Miller will be a game-time decision
Posted on December 5th, 2008 – 10:57 AMBy Jerry Zgoda
The Wolves will work out Mike Miller before tonight’s game at New Jersey and then decide if his sprained right ankle is healthy enough to play.
Miller stayed nearly an hour late after the team’s morning shootaround and shot three-pointer after three-pointer on his heavily taped ankle that he called still stiff or sore. He said, with nothing else to do all day in the swamplands around the Meadowlands arena, he just might stay at the Izod Center right up to game time.
Both Miller and Randy Wittman said the team’s training staff will make the decision. “If it was up to me, I’d be playing tonight,” Miller said. “At the same time, I got to be smart. We’ve got 82 games. I’ve got to be ready for all those. If I come back tonight, tomorrow or Tuesday, it’s not going to be 100 percent, either. But they pay us to play basketball.”
Wittman said he will start Kevin Ollie again tonight in an attempt to contain Nets guard Devin Harris and Al Jefferson will again start at center. But Wittman said the rest of the frontcourt depends on whether Miller plays.
From watching Miller limp Friday morning and fight to get lift on his three-point shots, I’m guessing they wait and let him heal, possibly until Tuesday’s game against Utah at Target Center.
20 Responses to "Miller will be a game-time decision"
Jerry,
I greatly appreciate your updates. You have done a good job giving us few Wolves fans who are left the info we are looking for. Any idea what the starting lineup would look like if Mlller doesn’t play? Will Gomes stay at the 3 with Love starting at the 4?
Instead of making Miller a game-time decision, let’s make the Timberwolves a game-time decision.
Love should be at 4, Gomes at 3, Foye at 2. Telfair becomes the backup and Foye gets to do what he likes to do - score. Carney deserves some minutes, especially if Miller is out/limited.
It says much that the Wolves defensive answer to containing Devin Harris is to start the almost 36-year-old at point guard instead of the 25-year-old or the 23-year-old.
who cares?
I think these next two games are going to be important if Wittman is going to keep his job. The Nets and Clippers are two winnable games, so if we drop both of them I think there is a very good chance Witt would get canned, especially with Sam Mitchell becoming available. I’m not 100% sure about Sam I Am being the answer but he seems like a logical choice.
Jballer - The Wolves haven’t done well against good PGs this year and Devin Harris is playing as good as anyone in the league at that spot.
yay D Harris is probably the fastest pg in the league, good lock Ollie (obv Foye couldn’t stop him either, but he could hopefully bully him on the offensive end)
Hopefully McHale is at this game too.
I hope Witt doesn’t start Collins tonight…looks like the Nets start a relatively “small” lineup…
C - Bum Lopez
PF - Yi
SF - Simmons
SG - Carter
PG - Harris
Collins better be out for this…Big Al will get beat off the dribble by Yi. Smith or Love should get the nod. Gomes matches up well on Simmons…I don’t know who Witt is gonna start at the 1-2…who knows if Miller is even gonna be ready. If he starts Ollie and Foye again we’re gonna get owned.
Ha ! I bet he starts Cardinal. Hahahahahahaha.
How bad is Carter going to own Foye tonight if the Nets start that lineup?
The Nets are actually playing well right now. As stated above, Harris has easily been the best PG in the East this year. I love that Harris is taking off, the Mavs trade for Jason Kidd was one of the worst trades I have ever seen.
Jama - Yeah ! Hahaha stupid Mavericks. They should have traded Dirk for Marion & some change. Marion, J-Howard, Harris ? That would have been deadly.
I suspect we’ll see something close to the original opening day lineup…
C - Big Al
PF - Gomes
SF - Miller
SG - Carney maybe ?
PG - Ollie
Swan
I see no way that Foye doesn’t start. I’m just curious who will start in Miller’s place. I think it would be a good idea to play some zone defense tonight. Why doesn’t a team that is horrible on defense try some zone’s or some trapping occasionaly?
I shouldve been more clear, I’m not saying that we match up favorably against the Nets but I was comparing this game to the string of games we have in the next couple of weeks…..
Utah, Denver, San Antonio twice, the Lakers, the Cavs and Houston.
None of those games seemed as “winnable” as this game with New Jersey or tomorrow’s game with the Clippers (who also have Baron Davis at PG so we’ll see how that goes). I was just pointing out that if we play poorly in the next two games we could drop below .150 pretty quick.
Please, we are gonna pull off a shocker and beat the Lakers by double digits after Bassy drops 50 & 15.
Jama - Yeah Foye will probably start…I’m still not sure if he is off his Ollie kick though.
Zone ? The only person I trust on this team to play the zone properly is Mad Dog. He learned from one of the best zone coaches (Flip) and one of the best zone anchors (KG).
[…] On the Wolves – […]
From Hoopsworld -
There is a great deal of frustration inside the Timberwolves locker room. Before the Magic game Al Jefferson confided that he didn’t think age was a reasonable excuse for his teams struggles, when pushed on the subject you could see he did not have confidence in the game plan or that his team was headed in the right direction. Wolves sources said with growing regularity Randy Wittman is throwing his guys under the bus during his post games, and several times during the game Wittman would yell to his players “What the hell are you doing?” Wolves’ president Kevin McHale is traveling with the team, some say it’s to evaluate the talent on his roster up-close, one Wolves source said it was more to evaluate Randy than the players. The Wolves have now lost three straight and stayed in Orlando an extra night to practice today at Amway Arena before heading to New Jersey to face the red-hot Nets. No one expected the Wolves to win the division, but there was a promise of 20 more wins this season and so far it looks like last year’s 22-60 might even be a reach, likely prompting a change.
As someone else noted, “who cares?” This team barely has enough talent to compete on a regular basis. Even teams with decent talent need good coaching and more importantly, good teams need to make the parts fit. The Wolves will languish for years to come. It all starts at the top, but I won’t mention any names. We’ve heard enough of him already.
This team doesn’t have enough talent to compete on an irregular basis. Mchale must go. Is Wittless as dumb as he seems?
Coaching makes a difference - even if you don’t have a lot of talent. Although this is a cross sport comparison, the Miami Dolphins won one game last year. This year they have a shot at winning the division. Don’t tell me the additions of Chad Pennington and Ricky Williams alone have made that big of difference. And please don’t say it was ALL Bill Parcells. Give most of the credit to the head coach - Sparano. Also - see the Atlanta Falcons as another example that a good coach can make a difference.
