Magic 118, Wolves 94
Posted on December 27th, 2008 – 11:33 PMBy Brian Stensaas
This one got away midway through the fourth quarter. But that 17-2 start by Orlando is what really sticks out. How flat.
Kevin McHale said it. Players said it. And if you watched tonight’s game, you probably said it, too, perhaps with a few extra words thrown in for good measure. The Timberwolves looked flat tonight. Uninterested at points, for sure.
Yeah, getting back after 3am following a tough game and then playing some 15 hours later is the pits. But you know what? McHale has got it right when he said that every team goes through this tough travel sometimes. I’m faaaaar from a professional athlete. But you would have thought this team would come out on fire after winning at MSG. Wrong.
Good for Rashad McCants to come back with a 21-point night after going off for 23 against the Knicks. And Kevin Love’s 10 rebounds - four offensive - were a nice touch. He leads all rookies with 7.7 RPG and his 3.4 ORPG ranks seventh in the whole league.
Not much else to get excited about in this one, though.
I’m curious what readers of this blog thought of Mad Dog and Brian Cardinal being Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, off the bench. I heard some good (albeit unprintable) comments from the fans behind press row. Also from some other sources which shall remain nameless 
Look - Madsen is a good guy and he finally got his first points of the season playing in his eighth game.
But are he and Cardinal the answer after being on the wrong end of a 17-2 start?
16 Responses to "Magic 118, Wolves 94"
Yeah Wolves! Help me, I cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. Coach McHale, give me some of your insight.
[…] On the Wolves – […]
I’d highlight a few of the good things that happened for us, but eh, what’s the use? I think we all knew we were going to lose this one and I can only take so many morale victory spins. The Magic are the Knicks, except with D12 and defense.
The only really great thing was seeing Carney out there for long stretches. About time he gets real burn.
yeah i like carney in there more and telfair
Well, since we’re talking about Carney and Telfair, I guess I’ll mention something I’ve been thinking about watching the team play the past two weeks. Which is McHale obviously thinks we’re a lot more competitive than we really are. I mean, we have a great chance to develop some young talent here that could be a part of our future, but McHale keeps giving those minutes to guys like Ollie and Cardinal and Madsen…guys who aren’t part of our future. Obviously McHale’s at least smart enough to realize that his job and possibly his future employment in the NBA period is resting on how many wins he gets, but I get the feeling he thinks we can win a lot more than any of us or any of the experts do, so I can’t help but think that we’re wasting a great opportunity to build for the future. Carney and Telfair have been great the last two games…why don’t they play more? They’re both coming along well and it’s almost like we’re holding them back.
So I wonder, at what point does McHale realize that there’s no way to hit that 35-40 win mark and decide to think long term? Or will Taylor reach that conclusion first and fire McHale amd let Sichting or Hoiberg do the lost cause season turned into vetting process thing?
Also, speaking of the future, if Rubio doesn’t declare I think the clear choice for us in the draft is Thabeet. I think in the long term, we’ve experimented too much with playing guys out of their natural positions and asking them to play outside their games. If we want to be on real solid ground going forward, which is essentially a must if we expect to lure a big time free agent here, then we need to go with the tried and true methods. A Telfair/Miller/Brewer/Jefferson/Thabeet lineup is a pure prototypical 1-2-3-4-5 structure with all the bases covered at least adequately…Al shoots from close, Miller shoots from deep, Brewer defends the wings, Thabeet defends the paint, Telfair handles the rock. I think that’s a lot more reliable than trying a 2-2-3-4-4 system where you have Foye and Mike and Al and Blake (or Stephen and Mike and Al and Love, etc etc) all fighting for shots with no one leading or defending. I mean, when you think about it, that’s what we have right now, and we’re horrible.
I want to revisit the Chalmers for 2 2nd round picks trade again. In hindsight, we’d all agree that we should have kept Chalmers - possibly sent him to the D league - then suddenly realize he is better than anything we have on the current roster. I give McHale a little bit of a break knowing we had Mayo at the time of the trade with Miami. My real problem is that we had 3 1st round picks at the time (the 4th 1st round came later with Carney from Phily) along with our own 2nd round picks. The likelihood of adding 4 rookies to a roster is slim - so why would we need 2 more 2nd round picks (probabaly late 2nd round) for? I know picks are “assets” but I just didn’t like the trade for that reason alone. McHale didn’t have the luxury of hindsite in that Chalmers turned out to be a stud but I don’t feel he had any vision either.
Look, McHale only took Chalmers on instructions from Miami. This whole ‘we had Chalmers and traded him away’ omits entirely the question of whether McHale on his own would’ve been smart enough to take him. I mean really, is there any doubt that if picking solely for the Wolves, McHale would’ve wasted the pick on a scrub who would now be struggling to make a D-League team?
Speaking of Carney….I like his potential and consider him a better prospect than Corey Brewer. He’s not quite as tall but more athletic and 10x the shooter and finisher as Brewer….. RealityBased- whats wrong with having a prospect in the D league
Chalmers is pretty good, but lets not go overboard and call him a stud. He’s averaging 10 pts, 4.5 ast, shooting 42% from the field in 32 minutes per game.
I’m not advocating the trade, but the trade was made for the cash they gave us. The two draft picks were secondary pieces.
Also keep in mind that Chalmers is playing alongside Dwyane Wade, who makes just about everyone look good. Remember Damon Jones?
As for Carney and Brewer, I still consider Brewer the better prospect, although Rodney is a very good player himself. But I think that Rodney’s shooting is about as good now as it’s ever going to be, and I don’t see him getting much better with his ballhandling or passing either. Brewer has tons of room to grow in all three areas…whether he actually gets anywhere is another story, but in terms of sheer potential, I’d say Brewer has a much higher ceiling. Carney didn’t make huge strides in any particular area his first couple of years with the Sixers, so it looks like he might be close to topping out right now.
But I love the idea of having them both long term. They’re both great defenders, and very athletic, which gives us a lot of potential on the wings. We can basically alternate them and not see any drop in defensive pressure, which is a luxury few teams have. The first game of the season was a great example of this, as Corey and Rodney took turns guarding Kevin Martin, forcing him into a 5-19 shooting night.
Sportsjunkie says: “RealityBased- whats wrong with having a prospect in the D league”
Nothing, if that’s the best available to you at the time of your pick. My point was McHale’s talent evaluation would likely miss the ’steal’ who can actually play in the NBA right now (Chalmers), which would make taking a D-league prospect “wrong.”
All this Chalmers talk misses the point that it was Miami, not McHale, doing the talent evaluation and picking…
The Chalmers 2nd round pick trade was made to pocket $2 million that Miami sent to Glen Taylor as part of the deal. And, all these genius moves to trade the 3rd pick (Mayo gets paid 3.875 million this year and 4.166 million next year) in the draft for the 5th pick (Love gets paid 3.164 million this year, 3.401 million next year) end up saving Glen money because the 3rd pick is guaranteed a set amount of money that is higher than the 5th pick. And, picking Brandon Roy with the 6th pick and then trading him for the 7th pick (Foye) saved a bit of money, too. But, it cost the team a lot more money in the long run in fan frustration. If the Front Office was smarter and made the right picks and also saved Glen some money on draft night, fine, but they just look doubly stupid and cheap this way.
With all due respect, Cardinal and Madsen are a waste of time. I understand the importance of trying to win in order to keep morale up but Kevin Love, for better or worse, should be playing 30+ minutes a game and easily in front of either of those two. Same thing with playing Telfair/McCants over Ollie.
Trade up to get Thabeet and Jennings
The New York Jets fired their coach and he had more wins and a sixteen game schedule.
Can someone explain how McHale still has a job?
I mean any JOB? He’s not qualified to sweep the Target center.
I don’t see a solid reason to bring them both off the bench. I mean I can understand that McHale can get frustrated with the kids, but they are his kids, and you can’t bring in a babysitter to watch your kids when you are at home, and it’s your job to watch the kids. God knows if I tried that my wife would shoot me, lol.
McHale chose these guys. Any time that the old guys come in “in-mass” like that it is a sign of futility, and giving up on the trust you are trying to build with the young guys.
I would like to see this team just keep going young, and if they lose it’s no big deal because they were already losing.
This team has no shot at the playoffs this year… so what matters most is either maturing the current roster, or playing for the draft. With the talent we have… I think it would be easy to do both because this team isn’t going to win 15 games this year.
Glen Taylor needs to start looking with massive intensity around the NBA and marketing companies around the world to help try and bring this organization back together to be implimented on the day after the season ends… so they can be vested by the draft.
