11/3/06 - Wolves 86, Portland 88

Timberwolves.com wrap up

Video Highlights

Some pros from the game....

-Guard play: Both Ricky Davis and Mike James had good games, combining for 35 points, 14 assists, and only 3 turnovers. Marko Jaric also had a pretty good game off the bench, playing for 20 minutes, playing solid defense, and grabbing 6 boards.

-Defense: The Wolves played decent defense (although not so much when they needed it), and held the Blazers to 42% shooting and only 88 points. They pretty much shut down Zach Randolph, the Blazers' best player, in the second half, and their other big, Jamaal Magloire, was not a factor.

-Craig Smith: It was good to see Craig Smith have another solid game off the bench, with 10 points on 5 of 8 shooting. He didn't get much run or touches in the second half, but he helped build that lead back to double digits in the second quarter.

Some cons from the game....

-Aggressiveness: The reason the Blazers ultimately won the game was because they were much more aggressive going to the basket than the Wolves, particularly in crunch time. Down the stretch, the Wolves were far too content with shooting long jumpers instead of forcing this Blazers team to provide a stop.

-The bench: The Wolves' reserves only managed 17 points on 8 of 19 shooting, and only got to the line once. Pretty horrible. You saw the Wolves' 16 point lead disappear in the second quarter as the reserves came in for the starters. Everyone looked lost on both sides of the floor. If the Wolves are going to be a successful team, they'll need a solid bench that can at least maintain a lead instead of letting it slip away.

-Turnovers: Once again, the Wolves allowed too many turnovers to this young, defensively poor Blazers' team. 15 turnovers, to the Blazers, is too many. On the other side, only managing to grab 10 turnovers is too little on the defensive end.

General thoughts....

While the win against Denver made me hopeful for this year's team, this loss brought me back to last year. It seemed like last year, even though we were a sub-.500 team for the majority of the season, there was always a usually-average player who got up for this game. In this game, it was Travis Outlaw, Martell Webster, and in the end, Juan Dixon. Chalk some of that up to it being the Blazers' home opener, but still a very disappointing loss. If the Wolves' are going to go anywhere in the West, they'll need to reclaim that killer instinct they had back in '04. When you're up 16 going into the 2nd quarter after thoroughly destroying your opposition, it's not time to coast; it's time to get that lead up past 20 and really demoralize a young team who nobody expects to go anywhere. Hopefully we'll see that later on in the season.

Other NBA thoughts....

-Staying with Portland, everyone seemed to be so excited about Brandon Roy last night, and while he had a great game, I wasn't that impressed. 16 points and 8 dimes looks good on paper, but when I see that he played for almost 42 minutes and went 4 of 17 from the floor.....not as impressive. He also seems to be getting a lot of love from the refs, after looking at some of the questionable calls he got, but Mike James didn't....

-The Rockets blew out the Mavs last night 107-76, with Yao carrying them with 36 points. They might be one of the top 3 seeds in the West, and Yao might finally deserve to be an All Star starter.

-After beating the Warriors by 24 and getting off to a 3-0 start, I'm beggining to believe that the Jazz might be for real.

-I'm glad the fuss about the new ball has died down. Scores and shooting percentages seem to be plenty high. I wish I could feel the ball and see what it's like though....

Wolves' Overall Record: 2-1
Division Rank: 2nd

Wolves' next game:

Monday, November 6th
@ Sacramento
9 PM on Fox Sports North

Game Preview

The Wolves edged out the Kings in their season opener, thanks to the help of Troy Hudson's clutch shooting and Mike Bibby's whining. They'll have to play better in order to win in Sacramento, one of the loudest buildings in the league. I'd like to see Ricky become more of a playmaker in this game, because he's not going to get an inch of shooting daylight with Artest on him. Mike James should have his way offensively with Mike Bibby, and I'd like to see KG really go at Kenny Thomas. Overall, the key to this game will be an overall aggressive mindset; a loss like the Portland loss would send last year's Wolves into a losing tailspin, so let's see how they respond against a playoff team like the Kings.

I LOVE THIS GAME!