Tas and Skeets at the Basketball Jones talk briefly about the team’s new court in the second episode of their video podcast.
Minnesota had 25 assists on Wednesday night, and it wasn’t hard to imagine this team averaging 100 points a game. Mike Miller stretches the defense with his shooting and gets to the basket as well as anyone else. Kevin Love does ignite a break with his outlet passing, McCants can work well as a cutter or slashing with the ball and Al Jefferson is still a beast. For such a low level team, the Wolves are particularly deep. Six players had double digit scoring and Corey Brewer just missed the mark with eight. If a balance can be struck between Jefferson’s post game and the teams open court finishers, enough firepower may be gathered to compensate for their lack of defense.
Wolves rookie forward Kevin Love took part in a photo shoot after today’s practice in support of St. Jude Children’s Hospital’s “Rookie Relief” fundraising effort.
Love is serving as national spokesman for the campaign, which was conceived at the NBA summer league in Las Vegas and features nearly all of this season’s top rookies.
Love played fewer than 19 minutes in his NBA debut, yet he was instrumental in two game-changing runs in the seocnd and fourth quarters. He scored 12 points and had nine rebounds — one rebound shy of becoming the third Wolf ever to get a double-double in his team debut (Al Jefferson and Tom Gugliotta are the only two to do so — but most telling what that plus-minus number.
Plus-20. That was seven better than the next Wolf, Kevin Ollie’s plus-13.
At the other end of the spectrum, Ryan Gomes, Wednesday night’s starting power forward, was minus-19 and Randy Foye was minus-10.
Now, you can argue what plus-minus really means in basketball, but it sure said something Wednesday.
Tom Ziller/Fanhouse on last night’s game:
The two rookies who saw burn played extremely well. The style of Minnesota’s Kevin Love — skilled but bruising — definitely translated against a soft Sacramento interior. Love hammered the boards relentlessly (nine rebounds in 18 minutes) and scooped in some crafty buckets (12 points). Concerns with his athleticism were only relevant on a few plays; in one of those, an opposing forward soared over Love to tip in an offensive rebound.
Minnesota debuted, new jersey’s, a new floor and a new look team, all of which Gomes really liked and was excited about.
“Liked it, liked it a lot. I told somebody the other day, we got new jerseys, we got a new court, some new players, and we got a win! Everything is working out.”
Minnesota will try to keep things going on Saturday when the host the Dallas Mavericks. The Mavs have not played a regular season game yet; they open tonight against the Houston Rockets at home.
Gomes said he and his teammates plan on watching the nationally televised game tonight to get a better read on this Mavs team that comes in with a new head coach in Rick Carlisle.
Wolves coach Randy Wittman was pleased with the overall play of his defense in Wednesday night’s season-opening 98-96 win over Sacramento and especially by forward Corey Brewer, who harassed Kings guard Kevin Martin into a 5-for-19 shooting performance.
“Defensively, he was everywhere,” Wittman said. “People can say Martin went 5-for-19; he had an off night. I think there was a reason why he had an off night.”
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