TWolves Blog - Minnesota Timberwolves News and Articles
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Written by SG
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Wednesday, 02 April 2008 |
Wallace, Chauncey Billups and Rip Hamilton all sat out a 94-90 victory
over the Timberwolves in which Pistons coach Flip Saunders rested his
three Eastern Conference All-Stars with 15 game still left in the
regular season. His team won anyway, ending the Wolves' home winning
streak at four games.
The Pistons trailed by 21 points in the second quarter and by seven at
the fourth quarter's start and rallied against the Wolves regulars with
a makeshift lineup that turned rookie guard Rodney Stuckey from unsung
reserve to the night's star.
Wolves record: 19-54
On Sunday, the Wolves won their seventh game in March and their fourth
consecutive at home, beating a Utah team missing starters Andrei
Kirilenko and Mehmet Okur. On Tuesday, the Pistons started Jarvis
Hayes, Rodney Stuckey, Tayshaun Prince, Antonio McDyess and longtime
Target Center favorite Theo Ratliff.
In the third quarter, Jefferson's shot down low with
11:43 remaining ended the Pistons' run. Then Gomes' three-point play 30
seconds later pushed Minnesota's lead back to 55-44.
The Pistons narrowed the deficit to 72-65 heading
into the fourth quarter. The Wolves fell to 15-13 when leading heading
into the fourth quarter.
The Wolves couldn't hang onto their fourth-quarter
lead just one game after they made clutch plays in the fourth Sunday
against Utah for a 110-103 home victory.
Al Jefferson had 26 points and seven rebounds, but only managed 12 shots while being hounded by double- and triple-teams all night.
Foye scored 18 points, but was just 6-for-14 from the field, committed a
costly turnover in the closing minutes and rushed an off-balance shot out of a
timeout with 45 seconds to go to seal the loss.
Of course, in a loss such as this, there is blame for anyone and everyone. However, tonight's loss should be especially painful for Randy Foye, who just couldn't get it together.
First, with the game tied at 88 and the Wolves with the ball with 65
second remaining, Foye rightly seeks to get the ball into Jefferson.
There are two defenders between them. Instead of drawing them off the
big man to free him up, or faking, say, the bounce pass to then lob it
in, Foye lazily bounces the ball inside. The defenders, both
anticipating the pass, cut it off easily. It wasn’t even close. (Twenty
second later, Detroit superstar Rodney Stuckey [27 points, mostly on
Foye] sticks a 14-footer—on Foye.)
The next play: Out of a timeout, Foye takes the ball down the court,
dribbles baseline, draws a second defender, and pulls back to take a
15-footer. It clanks off the rim, Detroit rebounds. Game, for all
intents and purposes, over.
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Written by SG
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Tuesday, 01 April 2008 |
Timberwolves coach Randy Wittman was disgusted, angered and frustrated by what he learned Monday morning.
Wittman was appalled that a man convicted in the
alcohol-related crash that killed Malik Sealy in 2000 had been arrested
again on suspicion of drunken driving. Souksangouane Phengsene was
booked into the Hennepin County Jail about 2 a.m. Sunday.
"It's amazing that he can still be out on the road," Wittman said.
Sporting News: A guide to winning it all, from Corey Brewer (in the NCAA)
Wolves rookie Corey Brewer turned in one of his best performances of
the season in Minnesota's victory over Utah, finishing with 16 points,
seven boards and three assists in 26 minutes of burn.
The Wolves and Pistons haven't played each other all season. They'll
now begin and end their two-game season series in the first two weeks
of April.
"I know, it's funny," Ratliff said. "It'll be fun seeing the guys. I
enjoyed those guys. I know they're losing right now, but they were a
lot of fun to be around."
Previews of tonight's game against Detroit:
Click here for the forum's game thread
Saunders said he's not surprised that the Timberwolves are starting to win some games.
"Through the whole time they played hard," said Saunders, who spent
nine-plus seasons as the Timberwolves' coach. "Anytime you play hard,
you give yourselves a chance. They're finishing some games down the
stretch."
"Four years ago they were in the conference finals, and things have
changed, and people have changed," Saunders said. "I think sometimes
you try to justify maybe some things that have happened."
"Sometimes when you're trying to justify what you're doing, it makes other people look bad.
"He really is not a malicious person. So I don't think he ever says anything to be really malicious.
"I think he just talks a lot. He wants to tell you what he thinks."
The only player still on the Wolves' roster when Saunders coached Minnesota four years ago is Mark Madsen.
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Written by SG
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Monday, 31 March 2008 |
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Souksangouane Phengsene, the man convicted of and imprisoned for
criminal vehicular homicide after killing Minnesota Timberwolves player
Malik Sealy in a 2000 crash, has been jailed once again on suspicion of
driving while under the influence.
In his pregame address to local media, Wolves head coach Randy Wittman
said that Sebastian Telfair may not play for the remainder of the
season (10 games).
"We'll see if Sebastian even comes back, he said. "We only have two and a half weeks left."
Memphis' Rudy Gay would be my second choice. Yes, these two are running
up big numbers on bad teams and that can be misleading. But each one
defines the term "emerging young star'' and that's what I look for
under most improved. (Now, if Jefferson wants to take the next step,
it's time to apply himself as a defender.)
Now that he is 100 percent healthy for the first time in a long time, Rashad McCants is proving what a wise first-round draft choice he was for the Timberwolves in 2005. McCants shot 6-for-10 from the floor in scoring 16 points in Sunday's 110-103 victory over the playoff-bound Utah Jazz, and 13 of those points were scored in the second half. ... The Wolves finished the month of March with a 7-8 record and have won four consecutive home games, which is good for the team's record but hurts their chances at getting a top-three pick in the 2008 draft lottery.
Wittman wants his point guards to control more of
the game because he believes that's important. Right now, the focus
falls on Randy Foye because fellow point guard Sebastian Telfair is out
with an ankle injury.
Also from Alonzo:
Wolves rookie Corey Brewer said he plans to sponsor
an AAU team coached by former Wolves player Richard Coffey, who starred
at the University of Minnesota.
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Written by SG
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Monday, 31 March 2008 |
Al Jefferson had 22 points and eight rebounds and Rashad McCants
scored 13 of his 16 points in the second half of Minnesota's 110-103
victory Sunday over a Utah team that just can't seem to win on the road.
Corey Brewer tied a career high with 16 points and had seven
rebounds for the Timberwolves, who have now beaten the Jazz at home
twice this season, losses that are inexcusable for a team that hopes to
contend for the Western Conference crown.
Wolves record: 19-53
The Wolves improved to 15-12 when leading at the start of the fourth quarter.
"Early in the year, that was a big problem for us,"
Wolves forward Al Jefferson said about closing out games. "We're
growing up. We're getting better and better. Beat a team like this two
times in a row at home, that says lot."
The latest victory over the short-handed Jazz, who
played without starters Andrei Kirilenko and Mehmet Okur, came in large
part because the Wolves held their composure.
Wittman kept reserves Rashad McCants and Kirk Snyder, moved out of the
starting lineup Sunday after 13 consecutive starts, on the floor for
the entire fourth quarter and paired them down the stretch with
Jefferson, Ryan Gomes and Marko Jaric, who moved from shooting guard to
play point guard against Williams, Utah's sizable point guard.
McCants vexed Utah's defense repeatedly on pick-and-roll plays, and
Snyder led the way with the hustle plays.
Behind a balanced offense and some feisty defense, the Wolves beat Utah
108-103 for the second-straight time this season in Minneapolis. The
two biggest plays of the game for the Wolves came first on a Marko
Jaric three with 2:20 remaining, and second when Kirk Snyder slithered
in for an and-1 with 45 seconds left to put Minnesota up 104-98.
That is, until Rashad McCants responded to a Carlos Boozer layup with a
17-foot jumper with 16.1 seconds left to ice the game and stick a
mini-wrench in Utah's push for playoff seeding.
For this one game, it seems as if Corey Brewer learned how to play in the offense by sitting on the bench behind Kirk Snyder. Snyder has played well since arriving in Minnesota, but in his first start in awhile, Brewer showed he has made strides in his development. Again, there is much more to do, but Brewer is on his way.
The Wolves ended the month with their seventh victory in March, and
their first over a team with a winning record bound for the playoffs.
They did it by winning for a fourth consecutive time after took a lead
into the fourth quarter, a particularly troublesome situation for them
earlier in the season when they lost eight of their first 13 games when
they led after three quarters.
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Written by SG
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Sunday, 30 March 2008 |
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Telfair experienced soreness in his sprained left
ankle as the result of his increased rehabilitation workload. He's
already missed 10 games and won't play today against Utah.
Coach Randy Wittman said Saturday that Telfair might
need another week or two to be able to play in a game. The regular
season ends April 16, so there isn't much time for Telfair to recover.
Hansbrough's response was a bit different from the one McCants had when
he made SI's national cover for our season-preview issue. "When Rashad
was on the cover we were flying to Santa Clara, and we had to hit two
airports because we flew commercial," says a UNC insider. "Rashad went
into the newsstand and just stood there until the people next to him
looked at him. Then at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley he comes
downstairs and throws a copy of it on the coffee table in the lobby and
then sat behind it on the couch until people walked by."
Classic McCants. (I still remember bumping into McCants on the floor in
St. Louis after UNC won the 2005 title, and the first thing he said to
me wasn't about the championship or his teammates or even his own
performance. It was this: "Jay-Z's here tonight.")
The final four games in a six-game stretch where the Wolves face
playoff-bound teams, including two against the Jazz to conclude the
teams' season series. The Wolves didn't play the Pistons for the
season's first five months and now face them twice in two weeks.
Blaine's Patrick O'Bryant, Golden State's little-used second-year
center, sent himself to the NBA Developmental League to show his skills
to scouts -- note to Target Center -- as he approaches free agency this
summer.
The 37-year-old Rider was driving a car that failed to stop at an
intersection about 2:30 a.m. in the city's Skid Row district, Officer
Norma Eisenman said.
Officers checking the license plates discovered the car had been
reported stolen from South Los Angeles, and Rider was arrested, police
said.
He remained in the Los Angeles County jail on $25,000 bail, according
to information on the Web site for the county Sheriff's Department.
Previews of this afternoon's game against Utah:
Click here for the forum's game thread
The Jazz completes its season series with the Wolves with two games --
this afternoon at Target Center, Wednesday in Salt Lake City -- in four
days. Wolves coach Randy Wittman will know what to expect, which
doesn't mean he can stop it. The Jazz is 32-9 since it acquired shooter
Kyle Korver from Philadelphia in December, but it lost to the Wolves
last month in its first visit to Target Center.
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Written by SG
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Saturday, 29 March 2008 |
To that end, he has already enlisted the aid
of 39 Division I basketball coaches for a program he hopes to have in
place by next season.
"Next season, we plan on monitoring Division
I college basketball with the goal of having a working defibrillator
and someone trained to use it at every Division I game and practice,"
Gomes said. "With all the occurrences of this tragedy, we should be
ready to respond in the occurrence of another one. That's a realistic
goal that we hope to attain."
Wittman said Jefferson should get consideration for the NBA's Most
Improved Player award. "I think you've got to, with what he's done on a
consistent basis," said Wittman, who also said Sebastian Telfair should
be considered. "Being the main option for the first time in his career,
sometimes it takes a person awhile to get accustomed to that. You're
seeing different things from him, too. That's part of being an improved
player," Wittman said.
He is one of just four players in the NBA averaging
at least 20 points and 10 rebounds, along with Orlando's Dwight Howard,
Utah's Carlos Boozer and Washington's Antawn Jamison.
Jefferson's 50 double-doubles ranked second in the
NBA behind Howard. And he has improved his shot blocking as well. He
came into Friday's game against San Antonio having averaged 3.6 blocks
in the previous five games.
Also from Alonzo:
-- Wolves point guard Sebastian Telfair missed his
10th consecutive game because of a sprained left ankle. Wittman wasn't
sure whether Telfair would be able to resume practicing today.
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Written by SG
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Saturday, 29 March 2008 |
Ryan Gomes led the Timberwolves with 17 points and 10 boards and Al Jefferson added 14. Reserve Rashad McCants scored 13.
Ginobili has made a habit this season of playing well against
Minnesota, which lost the season series to the Spurs 0-4. In the other
three games against the Timberwolves, Ginobili scored 31, 22, and most
recently 44 points -- two shy of his season high.
Wolves record: 18-53
After pushing
their lead as high as 20 in the third quarter, on an almost-dunk from
Finley in transition, the Spurs nearly squandered away all of it before
the start of the fourth.
Rashad McCants
and Ryan Gomes, who finished with 17 points as one of six Wolves in
double figures, took turns bringing Minnesota back.
Minnesota
(18-53) was within four early in the fourth quarter. That's when
Ginobili, mild-mannered for most of the night, emerged from his
imaginary phone booth, wearing his invisible cape.
Ultimately, the Wolves flew home empty after Ginobili scored all but
one of the Spurs' points in a 14-2 run early in the fourth quarter.
Included in that telling three-minute stretch were three of his five
three-pointers that allowed the Spurs to win their 50th game for the
ninth consecutive season.
Although the Wolves lost by 15 points, that they
rallied in the third quarter before Ginobili put them away in the
fourth gives optimism.
"It shows that we're not giving up right now," Corey
Brewer said. "It's late in the season, but we're still trying to win
games."
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Written by SG
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Friday, 28 March 2008 |
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Asked if he thinks there’s a good chance Telfair won’t play again this
season — there are, after all, only 2 1/2 weeks and 12 games left —
Wolves coach Randy Wittman hesitated a count and said, “Uh, I think
he’ll be back. I anticipate it. We don’t have the luxury to say he
needs to get four or five good practices under him like we normally
maybe would because of where we’re at in the season. But I want to be
sure he’s ready.”
The couple have been dating for the last six months, but Jaric says he was perplexed by a Web-based rumor about his checking out the local jewelry store for the big stone.
"I am not shopping right now," Jaric, 29, tells PEOPLE. "But I could
start tomorrow. I am that close. I'm definitely not yet engaged, but it
doesn't mean we're not thinking about it."
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