Timberwolves Quotes and Notes from Around the NBA

Last night in Detroit:

Kendrick Perkins: 17 Min., 0 pts., 3 rebs, 4 PFs. 
Steven Adams:     31 Min., 17 pts., 10 rebs, 3 assists, 3 steals, 0 TOs, 5 pfs.

Oklahoma City might have found their replacement at center. He doesn't get the ball a ton, but he does positive things, like make the shots he gets, avoid turnovers, crash the offensive glass, block shots. Way more impressive early then Alex Len. Who would have guessed? Bonus note: The Wolves could have had him.

The Nets lost a depressing overtime game to the Wizards in Washington. I was not and am not sold on the Nets. It's very awkward: they are trying to play 11 guys a night, and nobody is averaging 30 minutes.  My sense is that kind of depth works better in theory. Problem: a few guys are playing well, but some aren't, and you are still running them out there. And they're old.

I suggest you avoid any Golden State Warriors fans for a while. I doubt they are happy with the Wolves after Steph Curry hurt his ankle against Ricky Rubio the other night.  The Warriors, who had been scoring nearly at will, proceeded to manage only 74 points against the Spurs last night (who had only 76 themselves) sans Curry.

Anthony Davis is very, very good at basketball.

Onto last night against the Mavs:

I was very happy to see Nikola Pekovic have a strong run of play in the 2nd half. He finished only 4-9 from the field, but was 3-4 in the 2nd half, and wound up with 8 FTAs on the night. I was researching this yesterday, and will probably write about it after another few games, but my primary conclusion is that Pek's struggles are mostly just variance. Yes, there are a couple of changes in his usage and game, but he's going to have an 8-11 game here pretty soon.

Rick Adelman had a couple of interesting quotes after the game:

"I decided to cut it, close it down. I was going to play JJ and Ricky and Kevin (in the guard spot) and Robbie behind Cory and then Dante and then Kevin Love. I just thought we had a day off tomorrow and I just wanted to get a rhythm in the second half and that's easier to do when you're only playing 8 guys at the time."

"I think one thing we have done since the start of the season; we are off to these quick starts. Scoring a lot of points in these first quarter, in the first three games. I kind of went with the starters for a long time to kind of keep going on the run. But Pek and Ricky need to get them out a little earlier, so they aren't going 12 straight minutes. But you need to keep Pek and Kevin on the court for the fourth quarter. Gives JJ a chance to play with those guys."

It seems as if Adelman has been giving good thought to the rotation, and coming to some of the right conclusions. Will be very interesting to track rotations in the coming games.  The fact is, the bench has to play.  You have to get rest for your main guys.  Right now, the Wolves bench simply is not that good, which means Adelman has to figure out ways to mitigate the damage they do.  I thought he did a good job of that for the most part last night, especially in the 2nd half, and hopefully that will continue to happen.

Robbie Hummel got the nod to fill in for the injured Derrick Williams over Shabazz Muhammad. Not surprising, but indicative that once they get a couple of guys back, especially Budinger, Muhammad is likely headed to Iowa.

Today's birthday is Sandra Denton, born on this date in 1969. She's better known as Pepa from the rap act Salt-n-Pepa.

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