0-2 in Vegas: Wolves lose 96-91 to D League Select team
Posted on July 13th, 2009 – 4:55 PMBy Jerry Zgoda
The Wolves followed Sunday’s Vegas Summer League-opening loss to Houston with Monday’s loss to the NBA D League’s all-star team after they were outscored 30-10 in a decisive third quarter.
All that, of course, matters little.
The more notable stuff:
– Wayne Ellington quit trying to do too much, as he had in Sunday’s opener, and did much more by trying to do less. He show a nice chemistry with Jonny Flynn, finding open spaces off Flynn’s penetration. He made eight of 13 shots (including seven of his first nine, I believe), went 4-for-7 from three-point range and scored 22 points after Sunday’s 2-for-12, 4-point debut.
– It sure will be interesting to see what Flynn can do in the pick-and-roll and pick-and-pop games with Al and Kevin Love. He certainly is quick, strong and today showed excellent vision finding teammates not nearly, of course, as talented as thoseĀ he’ll be playing with come October.
He followed Sunday’s 7-assist, 7-turnover game with a 14-assist, 6-turnover afternoon today, scored 12 points and shot 4-for-9 from the field.
– David Kahn certainly seems committed to youth and taking additional steps backward before the Wolves go forward. Let’s see what he does with guys with guaranteed contracts like Brian Cardinal and Mark Madsen and instead makes room for young front-court players like Oleksiy Pecherov and perhaps free-agent Rob Kurz.
Both those guys showed their shooting strokes today — Pecherov (3-for-4 on threes, 15 points, 10 rebounds) more than Kurz. Pecherov could be an intriguing pickup: First-round pick by Washington a couple years ago, tall, skinny European who has power forward/center size and a small forward’s mindset. With Al down low, his outside-shooting game could be a nice match in a three-man rotation with Al and KLove if he can play any defense.
– Corey Brewer looked like he took a little step back, which is expected after he played his first game action Sunday in eight months. Couldn’t quite get to where he wanted. His shot sure looks improved after all this time he’s had to practice, but his ball-handling? Yikes.
– The Wolves now don’t play again until Friday. That gives them three days of practice. Love, Sebastian Telfair and Ryan Gomes are expected to get to know their new mates Flynn, Ellington, Pecherov, etc., by practicing with the summer-league team some or all of those days.
– Ben Woodside saw his first summer-league action, but was barely noticeable in 8 1/2 minutes of play.



