolves could win 26 to 33 games this year, and although that will not make the playoffs in the West, things could be worse—we could be Wizards fans and be subjected to coach Randy Wittman for the remainder of the season!

to go from Flip to Wittman! I can’t imagine the horrors that that young team will have to endure….
Oh wait!