I guess I misunderestimated the impact of Mr. Kevin Ollie. Sorry, Ollie.
Without him the Timberwolves managed all of 8 points in the first quarter. I would give the Suns credit for playing aggressive lock down super powerful amazing defense but honestly, we know better. The Wolves simply came out slow and missed a lot of shots which started falling as they followed up their 8 points in in the first 12 minutes by scoring 12 points in the next 4.
You get the point; this was another fairly ugly pre-season type game. There were a few interesting things to notes however:
- Jason Richardson for some reason decided his eye brows were cold and wore his head band about as low on his face as he could without actually covering his eyes. I am not sure if he a) accidentally shaved his eye brows or b) lost a bet, but it was at least a funny distraction from the game
- Robin Lopez has shown a lot of improvement on the boards grabbing 11 in 26 minutes. Compare that to the amazing rookie Glass Cleaner's own 6.
- Robin Lopez needs to spend a lot of time holding the ball over his head and learning to gather himself and put the ball in the rim without bringing it down below his knees
- Dragic had a nice game but continues to have problems with the smaller speedy guards getting by him. This was something I noted back in the last pre-season when the Hawks Acie Law abused him. Work in progress
- Dragic also had another 8 assist game which is pretty darn good for only playing 26 minutes. I think this guy might just be an NBA point guard some day (soon)
- It was great fun watching Lopez and Dragic work together defending the high pick and roll. Much different then Nash and Shaq. They clearly need more work to get in sync but you can see a lot of promise in Robin's ability to trap and recover and Goran's ability to use his size and athleticism to trail and disrupt the play
- Did you know Goran has a younger brother name Zoran who is also potentially NBA material? He's 19 years old and 196cm.
- I am not sure what Grant Hill was trying to prove with his 19 points on 7 of 8 shooting in just 22 minutes. Does anyone anywhere doubt Grant Hill? No. Nothing to prove there
- Did you know the story of the Collins twins both injuring themselves in a golf cart accident last summer? How did I miss that!
- I would love to tell you I paid rapt attention to Tucker in his 13 minute 10 point performance and I have specific analysis of his game. I don't
- Mike Miller is going to make $9.8m next year. You are not (even if you grow out your hair and wear a nice head band)
I had a twitter exchange with Wyn from Canis Hoopus during the game about his thoughts on JRich potentially coming to the Timberwolves. When I look at lottery teams with cap space this is the team that to me could most use a guy like Richardson. They desperately need wing scoring and athleticism to complement Big Al and Kevin Love.
Wyn seemed to agree but wasn't thrilled with the idea of giving up a lottery pick to get Richardson. I wouldn't see them trading a top 3 pick but perhaps if they are in that 5 to 10 range and don't see anything great left on the board.
At this point, replacing JRich with cap space would be my number 1 priority if I was Steve Kerr or whoever is going to be making those decisions come July.
| Final - 4.11.2009 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Phoenix Suns  |
31 | 26 | 24 | 29 | 110 |
| Minnesota Timberwolves |
8 | 35 | 21 | 33 | 97 |
