Your TWolves lost to the Jazz tonight sans Deron Williams, which may be a shock to some of you, although I doubt it.  The Jazz have been one of the worst teams in the league of late, and I'm not even kidding. They had 6 straight losses, losing to Washington, the Nyets, and Philly. And then we go and lose to them without their best player. Just sad. And I thought we were gonna win (thinking Williams would be playing as well!) Pfffff. Good one Wolves.

Before I forget, lots of chatter and discussion can be found in the TWB Forum Game Thread for tonight's game.

We are just so bad. We have no players. Love puts up stats. Beasley is decent enough at times. Brewer and Wes can have nice little spurts. I guess Darko is good as far as underpaid centers go. But beyond that, we don't even have guys that would be playing on other .500 teams.

Flynn is so suck it's not even funny. If they did the draft over, he wouldn't even be a first round pick. 6 assists tonight against 6 turnovers. 5 points in 18 minutes. I don't think he could average 2:1 assists to turnovers if his life depended on it. Please trade him. For anything.  Is Memphis finally ready to trade Mayo or what?  Someone get Chris Wallace on the phone before they realize that Flynn is atrocious.

What the hell happened with 3 minutes left in the 4th quarter and the Wolves down 6? AK-47 misses two free-throws, but gets the second rebound. Millsap takes a shot off the side of the backboard, which is again offensive rebounded by Big Al, who then dumps it down low to AK-47 for the lay-in. Sadness all around.

And might I add that Al Jefferson stinks. And for $13+ million dollars per year, that's a whole lotta stink.  I wonder what Jazz fans are saying about him now?

Thank goodness we traded him, but too bad for us we didn't do it sooner so we could have actually gotten something of value for him, rather than cap space and 2 crappy protected first round picks.

We had 25 turnovers to only 10 for the Jazz. Probably why we lost to them without Deron Williams.

This season is getting hard to watch. Yet another loss. That's 6 in a row, and 11 of the last 12. That firmly entrenches us as the second worst team in the league. We better finally win the lottery because I can't take much more of this.

The Wolves take on the Toronto Raptors Saturday night at Target Center.  The game isn't on TV (again), which is probably for the best of anyone that still actually follows this team.  The TWB Forum Game Thread for the Raptors game can be found HERE.

What follows is what I hope will be a somewhat frequent exercise and more or less a new idea to bring forth to the table: The TWB Pulse. Within the series of posts that will perhaps follow later in the year, assuming laziness and apathy doesn’t prevent me from copying and pasting what will follow at a greater rate then drumming up my own material, will be a collection of forum post quotes from our ever entertaining forums. The idea here is get a general sense of how Wolves fans are feeling on a certain subject, or the team in general. . This would have been a fantastic exercise to begin at the start of the season when optimism couldn’t be higher, but alas there were fun and important things to write about rather than our current, terribly utilized roster lead by the NBA coaching equivalent to George W. Bush.

PS – Forum posts will be quoted anonymously. I know, I know. But, I see it as lumping everyone into a group and assessing the overall mood as opposed to highlighting individual post quality. This will then allow me to secretly construct 75% of the article as my own posts. Just kidding. Onward:

On Timberwolves Head Coach Darrell Rhombus

-We bitch and moan incessantly about Rhombus. Anyone not on the Fire Rhombus band wagon is either the always excellent 9Deuce/any other poster here who perhaps wants to wait until the end of the year, stubborn, or a bit of a ratard.

-I guess I'm a little stubborn and a little retarded. I'm waiting to see how he does at the beginning of next year first to join the Fire Rambis bandwagon.

- (If I were Rhombus) I would use Webster as a 3 point shooter and not expect him to put the ball on the floor as his only means of scoring. Rambis started doing this in the Orlando game I want to say...maybe a hair before, but to make my point more self serving....Webster's last 5 games - 3.8 ppg, 5 total 3's attempted. Previous 10 games - 11.3 ppg and averaging 4 3pt attempts per game.

- Really though, if I were Rhombus/coach, the most important thing is locking down a rotation and pecking order. Until that happens, everything else is up for debate to people like us on the internet and message boards. You can't have a cohesive team until this happens. No one knows their frickin role out there. How can they develop, get comfortable, and learn? It's a disaster right now.

- The ludicrous way that Rambis has cut away from Beasley to end games, I could believe that Rambis is being a dick about being told that he needs to work Love into the end game situations by his boss.

- If I were Rhombus I'd get hair plugs.

- Rambis is showing a steady hand, but the corollary to that is that he is resistant to change- except when it comes to minutes, apparently. I think he's done a great job with Darko and Brewer, in managing their minutes and allowing them to grow and contribute- however, Wes getting bounced around and Flynn continuing to get big minutes is baffling to me. I have to assume that Flynn's playing time is a command from Kahn in order to try to bump his value.

-I'm a big fan of the ol' "let's play everyone on the roster in the first quarter so that the opponents can't keep track of who is on the court" move.

- I'm completely baffled as to why Flynn, Webster, Wes, and Ellington don't get better. They have such a defined role in such a defined rotation. The situation couldn't be better for them...

- I'm really surprised by our crap defense considering we had 12 fresh bodies running in and out of the game for 48 minutes. It's cool that we're ahead of the curve with this new substitution pattern. When the rest of the league figures out that playing everyone on your roster at least 5 minutes and at completely sporadic times confuses the opposition, Rambis is sure to get the next head coaching job in Miami

- We have seen 5 rookies come through here since Rambis started. None have gotten better and some have gotten worse. Same for the team itself for that matter, it gets WORSE as the season goes on.
-I realize there are talent eval issues with drafting to consider, but it is equally, if not more, a player development issue. For example, Flynn. I know he is not an all-star here, but for him to be playing so HORRIBLY as opposed to last year cannot be the hip. There is something more to these things.

- Rambis is by no means a psychologist so how does he think that some revolutionary way of dealing with players will miraculously work? Why not use what works and what has worked for 100 years? I don't know any player in the league that would thrive in the situations he puts Flynn, Bassy, Webster, Brewer (until recently), Wes, Tolliver, Pek, or Ellington in. Brewer and to a lesser extent, Ellington, seems to understand and get a feel for his role. I have no clue what Webster is supposed to do when he gets in for a 4 minute spurt only to be replaced by Wes for three minutes and then Brewer for 7. And no FYCKING duh Beasley and Love don't make players around them better, they have no clue how to play with anyone!

CLICK READ MORE TO CONTINUE

I was just approached about a new Rubio Interview by Tubasket.com.  Check it out on their site HERE, or read below for the English translation and video as well:

(What happens with Ricky?)

Rubio: “These are stages of a player. Everything doesn’t have to be always perfect; not everything has to come first, otherwise everything would be easy. There are always bad patches; times when you don’t play so well; times when you’re happier and you have to take advantage of these happier times, and learn a lot of the bad patches that a player goes through during his stages. It’s all stages”.

(Advice from his coaches, teammates, and his camp)

Rubio: “They see me training every day and there’s nothing special. I keep training well and hard, and when this happens, nothing happens. These are stages and I´ll go through it”.

(NBA future)

Rubio: “I don’t want to think until the end of the season. I can tell you that lockout is important because I don’t feel like to be three or four months without playing. I want to compete from the first day and it’s something to keep in mind from the day 1. Until the end of the season I don’t want talk about anything”.

(If you finally go to the NBA, has Minnesota convinced you to play with them, as David Khan said, or would you rather play for another team?)

Rubio: “Minnesota has shown me all their love and support. And when a team shows you all that you’re grateful and you have good words for them. There’s nothing bad I can say about Minnesota. They have supported me from the first time I said I could stay here and I’m very happy with that”.

“That fact they have a sports project to aspire to win is what I want. You can go to a team where you have granted minutes but not a project to add victories. A player, especially in Europe, where you’re not so used to play so many games and where defeats doesn’t have so much influence... It’s difficult to go to a league with so many games and to a team with a lot of defeats and where nobody cares”.

Thanks again to Tubasket.com!

Lastly, just let me say, I'm so sick of all this nonsense coming out and being spun by the media.  We get it, you don't want Rubio "forced" into playing and being stuck with Minnesota.  But please, just please please please, stop with all these bogus rumors and speculation.  It's beyond tiring. 

You can read the rundown from the New York Times here at Pro Basketball Talk.  Ohhhh... the "Senior member of Rubio's camp" doesn't want him in Minnesota.  Who's that?  His uncle in-law?  His great aunt twice removed?  Pfffffff.  Give me a break.

Even worse, the front page of RealGM.com simply says this, below a link to their story:

"A member of Ricky Rubio's camp says the family wants to play for a team like Boston, Miami or New York."

Oh lord, where will this nonsense end?   No shoddy reporting there.

And as I said in the Ricky Rubio Watch in the TWolves Blog Forums, no matter what eventually happens with Rubio, that was a GREAT value pick for the Wolves at #5 in the draft. People had talked about him going in the Top 2 for two years before that draft (which was only screwed up because of his insane buyout in his contract.)

You can't blame Kahn for putting his eggs with Rubio and having more faith in him than Flynn. And I don't blame Kahn for that at all.

The gigantic mistake in that draft was taking Flynn instead of Curry, or even a handful of other guys.  Obviously the Wolves front office didn't expect for Rubio to fall to them at #5, and they apparently had zero contingency plans when it did.  Still, having been rumored to acquire him in the draft for month(s) beforehand, how could the team NOT plan for what to do with the #6 pick if they somehow got Rubio?  Epic Fail.

The rest of the draft was mis-managed and mis-evaluated by the Wolves staff. It's the story of our lives as TWolves fans, I guess. Huge blame to the entire Front Office for that.

I mean, you just can't understate how badly we really effed up that draft.  Along with Rubio, we could have had Brandon Jennings, Stephen Curry, DeMar DeRozan, Jrue Holiday, Ty Lawson, or Darren Collison.  Anyone but Flynn and this team is looking a hell of a lot better right now.

Tonight the Wolves take it to Portland, where their excellent "pack it in, they will cool off at some point" defensive strategy will hopefully limit Matthews and Fernandez to a combined 37 threes in the first half.

Rather than hash out a boring game preview for a team we have played twice already this year, I thought I'd pose 5 things to think about over the next week and beyond as it pertains to the Wolves.

1. Has the recent emphasis on ball movement with Beasley out been a positive thing for the team? I think we all know Beasley is essential to this team, but over the past 2 games I have seen much better execution and a solid scoring attack within the flow of the offense. Last year we loathed about how Al Jefferson, while putting up numbers, would put a wrench right into the flow of things and stagnate our offense. Is this trend developing with Beasley? It doesn't take a rocket scientist nor a statisctician to see and understand how much better the Wolves play when Mike moves the ball and doesn't force it. Assuming Beasley is out tonight and perhaps Wednesday vs. LAC before a 5 day rest, it would be noteworthy if the Wolves win one or at least play tight against 2 surging teams. It could be more indicitive than we thought, at least short term.

2. Brewer in the starting lineup; and Brewer being here long term. Look, it again didn't take a brilliant wizard to notice how much better the Wolves played in the 2nd half the last time these 2 teams met with Brewer taking Wes' minutes. Brewer's energy when he plays big minutes is simply tough to top. With that said, Brew is a free agent and we have a decision to make on his future. I think his impact here has been a bit under-appreciated and I'm not sure Wes can top his production on both ends of the floor unless he (Edit: I intially had "she" written here as a typo. Thought about keeping it as it seems appropriate of late) expands his game beyond spot up and one-dribble jump shots and blown defensive assignments.

It's easy to peg Wes as a long term wing simply because he was once the 4th pick in a (historically bad) draft. Irrational draft pick fetish syndrome strikes again. But ask yourself, between Wes and Brewer, who's impact and style of play fits the bill for us long term?  Obviously no decisions can be made on this today, but think of this in terms of categories: On offense Wes will probably never be a high scorer for us, nor will he need to be so let's weigh this factor a bit less than defense. However, Wes is obviously a better shooter and off the dribble it is about even. On defense, Brewer takes the nod most of the time, but Wes has potential. On fast breaks and in transition I will call a draw.  BB IQ and intangibles go to Brewer. You get the idea. So, in Wes' likely role (modest scoring, defensive-minded, athletic wing player), is he the best fit based on his strengths? Or is this another classic Rhombus example of forcing a player to be something they just aren't? Can Wes expand his defensive game to Brewer levels, consistently pissing off the likes of Wes Matthews and Manu, and at the same time, improve his offense beyond Kyle Korver levels? Let's hope so, and he certainly deserves more opportunity to try.

3. Our 2nd unit. We are getting murdered off the bench due to Pekovic's continued idiot maneuvers, Flynn being amongst the worst players in the league, inconsistent shooting/questionable shot selection from Martell and Tolliver, and several poor defensive decisions mixed in. Would bringing Beasley off the bench be a good move to bolster our 2nd unit? Player/personality wise it would be a tough pill for Mike to swallow but I have to imagine the impact would be noticeable. This could also probably be fixed simply by having one of Love/Beasley on the floor at all times and with simple, intelligent rotations where we keep scorers on the floor.

4. Ridnour. Many ripped on him to no end earlier this year, but man is he playing extremely well for us lately. Good work, Michael Cera. Even if Flynn weren't playing like garbage, it would be very difficult for him to take Luke's starting job. And as a fan-base, I hope that after 4 years of this level of play we are past the "not playing vets b/c they take minutes away from the young guys" concept. So, my question: would you have rather kept Sessions, or do you like Luke's all around fast paced game and deadeye shooting better? 

5. The D-League. Why have we not sent Lazar down to get some burn? Or Pekovic for that matter? Lazar has been pretty bad thus far even when he plays, why not get him some reps in Sioux Falls? Makes absolutely no sense to me. Oh, well.

Enjoy the game tonight and let's hope Brewer can shut down Wesley "Dave" Matthews and Rudy Fail-nandez early on to keep us in it. This Portland team is overachieving like no one's business and what better way for them to lose momentum than a loss at home? One last thought: keep an eye on the Portland/Memphis footrace. It is in our best interest to beat Portland if we want to get our top 14 protected draft pick from the Grizzlies this year. If Memphis makes the playoffs, we get it. If Portland does, that likely puts Memphis in the lottery and delays our pick to next year (which may also be a good thing)

For those of you fortunate to watch our Timberwolves play basketball last night, you saw a few things we haven't seen much of lately:

1. Closing out a team in the fourth quarter

2. Ball movement

3. A little defense

4. Winning (ten wins!)

Now, I'm not going to sit here and rant and rave about how incredible the team was at these different things, but there were some fun signs against a decidedly poor Eastern Conference team that's beed wracked with injury (Blatche, Howard, ) and is dealing with new pieces after the Arenas trade. All that aside, fun night. I was at the game compliments of a lovely lady on the Timberwolves staff who reached out and came through with sweet seats, so that was nice too. A couple other things: I forgot Randy WIttman and Sam Cassell were on staff with Flip's Wizards. Weird seeing all of them. Also, Flip has been doing some spray tan or something... dude looks orange.

On to the game!

The first quarter went the way a lot of our first quarters go. Good energy, kinda flaily at times. Kevin "The Optometrist" Love was pretty electric, scoring 14 of his 21 first-half points in the frame. Loved the high screen where instead of rolling to the basket, he pops out to the top of the key and receives a pass from the driving guard. It must be maddening to opposing big men to guard a guy like Love who has such excellent range.You think he's going to dive toward the basket, so you're sagging into the lane, but then he's standing out top. Swish!

Flip Saunders returns to the Twin Cities with the battle of two really crappy teams tonight at Target Center.  The Wolves most likely without Michael Beasley, and the Wizards likely without Josh Howard and Andre Blatche.  Also, the Wizards are STILL winless on the road this season at 0-18.  The Wolves are favored, but I could see us losing (sigh.)  Especially against a healthy John Wall.

It's never too late to get really cheap tickets and come join some of us fellow TWB'ers at Target center.  Check out some great deals via TWolvesBlog's partnership with TipIQ.

The TWB Forums are hopping with Wolves and sports discussion, including a possible imminent deal with the Knicks for Anthony Randolph?  Low risk, high potential reward.  Make it happen Kahn!

Game tips tonight at 7PM.  Go Wolves.

For those of you that may have missed it, here is the drama from last night where official Kenny Mauer T's us up 5 times in 10 seconds, including two players at the same time.  Brewer, Darko, Love, and Rambis (ejected) where the victims. Talk about not being a T-Wolves homer.

Extra credit to Coach Darrell Rhombus at the 1:18 mark.  The obscenity was enjoyable.

And here's a "funny" quote from Mr. Mauer last week in SLAM magazine:

That’s a sentiment echoed by many of Olesiak’s peers. Ken Mauer, who’s entering his 25th season as an NBA referee, says finding resolution to a confrontation before it reaches the ‘technical’ stage is paramount. "If it’s something where I can say to the player before he overreacts, ‘Talk to me, c’mon, talk to me,’ now we’re talking," Mauer says at the NBA referees’ annual meeting in Jersey City, NJ, in mid-September. "I avoid an overreaction; therefore, it didn’t escalate."

Note: This article was written by TWB Forum member, wolfenstein.

After watching last night's game against the Spurs, I need to air a few thoughts and frustrations about our team and what we are trying to do. Rather than ranting about our team as a whole, I want to address specific players individually, because only then can we attempt to bring some semblance of order out of the murky chaos that is our game day roster.

In the interest of clarity, I will first voice my opinion on whether that player should be played or not, because a certain portion of our futility is directly caused by playing guys who, at this point, have no business being on an NBA court if we want to win. I'll follow with constructive criticism of their play, strengths and weaknesses, etc.

I realize this is a bit presumptuous of me, but I've been out of coaching for a few years and the bug just gets to me- I can't watch a team this much without wanting to provide feedback.

That said, thanks to CW and the rest for providing the forum where we can sound off like this. Without further delay...

The Starters

Ridnour: Keep playing him. In spite of my being totally against it earlier in the year, he's been playing really well lately, except at the end of games where his decision making has still been extremely poor... Would ideally be a second stringer and a solid one at that. Needs to improve shot selection and defense.

Brewer: Keep playing him, although ideally he would keep his confidence but give us great minutes off the bench. Unless he plays within his offensive limits a little better, it's tough to see him starting on a winning team. That said, he has a competitive streak that I like, has shown great energy, and his quickness and length make him a good defender even when his fundamentals are off. Needs to limit what he's trying to do offensively: shoot the spot up shot, slash when he gets the ball with a lane to the basket, or one dribble jumper. His one on one skills with a set defender just aren't his strength. Needs to keep his center of gravity on top of his feet at all times on defense (no reaching, no leaning, etc.).

Beasley: Obviously keep playing him. Like Corey, he is one of the few guys on the team with a "win at all costs" competitive mentality. Offensively he's been playing well lately and sharing the ball. Defensively he needs to extend his arms to take up more space both on and off the ball. He could be a much better help side defender, as well as on the ball defender, if he would take advantage of his wingspan. See the ball and the man at all times. Communicate to your teammates. He would do well to watch some KG film from the Celtics' championship season to see what he should be trying to do defensively for this team.

Love: Again, obviously keep playing him. Great producer. Don't really need to say anything about his rebounding, or shooting, except that he needs to chin the ball in the post as well as he does on rebounds. Defensively, he needs to hedge on screens, trap the ball, and then recover quickly to his man or to the rotation. When his man goes to screen he needs to turn the "nimble" switch on and play lighter on his toes (see later notes on Tolliver). Being lighter on his toes on defense would help his help side defense as well, although at times he does a great job by stepping in and taking the charge.

Darko: Needs to play, but should have his minutes reduced in favor of Tolliver or using Love at Center in a small ball line up, until Darko can consistently demonstrate the ability to avoid The Void (self-abusive Darko mode). Needs to work on free throw shooting, face up play, and, like Love, chinning the ball in the post so it doesn't get stripped. Darko also needs to work on his mental toughness so he doesn't enter The Void every time he makes a small mistake or gets a bad bounce. He allows a lot of very easy mistakes to ruin entire games or large stretches of games for him. Having older brothers beat you up or being forced to shovel snow are good ways to bolster mental toughness, but I would have thought growing up in a war-torn country would also be good for this, but...? I guess Peko could qualify as a big brother figure for Darko, I advocate Peko bullying Darko relentlessly until Darko learns to stand up for himself and be a man. Finally, Darko also needs to watch Anthony Tolliver play pick and roll defense. He gives up silly fouls trying to do the right thing, but doing it the wrong way or, more specifically, with the wrong level of effort and intensity. It is an art, but one that we desperately need Darko to acquire. I have more thoughts on this at the bottom of the page.

Come check us out in the TWolves Blog Forums, as Forum member "Flash" has just posted the voting results of all the 2010 Year End Recognition Awards.  This was a very scientific study, as voted upon by our fellow TWB forum members. 

Who's the Rookie of the Year? Most Improved? The Most Negative and Most Entertaining? Who has the Best Avatar? Biggest Homer?  Who's the Nicest?  And find out who is the TWB MVP... among many other categories!

Check it out, the results may shock and/or amaze!*

*Except in the case of forum member "Roundhouse."