Wolves fall 110-102 to Suns
Posted on November 27th, 2008 – 1:37 AMBy Jerry Zgoda
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!
So much for free and easy, huh?
The Wolves missed the chance to turn Sunday’s runaway victory at Detroit into their first winning streak of the season by losing to the Suns in a game in which they never led. Randy Wittman said he was “shocked” by his team’s “lackadaisical” start: They trailed by seven points three times in the first quarter while allowing the Suns to shoot almost 70 percent, were behind by 16 at halftime and by as many as 18 in the second half before Rashad McCants, back after almost three games away because of a bad back, made three threes within 65 seconds late in the game to get them within six points but no closer.
Some tidbits and other things:
Al Jefferson followed last season’s monstrous games against the Suns at Target Center with a 28-point, 17-rebound night that included a franchise-record 12 offensive rebounds (how many of those were off his own misses, or Kevin Love’s, well, I lost count). That’s one more than Kevin Garnett had at Phoenix in 2004 and Felton Spencer had against the Clippers in 1990.
Randy Foye followed Sunday’s 23-point, 14-assist night with 17 points and five assists (none in the second half).
Kevin Love now hasn’t made a field goal in two games, going 0-for-3 Wednesday after an 0-for-2 game in Detroit.
All of McCants’ 12 points in less than 11 minutes came on three pointers.
The Wolves will take Thursday off before flying to Oklahoma City in the evening for Friday’s game against the Thunder, who now have lost 13th consecutive games since beating the Wolves there in the season’s third game.\
Have a great Thanksgiving! Have some turkey for me.
21 Responses to "Wolves fall 110-102 to Suns"
that had to be the worst 28 and 17 game ever…I love Big Al, but he still put up tons of crappy shots…at least once when he was triple teamed, rarely passed out of the double, and missed one wide open layup that was ridiculous.
Phoenix barely tried I have a feeling, and if they did, then we should have won this game easily as we played awful.
If you were Big Al would you pass out of a double considering the options?
This was the worst game I’ve see Love play yet. He was just totally lost out there, and blatantly overmatched at the end trying to guard Shaq. Wittman should have brought Collins back in. It’s looking pretty obvious to me that a Love/Jefferson combo isn’t going to work. They’re fighting each other for the ball out there at this point, and most of Love’s skills he relied on in college aren’t working in the pros. Obviously there are very few players out there that have the sheer size of Shaq, but still, it seems clear now that any really successful long term plan for this team requires Al at the 4 and an athletic, defensive center.
Love is a highly skilled player and will be good in the NBA, but he needs to be on a team where the offense runs through him. Maybe a call to the Jazz is in order?
McCants was night and day this game….started off with three straight turnovers, ended with 4 straight threes. He was at least trying to fit into the offense this time rather than doing it all himself, but definitely needs to work on his consistency and discretion.
Brewer played great. I’m kind of sad his gains this year are being overshadowed by the team’s poor start because he’s definitely improved and still getting better. A couple times tonight he was even calling for the ball.
The rest was just bad shooting. Couldn’t hit any jumpers, couldn’t hit any free throws. I didn’t think Foye did a great job tonight making plays for the team, but it was hard to tell since no one was shooting well except Al. And of course, just about anyone is going to look like a bad playmaker next to Nash. Foye did get a raw deal from the refs on both ends of the floor though.
Kevin Love sucks. Even Book Lopez is looking like a ROY candidate. Kevin Love looks like he would be over-matched in a high school game. Thanks Mcjackass and the rest of the Timberwolves clowns for another loser of epic proportions.
Lopez was projected to be our pick right after the lottery but then started to slide according to the experts. The experts started to say that he would not be very good. He had a very good summer league and is now putting up solid numbers. I trusted that, even though he looked like a good fit here, the experts said to pick the best available player. A seven footer with some skills would have looked really nice right now.
Love again was showing that he needs to figure out how to play taller. He was eaten up on some shots that he tried to get up under the basket.
McCants had some terrible turnovers early on and showed that he can hit a few shots when he is free to jack it up. He was only brought back into the game late for that purpose, otherwise he didn’t see much action in the second half.
The Suns were keying on taking Miller out of the game and the Wolves have no one to rely on after Al to put points on the board. The Wolves have to find a way to get Miller going as that is their only hope.
I made this comment on another thread that some people didn’t like for some reason, but it makes perfect sense.
Love and Al can’t be on the floor together, and if they are it needs to be against a smaller lineup. Collins should be the guy with Love on the floor, while Al needs a guy like Madsen or Smith to help take pressure off either defensively or offensively.
Foye is coming along; I still need Miller to get more shots and McCants to either stay on the bench or figure out how to be consistent.
The Suns are a good team and we made a solid run in the second half, just fell a bit short. We’ll be just fine
I agree that Jefferson and Love look completely redundant out there. They both want/need the ball on the low block. Only one can be the “go-to” guy there, and it’s obviously Al. How McHale didn’t expect this to happen, I don’t know. But trading Roy and Mayo for Foye and Love are fireable offenses. Let’s get real, Glen Taylor: McHale has not performed well in almost fifteen years on the job. He needs to go.
Don’t look now, but Eric Gordon is blowing up for the Clippers and looking very good in so doing. I bet we could’ve traded our #3 for Gordon plus our future first round choice that we owe them for Marko (another brilliant McHale trade). The Clippers coveted Mayo. Would Wolves fans take that trade now? I would. Instead, we have an aging role player (Miller) and a young role player (Love). Awesome.
its ok guys, hes a glue guy, we got a 5th pick to hold a crappy team together. Shouldn’t a 5th pick be a cornerstone, lol
One might think or hope that, but the #5 spot hasn’t created that many superstars.
Kevin Love
Jeff Green
Shelden Williams
Raymond Felton
Devin Harris
Dwyane Wade
Nikoloz Tskitishvili
Jason Richardson
Mike Miller
Jonathan Bender
Vince Carter
Tony Battie
Ray Allen
Kevin Garnett
Juwan Howard
Isaiah Rider
LaPhonso Ellis
Steve Smith
Kendall Gill
J.R. Reid
Mitch Richmond
Scottie Pippen
Kenny Walker
Jon Koncak
Charles Barkley
Sidney Green
LaSalle Thompson
Danny Vranes
James Ray
The #3 spot looks a little better although still a crapshoot.
O.J. Mayo
Al Horford
Adam Morrison
Deron Williams
Ben Gordon
Carmelo Anthony
Mike Dunleavy
Pau Gasol
Darius Miles
Baron Davis
Raef LaFrentz
Chauncey Billups
Shareef Abdur-Rahim
Jerry Stackhouse
Grant Hill
Anfernee Hardaway
Christian Laettner
Billy Owens
Chris Jackson
Sean Elliott
Charles Smith
Dennis Hopson
Chris Washburn
Benoit Benjamin
Michael Jordan
Rodney McCray
Dominique Wilkins
Buck Williams
Kevin McHale
I usually like to stick up for the Ebi pick at #26 as a throwaway because not much comes from the #26 pick. I see that I am mistaken as some solid contributors have come from that pick lately. If you look at many past draft picks you may throw up in your mouth a little as many of these never become what they are expected to. But here are the #26 picks:
George Hill
Aaron Brooks
Jordan Farmar
Jason Maxiell
Kevin Martin
Ndudi Ebi
John Salmons
Samuel Dalembert
Mamadou N’diaye
Vonteego Cummings
Sam Jacobson
Charles Smith
Jerome Williams
Sherell Ford
Charlie Ward
Geert Hammink
David Johnson
Mark Randall
Lance Banks
A person could have a competitive team with Farmar, Brooks, and Hill at PG; Martin at SG; Salmons at SF; Maxiel at PF; and Dalembert at C.
One question i have is this - why is Love needing the ball on the low block to begin with? We all know (including him - let’s face it, he IS basketball smart contrary to what many think) that he’s undersized and has a good jump shot yet he is always trying to score via the low block. Granted, low block shots are supposed to be easier, but when you have Al in the lane, there is very little room in there for someone else (that being Love). The guy was supposed to COMPLIMENT, not conflict with Al - as in he should be looking to take those open 10-15 footers and take a big man away from the paint. Also Love is an excellent passer and should be a ‘cutoff man’ for Al in case he can’t find the open man. Sure, he’d get less rebounds but Al would get more with only one or two guys to fend off and not Love’s man.
Any way we can get the serb to cut away from his european contract and get him over here? he seems like a legitimate center which is what we need. think about having Him, Al, Brewer/Gomes, Miller, Foye - that’s a solid lineup where everyone is in their position (Foye is getting it people).
You can’t just list players and say oh well, some years have better and deeper talent, and I would take half of those guys at 5 over Love. And I meant above, why did we go into the draft wanting Love, he isn’t great at anything and he is bad at a lot of things. 5th picks are normally ready to come in and play a lot or start. Love wouldn’t see more than 5-10 minutes for some good teams.
I don’t think it would matter if we did keep Roy or Mayo, Wittman would have screwed both of them up.
I can not argue about Love’s play at this point, but other players drafted after him that are more productive seem to be on bad teams. Jason Thompson has had some good games for the Kings, but everyone seemed to be shocked that he was picked so early. Again the draft can be like throwing darts at the dartboard. We have Love now and we are a bad team so we might as well play him more so that he improves and so they can figure out how to make him effective when he is playing.
I am tired of being the angry guy.
The facts are simple. The coach is not accomplishing his goal, and/or the players are incapable of playing the type of ball that the coach wants.
We’ve tried trading 1-1 and 6-1, and 3-3… to change the players.
I think it’s time we trade the coach and the GM. No name calling no anger… just plain and simple. They are not getting the job done.
It won’t look good if they blow it tonight.
“Kevin Love (MIN) is an NBA.com contributor and a decent ball player, so this isn’t meant to be a personal attack, but after a week where the big man shot 5-for-18 from the field to drop his field goal percentage to .360 and his three-point percentage to .111, you have to laugh that some analysts had him ranked as the No. 1 rookie in the league after the first week of the season.”
- NBA.com
McHale is the polar opposite of King Midas. Everything McHale touches turns to dog sh:t.
Bert.
The wolves could win by 75 points tonight and they still wouldn’t be a .500 team would they?
They are supposed to win this game, and I really don’t expect them to win tonight or any night with this coaching staff.
I still predict 4-17 when Wittman either resigns, or is fired.
