The NBA used to regularly crack 100 points, and ten years ago when the Wolves had another promising young team they used to average just over 100 a game, which was pretty impressive since early in the year they essentially played 4-on-5 with their center standing around looking sleepy (eventually Stojko was replaced by Dean Garrett who stayed awake and kept his hands up). They also gave up over 100 as well, which is why didn't have a winning record, but 40-42 was good enough for the play-offs in the ridiculously lopsided mid-90's western conference that included most of the best and worst teams in the NBA. Last night's game looked a lot like that team, mercurial and prone to giving up offensive rebounds, poor perimeter defense, and vulnerable to big men who could take advantage of lapses of concentration in the post. But the '97 Wolves were a lot of fun, and so are these guys, starting strong before fading, but then later rallying to cut the Magic lead to 2 points in the 4th quarter... before the Magic ultimately put the game away.
Last night, Dwight Howard was a wolf killer, scoring 28 points and pulling in 16 rebounds, and repeatedly took advantage of disorganized defenders in transition. Rashard Lewis found himself open enough on the perimeter to shoot 7-9 from behind the 3-point line, and each of those shots was a killer... Lewis was only 3-8 from inside the arc, so perhaps it would help to get somebody on him. Carlos Arroyo also gave fits to Sebastian Telfair, and those three really dug the hole for the Wolves. The front-court did seem a bit depleted, since the Wolves starting center Theo Ratliff did not play at all tonight with Al Jefferson starting in his place with an undersized front line of Ryan Gomes and Greg Buckner with him. While Jefferson continued to be a scintillating scorer and Buckner had a great game at SF, Gomes looked a bit out of sorts and didn't play a lot of minutes, where he's been very sharp off the bench in past games. For big men off the bench I got my first glimpse of Ratliff's back-up Michael Doleac, who only lasted three unremarkable minutes, and Antoine Walker who should have been another big scoring threat seemed unable to rise off the floor.
The Wolves struggled in the back-court as well, as Telfair had an off-night and was unable to keep pace with Carlos Arroyo, and Rashad McCants only played 11 minutes, holding his ankle and grimacing as he left the court. On the positive side, three guys who still have something to prove got more time on the court: rookie Corey Brewer wasn't eye-popping but he did well until he fouled out, and Craig Smith added some much needed front-court scoring off the bench, while the often confused looking Marko Jaric handled the ball extremely well getting a lot of time in relief of McCants and Telfair, and came up with an assist double-double. With Ratliff and McCants at full strength, maybe the Wolves could have made better use of Gomes and of Buckner's defense, in what was actually a fairly close game.
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