The Timberwolves surged in January thanks in large part to Al Jefferson and a schedule that often let them dodge the best players on other teams. Now, of course, they will attempt to navigate the final two months of the season without Big Al. Along the way, they are sure to get a taste for what those January opponents felt while playing at less than full strength. What should be expected now?

*A steady diet of Kevin Love, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. He’ll take his lumps, but many of them will be valuable lessons learned.

*A big man rotation involving Calvin Booth, Jason Collins and Mark Madsen. The Wolves have gone 13-18 since Kevin McHale took over as coach. Booth has played zero minutes. Collins has played zero minutes. Madsen has played 23 minutes. Combined, that’s less than one minute per game. Now, those three figure to see significant action (anywhere between 35 and 50 minutes combined per night, depending on matchups, is our guess). While they might offer reasonable defensive resistance and moxie, each of them might be closer to Al Roker than Al Jefferson on offense. If this injury doesn’t point out the glaring need to add quality big man depth next season, nothing will.

*As a result, there will be even more pressure on Randy Foye and co. to score on the perimeter. Foye, in case you haven’t noticed, has cooled considerably lately. He is just 24-for-84 (28.6 percent) in five February games, playing an average of 40 minutes in those contests (four of which were Wolves losses).

*So that’s more pressure on Love, who was starting to find a serious flow with Jefferson; more pressure on Foye, who is already showing signs of wearing down or at least slowing down from his hot January pace; and no more 23 points and 11 rebounds a night from Big Al. Unless the Wolves can reinvent themselves on the fly as a guard-oriented team that plays stout interior defense, it will be very tough for them to win games down the stretch. That, of course, will lead to a marginally better draft pick — hardly worth the chemistry interruption between Love and Jefferson, the emergence of a low post star or the increasingly positive vibe around Target Center.

Fasola-link! Game, set, match.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 at 8:19 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.