Check out new Timberwolves blog The 600 Project.
Previews for tonight’s game at Milwaukee:
Al Jefferson might not have earned an all-star invitation Sunday night, but the Timberwolves’ star center sure didn’t hurt his chances.
Smacked in the face in the fourth quarter and limping around with leg cramps at the end, Jefferson scored a season-high 39 points to help the Wolves to a 109-108 overtime win over the Chicago Bulls at Target Center.
The rest is up to Western Conference coaches, who will vote by Thursday on reserves for the Feb. 15 NBA All-Star Game in Phoenix.
“I’m not even thinking about it, man,” Jefferson said. “Don’t get me wrong. I want to think about it, but I’m just getting it out of my mind and waiting until Thursday.”
From Sid Hartman:
Timberwolves coach Kevin McHale says there is nothing to the rumors that guard/forward Mike Miller might be traded to the New Jersey Nets.
“This is the NBA. If a good trade comes along, you do something,” McHale said. “But I would like to keep the core of this group together and let them develop into what they can be.”
Regarding Miller, who was acquired in a 2008 draft-day deal with Memphis, McHale said: “First of all, I can tell you that Mike has been unbelievable. Mike is such a great guy. His ability to rebound, pass the ball, defend out there — he’s been doing so many good things for us.
“The thing everybody looks at is he’s not making shots right now. These are shots he normally makes. He’s going to make those shots, I’m not worried about that. Mike Miller is not on the market. Someone told me that; that is not true.”
As the Feb. 19 deadline approaches, two NBA executives said numerous teams are seriously considering making trades to benefit the playoff push or aid their future and/or pocketbooks.
While Toronto forward Jermaine O’Neal and Miami forward Shawn Marion have been mentioned in the hottest rumors and could, in fact, be traded for each other, there are several other intriguing names being tossed around. Keep an eye on Toronto’s Anthony Parker and Joey Graham, Minnesota’s Mike Miller, Oklahoma City’s Joe Smith and Chris Wilcox, Chicago’s Larry Hughes and Andres Nocioni, Cleveland’s Wally Szczerbiak, Dallas’s Jerry Stackhouse, New Jersey’s Bobby Simmons, and Washington’s Etan Thomas.
Love’s better than most of us expected, too. It would be easy to cite his grit, but there’s more than that to his game. He can shoot, pass and defend, and he’s just starting to figure out how to score in this league.
In Rose and Love, the Bulls and Wolves might wind up with the most insightful picks from the top of the 2008 draft.
“He’s a world-class athlete and everybody in the draft really liked him,” McHale said. “Things have changed. I think you always said if the guy has the ball in his hands a lot, he’s going to have to make some shots because eventually you’ll get him in situations where the clock will be down. The clock being down on that kid doesn’t mean anything. Three seconds, he goes the length of the court. … He’s just a very, very gifted young man.”
The Wolves trailed Chicago by 16 points Sunday almost before you knew it, and it was Telfair’s nine first-quarter points that kept them close enough to make a game of it in the minutes before halftime.
“Bassy was the only reason we got the chance to win the game,” Wolves coach Kevin McHale said. “He was the only guy with any mojo early. He kept us hanging around.”
The Wolves hung around and then closed the Bulls out after they trailed by seven points with less than four minutes left in the fourth quarter. Telfair’s defense on Rose was crucial when Rose took the final shot with a chance to win the game in the final seconds of regulation and again when he missed as overtime’s final seconds ticked away.
Steve Aschburner/SI.com gives out midseason grades:
Minnesota Timberwolves: They seriously underachieved through their first 19 games, costing Randy Wittman his job, then lost eight in a row under Kevin McHale. The 9-4 stretch since then has been encouraging, a credit to some scruffy opponents but also to McHale’s coaching personality, Al Jefferson’s relentless low-post play and the improvement of Randy Foye, Kevin Love, Ryan Gomes and Sebastian Telfair. Still, it took one heck of a detour to get there and the Wolves still are behind the pace they expected. Grade: C-
What Nowitzki does not quite get is what that has to do with him. In recent weeks he has had to answer questions connecting his future to Garnett’s past as if the two situations have something in common.
“They don’t,” said Mavericks assistant Dwane Casey, who was Garnett’s head coach for a season and a half in Minnesota…
“I thought Glen [Taylor, the T-wolves’ owner] and those guys did the best they could in a small market and what they had to work with,” Casey said. “Mark [Cuban] has done a great job in Dallas with his budget and putting all these good players around Dirk. It’s two totally different situations.”
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