Uff-da: Bulls beat Wolves 85-75 in forgettable Target Center debut
Posted on October 22nd, 2008 – 11:20 PMBy Jerry Zgoda
My colleague, the always affable Patrick Reusse, called Wednesday’s first quarter the worst quarter or period of a sports event he has seen in 40 years of sportswriting. And remember, this guy has seen how many Gopher football games?
Eight days after coming from 19 points back to beat the Bulls in Chicago, the Wolves this time spotted them 20. They trailed 29-9 after that first quarter. That’s right: 29-9! Then they duplicated that feat by scoring nine points in the fourth quarter, too. The disparity in that closing quarter, though, was only 13-9.
Too bad the franchise chose Wednesday to televise a preseason game for the first time in its 20-year history. If you Tivo-ed this one, just clear the memory space out right away for something more valuable, like Iron Chef America or Landscapers Challenge.
“Better to get it out of the way now,” Randy Wittman said.
They couldn’t make a shot nearly all night and yet made a game of it by the fourth quarter, pulling within a point with just fewer than eight minutes left but never being able to take the lead.
Some of the unsightly details: Corey Brewer went 1-for-7 in nearly 22 minutes, rookie Kevin Love went 1-for-10 in 24 minutes. He missed every little shot imaginable around the basket and the one he made was a two-handed, can’t-miss-this-one dunk in the game’s final two minutes.
That’s his second consecutive rough outing, after fouling out in Bismarck on Sunday in only 11 minutes against Denver. Tonight, he just sat and stared from his locker stall, looking stunned. You almost wanted to go up, give him a hug and tell him there will be better days ahead.
In his column in Thursday morning’s newspaper, Patrick calls the eight-player trade that swapped O.J. Mayo for Love a “budding disaster.”
Near the end of the game, teammate Blake Ahearn swatted at Love as he came off the floor and shouted, “Don’t worry about it.”
Said Love: “I hate to lose and I hate to play bad. I’m lucky it wasn’t my season-opening game.”
The best thing about the night: Al Jefferson looked like he’s ready for next Wednesday’s opener against Sacramento at Target Center. He was his old, unstoppable self, with 19 points on 8-for-15 shooting and 11 rebounds. Rashad McCants matched his 19 points off the bench, but needed 17 shots to do it. Brian Cardinal saw his first action of the preseason, all 3 minutes, 38 seconds of it.
The Wolves play again Thursday night at Target Center, this one against Milwaukee. This one is on both TV (FSN) and radio (KFAN). Go ahead, Tivo it. You can always erase it.
Wittman said he expected to make some roster cuts on Thursday. He gave Chris Richard a good 18 minute look tonight and played Kevin Ollie 11:24 and Blake Ahearn 37 seconds. Those last two guys are competing for that third and final point-guard spot.
20 Responses to "Uff-da: Bulls beat Wolves 85-75 in forgettable Target Center debut"
Another Minnesota trade that makes other teams better. First a NBA championship and maybe a world series. Love will never be a great play we are going to go thru the same thing as the KG era, one good player with average players behind. Mike Miller is AL’s Wall Z. Sorry wolves fan’s wait until Taylor sells the team or McHale takes up fishing as his other part time job and Freddy takes over McHales first part time job as a GM.
Fire McHale!!!!!!!!
Yep it’s that time of year again.
I’m not sure who is worse at their job: kevin mchale or patrick reusse
Good thing nobody’s overreacting
Brutal game for Love. The Bulls are another team ill-suited for stepping him into the pro game. Tyrus Thomas is a freakish (albeit stupid) athlete, and the rest of the Bull’s power forwards are basically out-of-position small forwards (ie Andres Nocioni, etc). I’m concerned that Love seems to be devolving rather than improving, but I have faith he’ll catch on sooner than later…he’s a smart player and a fierce competitor. He’ll will himself to be better.
Again, concerned about Foye. He went head to head with Rose and you would have thought Randy was the rookie by the way it went. Good to see McCants shooting and hitting again, albeit with rather low efficiency. He’ll improve on that though, I think his little funk was mostly the elbow injury.
I will say the one thing I’m worried about that I DON’T know how we’ll improve on is our defense. We’re just not built to defend, even fairly well much less very well. I really like Miller and Love on the team, but at the same time, I’ve always believed that the best way to build a modern NBA team is to go fast, athletic and defense-oriented. We’re basically the opposite of that.
There was talk before the draft that we’d swap McCants for Philly’s #16 pick. The Love/Mayo trade was a big plus for us for reasons that have nothing to do with Love, but I can’t deny that a Foye/Mayo/Brewer/Jefferson/Robin Lopez lineup is both more athletic and better defensively than what we have now.
I’m not concerned about last nights game at all. We missed a lot of quality shots that we will normally make. Our team defense looks much better than last year. We are not sending a parade of opponents to the free throw line, and we are getting there ourselves. We will win the battle of the offensive boards on most nights. This team is going to surprise a lot of people, not the least of which is the home town fan base!
I’m glad to hear roster cuts will be made today. I would like to see Wittman’s opening day rotation get a game under their belts tonight.
If McFail and Whitless were one that cut list, I would be happy.
About what was expected. The team is clearly still finding an identity and style of play and that showed on both ends.
D is my big concern. The Bulls had too many open looks off of bad rotations. Brewer shouldn’t worry about offense at all and hold the perimeter down.
Randy was a little lost. He needs to understand how to manage a game better (1st + 2nd quarters, get teammates open looks, 3rd attack the hole with abandon, 4th no turnovers, run the offense and pester their PG). Ollie should stay. Ahearn can’t help Randy understand the game more than he already does, but Ollie might be able to. 11yr pro vs. D league player, who would you want as a mentor?
Also, anyone know anything about Wittmans pregame prep? How good of a team manager is he? I feel like guys don’t know their duties/responsibilities out their.
Anyone concur?
I knew it was all over when I saw Mark Madsen starting NBA games. Just like when he shot all those three’s trying to get that draft pick they don’t want to win. Corey Brewer shoots like shaq from the free throw line. I love the wolves but come on madsen an NBA starter, try to look at all the starters on .500+ teams none compareable to him.
It was hard to watch. Love was horrible. I agree with Bryan that he’ll get better, but he looked planted to ground - there was no sign of his 35” vertical last night - and unable to get himself good looks around the basket. Again, Love got very few post-up opportunities, and I’m not sure whether that was because he had so little confidence in his ability to cash-in down low that he never posted up or because that isn’t part of the offense. If the latter, then there’s a problem, as he is the only real post player on the second unit.
McCants looked lazy and bipolar out there. He’s supremely unreliable. You never know which Rashad is going to come to play, even from one quarter to the next. I like his ability to get to the line, but when he’s bad, he’s really bad, and that can cost us games.
I think Foye is continuing to look better than he did last year. He’ll never be the point guard Rose is, but he got into the lane a few times and made nice dishes that should’ve been converted into assists. I can see how he has the potential to have high assist games, like he did the other night when he dropped 15. He looks like he’s dropped a few pounds, is quicker, and is playing slightly better man-to-man defense, which is good, because as someone mentioned above, we have one of the least athletic and worst defensive squads in the NBA.
All this after what has been such a promising preseason so far. I hope the plane isn’t crashing before it even leaves the terminal.
I’m a basketball fan at every level, and I watch the NBA because that’s where the best players play. I watch the Timberwolves because I’m a Minnesotan. I just hope I can enjoy watching this year, and not be changing channels at half-time because the team looks bad.
It’ll be great to finally know who makes the final roster. Hope Whit picks a starting line-up and sticks with it long enough to give the players a chance to prove what they can do together.
Love has to be on the floor so he can figure out how he’s going to adjust. This is McHale and Wittman’s pick and they have to make it work.
They need to stop playing these stupid games with the lineup and go with what should be the starting five: Jefferson, Love, Brewer, Miller, and Foye. That leaves you Gomes, McCants, Telfair and Smith as the top guys coming off the bench. Carney, Ollie and one of the other bigs fill in as necessary. The notion that Mark Madsen should be playing regular minutes needs to be banished from the minds of the folks in charge.
I definitely agree, Love needs to be just thrown out there. The Wolves ever since Saunders have had a bad habit (I think) of bringing rookies along TOO slowly, especially the ones we are relying on. Love needs to get the KG treatment and just be put on the floor, and the team should just learn to live with his mistakes. The sooner he makes them, the sooner he learns from them and corrects them.
Yep. If Love is having a rough night, you can limit his minutes, but he needs to be on the floor with the guys who are supposed to be the core of this team going forward. I don’t really see how the Wolves have gotten any real value out of their go-slow approach with guys like Foye and McCants.
Sean,Great comment on Madsen.
I agree that Love needs game minutes to learn and improve, but don’t know that I agree with him starting right away. I’d rather see Jefferson, Gomes/Smith, Gomes/Brewer, Miller, Foye (I’m a little indesicive, because I’d rather see Collins, Jefferson, Brewer, Miller, Foye; but with Collins still hurt….)Leaving McCants, Telfair, Love and Gomes or Smith rounding out a 9 man rotation. Carney and Ollie seeing situational or match-up playing time. And Madsen riding the pine. Once Love gets up to speed (literally and figuratively), then I agree with your line-up. Maybe by December. How many games did KG start his rookie year? And when during the season did he first start?
Please tell me they plan to send Richard to the D-League again this year for a while. He’s a wide body, but I didn’t see anything from him last year that screamed “give him more minutes”.
Garnett started 43 games as a rookie, playing 28 minutes a game.
I don’t think that comparing Love to KG is a good comparison, though. It was unusual in 1995 to have a very young player like that playing significant minutes, much less starting. That’s not true today, and Love doesn’t need the sort of beefing up that KG did — he’s already at the size that he’s going to be for the rest of his career.
Bryan: Hilarious, Love and Miller are smart and will evolve, while McCants, and Foye are in funkland with low basketball IQ? Why not just come out and say you’d like an all-white team? Jeez. Things are going exactly to plan, folks. The Wolves will win 27 games and get into the lottery, hopefully, because neither Love nor Brewer will be enough to get Al Jefferson serious playoff action. (Or any playoffs at all.) Another year where you have to root for the home team to finish dead last and get one of the top three picks, one their egghead GM might actually keep. This team is already toast.
I think that the wolves would be best to cut ties with Cardinal (buy him out), and to keep Ollie and let Ahearn go. I like the idea of the kid, but Ollie is a calming vet that understands his minutes, and will be best suited to mentor the boys, and bring stability to the PG position in the off case that he is needed for more than 5 minutes a night… oh wait, he’s the only real PG on the team. Of the other three… Foye is an inconsistant passer who looks like stocton one night, and Al Jefferson another night with his assists. Telfair can’t shoot, and Ahearn has no experience.
The big question for this team is can they play defense? Will the team be able to play against FAST teams, or against teams with more than Marginal talent?
With Randy Wittless as a coach, and Kevin McFailure in the front office my guess… as much as I love the wolves… HELL NO! Another season in the top 5 next year in the draft!
Here’s to hoping we can draft an NBA quality center next year because no quality free agent will ever come here with McChump running the team into the ground!!!
Love will be a great basketball player in the NBA. It doesn’t happen overnight. The trade for Miller and Love will improve this team.
Wrong-O, Slam-Man! It did happen over night. 
It took Love a mere 24 hours to show everyone what an idiot Reusse is…
