No fourth-quarter theatrics this time. Cavs win, 104-87
Posted on October 31st, 2009 – 2:37 AMBy Jerry Zgoda
There was no magic in the Wolves’ finish tonight.
Not by a long shot, and certainly not a surprise against a Cleveland team driven not to start the season 0-3.
TNT analyst Charles Barkley called the Cavs’ Friday night date with the Wolves an “elixir,” a comment on the network’s Thursday night postgame show that caused Kevin McHale to guffaw.
The Wolves stayed near for close to a half, but were no match for LeBron or for the Cavaliers’ nifty passing.
I’ve got a morning flight to Phoenix for Sunday’s game, so I’ll make this fairly quick tonight.
LeBron, obviously, wowed again, with a 24-point, 9-rebound, 6-assist game and he didn’t score in the fourth quarter at all.
Al Jefferson, meanwhile, has shown in the first two games that his full return from that February knee injury won’t come quickly or immediately.
Even though he lost those 30 pounds, he hasn’t regained the explosiveness or confidence that he showed all last season.
Jefferson has played 25 minutes in each of these first two games and still is trying to find the rhythm and assurance that made him one of the league’s best low-post scorers.
The same guy who averaged 23 points and 11 rebounds last season before he was injured is averaging 10.5 points on 30. 4 percent shooting on 30.4 percent shooting (7-for-23) and 5.5 rebounds in these two games as the Wolves head to Phoenix in the morning for games Sunday against Suns and Monday in L.A. vs. the Clippers.
“I think he just has to continue to be patient,” Wolves coach Kurt Rambis said. “He’s come back from knee surgeryand dealing with an Achilles. He’s probably a little frustrated.”
To be sure.
“My timing is still not there,” Jefferson said. “Every shot I took tonight, I’ve made those shots before. I didn’t make them tonight. I just have to keep working on my shot at practice and after practice.”
38 Responses to "No fourth-quarter theatrics this time. Cavs win, 104-87"
I was at the game, and it actually went better than I expected. Cleavland never really just hammered on us…a lot of it was our own mistakes…careless passes, bad shot selection, silly fouls.
Al is struggling with his scoring for sure, but it was Shaq. If there’s any elixer for his shooting, it’d be Amare Stoudemire and the defenseless Suns. On the bright note, Al does indeed have a passing game. I guess all it took was a coach who asked him to use it. Who knew?
Corey did better than expected too. He actually matched up against LeBron fairly well…didn’t get pushed around or run over, and the couple of times where he found himself iso’d against James, he looked supremely confident in his defensive ability. He gave James a lot more trouble than anyone else did.
Gomes is not a good idea at power forward. Like we didn’t all know that already…
Flynn…well, that’s a hard one to call. On one hand, his scoring was dynamic, and very efficient all things considered. He couldn’t always get to where he wanted like he normally does (Shaq, LeBron and Ilgauskus take up a ridiculous amount of court space) but he made the best with what he could find.
But he wasn’t facilitating. At all. As the game got out of reach, he stopped even trying to. No one (again) notched high assist number, but in Sessions’ case, he was trying and the team just wasn’t hitting their shots.
Flynn got especially frustrated at the end, when Dan Gibson came up with back to back steals as Flynn tried to get to the hoop.
Flynn’s going to be a special player. It’s easy to see his talent level. But he’s got a lot of work to do learning how to run an NBA team, especially in this offense.
Oh, and tonight really reinforced my initial instinct that Shaq isn’t going to help Cleavland much, and could end up hurting them in the long run. His legs just aren’t there anymore…he can’t move fast enough to even cover lane agility defense, which is why we got in into foul trouble so easily. Any team that can attack the rim or has a big that can step out to 18 feet will have a field day on the Cavs.
Like the Toronto game, Cleavland played their best ball with Verajao at center, LeBron at power forward, and three guards…some combination or Williams, Gibson, Parker, and Moon.
Oh, AND I second Jerry’s opinion that Hollins has a ton more potential than anyone thought. He again showed a solid 15 foot jumper, and threw in a nasty up-and-under that left Shaq completely flat footed. It seems to me that his problem hasn’t been a lack of talent, just a lack of teachers.
PS did McHale really think Charles’ “elixer” comment was amusing? I mean, the last time the Cavs were at Target Center during the McHale era, LeBron wasted us so badly Target Center gave him a standing ovation….
[…] On the Wolves » Blog Archive » No fourth-quarter theatrics this time. Cavs win, 104-87 blogs2.startribune.com/blogs/wolves/2009/10/31/no-fourth-quarter-theatrics-this-time-cavs-win-104-87 – view page – cached Not by a long shot, and certainly not a surprise against a Cleveland team driven not to start the season 0-3. — From the page […]
very good synopsis Bryan (and Jerry of course - hope you enjoy Phoenix)
one thing - Cleveland shot the lights out and we didn’t, enough said. if we even made some of those 3 pointers that we missed it would’ve been a lot closer. when I’d shut it off, it was 9-17 for cleveland. 50% for a TEAM is absurd, let alone a player. whereas we shot 2-11 before pecherov came in and made one.
this team just does not have any shooters. even ellington was off - which is to be expected from a rookie going against a playoff team.
brewer was actually pretty good on defense as Bryan said. he kept lebron from going to the rim as much, and as the game went on more and more of his shots were off picks. he still looks out of control on offense though, and his j-shot (like everyone else’s…) is still not there.
this team just needs shooters. Gomes has been useless as Swan said last night. he really can’t defend either position - he makes an effort which helps, but he’s too small and lacks the ability to defend the post, and is nto quick enough to defend the 3. his jumpshots are all over the place, which his is only real source of offense.
in addition, we’d have more of a shot if Al would be his old self. but then again, he’s applying himself more on defense and in the passing game, so hopefully his offense will come soon (probably against Amare).
the most frustrating part was Flynn lost faith in his teammates. after awhile, he just stopped running the offense (i don’t blame him) and would try and get to the rim. he needs to stay focused on what made him so good in the preaseason - setting up his teammates for open shots.
a nice little bright spot for me was Jawai. that guy is BIG, has a nice little jump-shot, can hit FT’s and is a force on both ends. he is a player in this league and did not look intimidated or overmatched by the bigs from the Cavs. this team lacks any size - esp now that Al is down 30 lbs; hopefully Jawai can help us in the size department.
Varajeo is a special player. the guy does more than just the little things as advertised - he can flat out score from the post and has tons of athleticism and legit PF size.
overall, like Bryan said, they just beat themselves. obviously
I thought the wolves played very well. James and the Cav’s are on another level, but it appears the wolves are headed in the right direction. Remember Big Al was off and Kloves not around….Flynn and Sessions gives us respectability
Well said guys; I really cannot add more other than to agree that Hollins looks very good for where he is at in his development, and I look forward to when he puts it all together. He may be a few pounds of muscle short of being a “force”, but w/ his athleticism, he will be enjoyable to watch. Jawai looked good for his court time, and has a better shot than I anticipated. Hope he plays and develops more. With all the young, inexperienced players we have, Rambis would be well-served to let them take their lumps now for the future reward. Be patient.
One thing I forgot to mention:
When Cannis Hoops says Corey double teams out of nowhere, they mean it. He had a block on Ilgauskus where I could have sworn he dropped down from the ceiling. Not only did he get from the three point line to 10 feet from the hoop in a second flat, but he got there so quick he was actually between Z and the hoop and already at the top of his jump by the time Ilgauskus released the shot.
Thanks all…I’ll go with Rambis’ summary. Flynn was star struck and wanted to show his individual game off to the detriment of the team. In so doing, he follow a long line of young players who eventually send an abnormal amount of time on the bench for “re-education.”
Hollins, can someone show him what a rebound looks like? Everyone excuses him for “still learning” but how much learning is required to block out a defender and grab a ball off the rim?
Rambis makes the point of how taking bad shots leads to bad shooting. Sounds pretty basic, but the team hasn’t learned that lesson in years.
send ==> sent
Player options on Love, Brewer and Pech are due today.
Love is a definite yes.
Corey is a 90% probably.
Pech….eh…
Rubio on NBA tv now… Not much playing time in 1st half. You can see why, way too careless with ball. A chance for many of the Kool-aid gang to actually see him, not just rave on the hype. 1st half stats 6 minutes 0 pts, 1 ast 2 to’s.
Don’t hold your breath. Deadline for contract options for the 2006 draft class has been extended to Monday, Nov. 2.
http://www.nba.com/2009/news/10/29/option.deadline.extension/index.html
That’s only for the draft class on 2006, and only for contract extensions. The deadline on Brewer and Love is today.
People are confusing extensions and options.
What Corey and Kevin has are TEAM OPTIONS. This is a built in system of the rookie pay scale, by which all a team has to do is accept the option, and that player is automatically resigned for the next season.
What the players of the 06 draft class are seeking are contract EXTENSIONS. A contract extension is essentially a free agent signing of that player before he becomes a free agent. This is NOT an automatic resigning; the player and team must agree to term, as if the player was an unrestricted free agent.
Because we traded Randy Foye and Craig Smith, the deadline extension has no relevance to us, other than adding to the list of potential free agents next summer should players like Rudy Gay, Tyrus Thomas, Rajon Rondo, etc not reach agreements with their current teams.
Speaking of which, the Bulls have already declined to even offer Ty Thomas an extension, and it doesn’t appear Gay or Rondo will reach agreements with their teams.
Thomas would be a fantastic pickup to add athleticism and defense to our frontcourt and run with Flynn. And obviously a ton has already been talked about regarding Rudy Gay potentially signing here next summer.
Thomas would be very nice. he’s a bit small, but otherwise would be solid in the frontcourt.
Gay was seeking something like 5 years, 50-60 million, and Memphis doesn’t seem like they are interested in that.
if that’s what it would take to get him next summer, is it worth it? that’d take away most of our ‘cap space’ as currently projected. would it be worth to sign a guy with upside but has only had really one good year to that much money? or would it be bettter to spend a little more on a proven veteran like Joe johnson whose a older?
I got my draft years mixed up. Brewer and Pecherov signed their contracts in 2007. Thus, for them the question is whether or not the Twolves will exercise their options.
Pecherov was drafted in 2006 but did not sign his contract until 2007.
I’m not too upset with that showing by the wolves, they didn’t play well but no matter how well they played, I didn’t see the Cavs losing three straight.
On a side note- Jennings and Flynn are looking real good. Rubio might not even be a top 3 pg of this draft. Jennings almost had a triple double in his first game and now has 19 points on 8-11 and 3-3 from 3’s in the 3rd quarter. Glad I picked Jennings up for fantasy 
and dropped T.J. “hurt all the time” Ford
I wish I could have gotten Flynn too, but he went way too early, and Jennings didn’t get picked at all.
MedSchoolMatt
I disagree with you about Flynn. His problem is not getting it to the open shooters…it’s the lack of assists he gets because he passes to 30% shooters. If anything, he needs to take it to the basket more. Would you rather have Flynn driving, or Brewer shooting? I thought so. Because his teammates sure aren’t helping, he needs to be a prima donna. He can score at will….but he defers to his teammates in the name of being a true point. He can take over games, if they’d let him. Everyone is rusty. We’ll win when we get our shooting percentage to the mid 40’s. Until then, we’re destined to lose. Getting Love back will be huge.
Hard to make judgements on ANY of The Wolves’ players at this point. Everything is new… so many folks are young… very few have played with each other… several Wolves “veterans” have limited minutes of actual NBA court time.
There are gonna be tons of growing pains, so I’m just gonna enjoy the positives and focus on growth.
I watched my first game yesterday and yes there were a few times when they were horrible but over all it was enjoyable. A lot more fun than last year. They have some potential and that is nice to see. I like watching guys running around and at least trying to pass.
Korea - well-said. The true fans out there are more interested in this year’s Wolves team than any team since the WCF.
The reason is that this group is young and has more potential than any group in years. Even if everything broke perfectly in the last several seasons, The Wolves would have been on the outside looking in for The NBA Playoffs.
This team won’t make the playoffs either, but it is designed to grow and build a foundation. The fans out there who get that are more interested than they’ve been in the past 4-5 years.
Mano, I’ve got to disagree with you about Flynn. The last thing a young team needs is an Allen Iverson type point guard who gets 40 points a game. That’s the surest way to have another 5-6 years of mediocre basketball in town.
Flynn will get his shots in the flow of the game, but needs to get his teammates theirs early and often. It will take time to learn everyones spots and be able to get the ball to them on time to beat the defense, but that is what the best point guards do and Flynn looks like he is capable of doing that at some point.
Watching Rubio in the Zagreb game makes me think that he also could be a great point guard, but has much more to learn than Flynn. Some of his no-look to nobody passes were painful to watch. He also had a bad tendency to try to force passes cross court into the defense which led to at least 8-10 Zagreb fast break points. I don’t know what the level of coaching is at Barcelona, but am hoping they will teach him that spectacular highlight reel plays lead to turnovers just as often as to scores.
At the end of last game Flynn was shooting too much. His job isn’t to score points, it is to run the team. If he runs the team well he will get his share of points. I watched the Cavs game online and it had their announcers, the whole second half they kept talking about how Flynn wasn’t even looking for the pass. Him not passing is no different than what we did last year, except now it is Flynn instead of Big Al.
It is a team game and no matter how bad the others are it is still his job to keep them getting their shots.
still wondering about the player options. brewer and love are probably still locks, and my guess is pech isn’t picked up as he seems to be a project and a team could sign him for less than 2.4 mill.
Chiaman - First off flynn isn’t even close to resembling allen iverson. Iverson has a horrible attitude and needs 100 shots per game or he will get mad. Flynn has a great attitude and is still learning what his teammates strengths are. Give him time and his assists will go up.
Korea: ah yes Flynn’s job is to score points-be that actual points or assists. his job is to help the team, sometimes that means scoring, others passing. at some point, like he did w/the NJ game, you realize your ‘mates aren’t really hitting, that you can beat your guy and so you do. if he can establish himself as a threat early in the season, teams will be focused on collapsing earlier leaving wingers open for spot-ups.
Its Flynn’s job to realize who is hot and who is not, if they are not–yeah its his job to realize that and figure something else out. duh.
I’ve enjoyed watching the Wolves so far. I like the mix of players we have, even though individually none of them are dominant right now.
Hollins has more offensive polish than I thought he would, and there is definite room for him to grow. Flynn looks solid out there, and I think Brewer will settle in this year even though he looks pretty out of control sometimes out there still. Al does not look like his old self. I thought he would rebound more than he has and would make up for Love’s absence but that has not been the case. Sasha, Sessions, and Wilkins have been decent, particularly in picking up where Miller left off with rebounding from the guard positions.
Out of all the free agents out there next year, I am becoming most intrigued with Rudy Gay. I think he’s had some attitude and hustle issues, but his atleticism is off the charts, and they said he had a really strong showing this summer in Team USA tryouts. I haven’t seen him play too much, but I think a long athletic wing who can be a legitimate #1 scoring option is what we need to add. Flynn, Brewer and Gay would provide a really dynamic tandem with Jefferson/Love and another big man as your anchors. Jawai had some size, holy cow! Interesting to see what they can do with that raw talent.
I expect Boston will crush us even worse than Cleveland. It seems like the really good teams this year are stacked. I agree with Bryan, Cleveland’s addition of Shaq is not helping them get any further this year. Especially considering what Boston and Orlando added. And if Toronto is on, they can beat anyone, as they beat the Cavs already.
It will be interesting to see how we play tonight on the road.
Jeez, I hope they didn’t extend Brewer. It’s a cap-killer of a move for next year, on a player with almost no upside at the level of that deal. Corey Brewer isn’t going to be that much better by next offseason.
Do we have news on this? I know the NBA’s release on the changed extension deadline was for the ‘06 class only, but the rationale — that Monday’s the next business day — doesn’t exactly seem unique to that set of players….
Jerry, hasn’t the team said anything?
the ceveat to that Arenal is that he is still not a jump shooter in this league. yes, if he can get in the lane and hit lay-ups, by all means. but if he’s dribbling for 5-10 seconds and no lanes open up (which the Cavs figured out how to block the lanes), it is not in the team’s best interest for him to just spot up and shoot an 18-footer with a man in his face.
Despite the LeBron show, the game was winnable until 8 minutes left in the 3rd quarter.
The team negated 3 successive steals by Brewer to throw up 3-point attempts while in transition. Gomes, with one ridiculous 3-point attempt above the top of the key while ignoring team mates who were open closer to the rim. Flynn chucking up a mid-range shot with a team mate waiting for the open pass at the rim.
It is no wonder than the game was blown out to an insurmountable lead shortly thereafter.
^yes, bad shots are bad.
no, bad decisions result in losses
Marty McFly hit on the turning point of the game. The Gomes three point attempt in transition was inexcusable. He is a player that can only make a jump shot when perfectly set up. I just haven’t seen him make jump shots that are on the move or pull ups. I wonder how long Gomes continues to get minutes at PF?
I was impressed on the job Brewer did in the fourth quarter guarding Yi. In the next year if Brewer can continue adding some weight he can become a defensive option for some of those power forwards that play outside. There’s not a lot of players out there that can give you the kind of defensive versality that Corey potential offers.
I agree with Arenal’s take on Flynn. Until we surround him with players that can consistently make mid range jump shots and threes, Flynn is going to be a scoring point guard. Jonny Flynn is the second best scoring option and maybe the first best until Al looks fully healthy.
well isn’t the definition of a ’scoring pg’ one that has a jump shot ala Cassel? Flynn is a guy who can get to the rim and score that way (either lay ups or FTs) but he’s best at creating for his teammates. he isnt a dribble forever and spot up kinda guy like Paul yet.
Hello from Russia!
Can I quote a post “No teme” in your blog with the link to you?
