The Minnesota Timberwolves came out of the gates strong once again and dropped 40 points on a New York Knicks defense that looked simply, dreadful. After the first quarter the Wolves held a demanding 21-point lead as the Wolves shot 67% from the field. Kevin Love had 13 in that first quarter and Kevin Martin added another 11. A big part of the success was holding Carmelo Anthony to just two points and getting him in early foul trouble that had him sitting early with two personal fouls. The teams played it pretty much even over the next two quarters, the Knicks outscored the Wolves 24-30 in the second quarter and it was 29 points for both teams in the third quarter. Adelman used Corey Brewer, Dante Cunningham and Derrick Williams against Carmelo Anthony throughout this one. On many of Melo's catches, a number of Wolves' defenders clamped down on him and he had to make quick passes out of the double and sometimes triple teams. There were a few times he didn't pass out of those situations and he actually took shots against a triple team! I don't doubt that Anthony is a gifted player, but he makes some pretty poor decisions and takes a lot of bad shots. At halftime, Anthony had just 4 points, but Metta World Peace and Andrea Bargnani each had 12 points apiece to lead the Knicks. The Wolves were led by 18 from Love, 13 from Martin and another 9 from Nikola. Pek actually had 9 points and 11 rebounds at the half--though he did play 21 of 24 minutes (with no Ronny Turiaf). After three quarters the Wolves still led by 15 points, but it was in the fourth when the Knicks went on a big run. New York went on a 25-7 run to make it a two-point game (100-98) with just under five minutes to play. However, over the final 4:45 the Wolves went on a 9-2 run (4pts from K-Mart, 4 from Love and 1 FT from Brewer) to close out the game 109-100 for the nine-point victory and the first 3-0 start in 12 years (2nd in franchise history). Kevin Love scored 9 of Minnesota's 16 fourth quarter points to finish with 34. The other Kevin (Martin) had 30 on the night. Martin came into this game averaging just 13 points, but at halftime he had his 13 and in the third quarter he added another 13! The Wolves did well against Anthony through the first two quarters, but he had 9 in the third quarter and another 7 in the fourth, scoring 16 of his 22 in the second half. With no J.R. Smith, we knew the Knicks would have to look elsewhere for points, I assumed they'd look to Ray Felton & Tyson Chandler for those points, but they finished with 8 & 10 apiece. Instead it was 14 from Bargnani and another 17 from World Peace. Let's take a look at the full box score... The Wolves' big advantage came at the free throw line, they had 38 attempts to New York's 13. The Wolves also held a 23-14 advantage in fast break points, that advantage was much bigger at halftime (15-2).
The big story was the great play from Kevin Martin. K-Mart struggled in his first two outings as a Timberwolf--he did have 23 in that win over Orlando, but he didn't do it efficiently. Tonight he poured in 30 points and did so VERY efficiently: going a perfect 5-for-5 from deep, 7-for-9 from the line and missing just 3 field goals all night. 30 points and he took just 12 shots! It's clear that the Timberwolves are A LOT better than they were a year ago, but they still have A LOT of work to do. Tonight was another example of building a big lead only to let it slip away in the second half. They've done that too many times to count over the past couple seasons and already twice this season--luckily they were able to close both of the games this season out with wins. The Wolves are back in action tomorrow night (6pmCT) in Cleveland vs. the Cavaliers. We'll have a full gameday preview up tomorrow afternoon. Thanks for reading & GO WOLVES!
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The Minnesota Timberwolves are 2-0 and are currently tied for first in the Western Conference standings! The Wolves are also the only team in the Northwest division without a loss (both Denver & Utah are 0-2 and the Thunder and Blazers are 1-1). The Wolves are coming off a big win over the division rival Oklahoma City Thunder & Kevin Durant and tonight they'll be looking to carry that success over vs. the New York Knicks & Carmelo Anthony. It was some VERY good defense from swingman Corey Brewer that held Kevin Durant to 11 points on 11 shots in 27 minutes. Durant also had as many made field goals (4) as turnovers (4). Brewer will be called upon again tonight against another premier small forward: 2012-13 NBA scoring champion Carmelo Anthony. Carmelo led the Knicks and the entire NBA in scoring a season ago, putting up 28.7 points per game, edging OKC's Durant by 0.6 for the scoring title. Through two games this season, he's averaging 20.5 points. I'm not expecting another incredible defensive effort from Corey. That is, I'm not expecting Carmelo to score <11 points. That being said, I don't doubt that Brew is going to make things VERY difficult for Melo. Through their first two game the Knicks are 1-1. They began the season with a 90-83 win over the Bucks on Oct. 30th, but followed it up with an 81-82 loss to Derrick Rose and the Chicago Bulls. Tyson Chandler went 1-for-2 at the line with 10.8 seconds to go and the 2011 NBA MVP (Rose) hit a floater with 5.7 seconds to play. Melo missed a long jumper at the buzzer and the Knicks lost. The Knicks will be without J.R. Smith in this one, he'll be serving game 3 of his 5-game suspension in this one. Amar'e Stoudemire missed the season opener vs. the Bucks and played only 11 minutes off the bench in the loss to the Bulls. Let's take a look at the likely starting lineups in this one... Knicks head coach Mike Woodson has gone with two different starting lineups to begin the season, the one listed above and the other: Felton, Pablo Prigioni, Shumpert, Anthony & Chandler. Woodson seems to be infatuated with Bargnani and with the Wolves' bigs, he'll likely start Andrea. Bargnani provides another big body to go up against Love & Pek and Bargnani's three-point shooting will draw Love (one of the NBA's best rebounders) away from the basket on defense. Having Shumpert back at the shooting guard and matching up against a great offensive player in Kevin Martin, should be another reason that Woodson turns to this lineup as opposed to his three-guard lineup.
The Wolves will be without Chase Budinger who continues to rehab from his lateral meniscus (removal) surgery. He's currently in Pensacola, Florida rehabbing, but should return to Minnesota sometime in the next week or two as it sounds as though he's still a few weeks away from getting back to practice/playing. The Wolves will also be without backup center Ronny Turiaf. Ronny spilled to the floor in yesterday's win over the Thunder. He was going up for a rebound and OKC's Collison collided with him in mid-air, sending Turiaf to the floor landing hard on his right arm. He was helped to his feet and after a brief stint on the bench, he retreated to the locker room and did not return. Turiaf underwent an MRI on Saturday afternoon and we found out that he fractured the radial head of his right elbow. He'll be in a sling for a couple weeks and hope is that it won't require surgery, he'll be re-evaluated in a week, but he WILL still travel with the team. The Knicks shot 50.7% from the field (36-of-71) in their win over the Bucks, but only 36% (31-of-86) in the loss to the Bulls. Anthony went 7-for-16 in the win and 8-for-24 in the loss. It's clear the Knicks go as Melo goes (especially without J.R. Smith to help carry some of the scoring load). If Brewer can make things difficult for Anthony, the Wolves have a very good chance of winning. The Wolves have looked very good on offense through two games, excluding blowing a lead and nearly losing vs. the Magic on opening night. The Wolves did an excellent job of building a big lead over the Thunder and then maintaining it for the easy W. This one will tip at 6:30pmCT from Madison Square Garden, enjoy the game! The Minnesota Timberwolves absolutely crushed the Oklahoma City Thunder tonight. They sauntered off the court tonight with an easy 19-point win, despite being held scoreless in the final 6:54 and without a field goal in the final 7:16. It was during those seven minutes that we saw the debuts of Robbie Hummel & Shabazz Muhammad as everyone on the active roster saw playing time (Chase Budinger and A.J. Price were inactive tonight). Gorgui Dieng also made his NBA debut, but it was much sooner after Ronny Turiaf crashed to the floor landing on his elbow. The sound of him hitting the deck was very audible on my TV and from those who were in attendance at the Target Center, said they could hear it from the opposite end of the court! Ronny didn't return and despite how bad the fall looked (Myself and many others were thinking a broken arm or wrist), he was diagnosed with an elbow contusion. The Oklahoma City Thunder were playing without Russell Westbrook, however they still have the NBA's second-best player in Kevin Durant. Tonight, Durant certainly didn't look like superstar he's supposed to be (and is). That was thanks in large part to the defense of Minnesota's "Defensive Stopper" Mr. Corey Brewer. Corey worked his tail off tonight! He was denying Durant the ball, playing tight, contesting every shot. If Corey can turn in games like this against all-stars like Durant on a consistent basis, he'll get some All-Defensive Team 'talk' come April! Corey was quoted before the game saying that there's no way to stop a player like Kevin Durant, you just have to make it tough for him. Well, Brewer made it very tough for KD as he finished with just 13 points on 4-of-11 shooting. In OKC's first game against the Jazz, Durant went to the line 29 times (making all 29 attempts), tonight he visited the line just 5 times converting 80%. KD also finished with as many turnovers (4) as he did field goals (4-for-11). The Timberwolves are #1 in the division and for the first time since the 2006-07 season they've begun the year 2-0. To put that into some different perspective: the last time the Wolves went 2-0, every player on the roster except for J.J. Barea, Kevin Martin & Ronny Turiaf weren't in the NBA! It's also just the fifth time in franchise history that Minnesota has gone undefeated in their first two outings of a regular season. The Wolves got going early again and by halftime they were up 59-39. I thought for sure that Kevin Durant would go off in the third quarter and make this a ball game again, however unlike Wednesday vs. Orlando and countless games the past couple seasons, the Wolves not only built the lead they maintained and even added to it! This one was over after the third quarter as the Wolves went up by 29. Ricky Rubio & Kevin Love didn't play at all in the fourth quarter and the rest of the starting lineup saw just a couple minutes of action early. Let's take a look at tonight's box score... The Wolves were led by their Big Three, each of whom registered a double-double! Kevin Love followed up his 31-point, 17-rebound, 4-assist night vs. Orlando with a 24-point, 12-rebound, 2-assist, 2-steal outing this evening. It took Love just 29 minutes for that stat line, compared to 41 minutes vs. the Magic on Wednesday.
Nikola Peković got the better of the OKC bigs as he got both Kendrick Perkins and Steven Adams into foul trouble in the first quarter of action. There was a stretch of a minute or two in the third quarter where Pek didn't look good on either end--allowing Perkins to score on multiple possessions with ease and poor shot selection on the offensive end for himself, but that didn't last long as he finished strong for a 15 & 10 night. Ricky Rubio made the Thunder miss Westbrook even more as he really took advantage of the matchup vs. Reggie Jackson. Ricky had his eighth career 10+ points, 10+ assists, 5+ steals game. He also forced Jackson into a lot of mistakes. Reggie finished the game with 7 turnovers and looked absolutely dreadful as OKC's floor general. After a game like this, I think I'd take some of his ball handling responsibilities away. Of course veteran point guard Derek Fisher didn't look a whole heck of a lot better. I wrote in the preview that those two guards should be able to man the position pretty well until Westbrook returns. I still think they can, but they COULD NOT tonight! There were really three reasons that show up on the box score as to why the Wolves waltzed away with this W... 1.) Fast Break Points: Wolves with a 17-2 advantage. 2.) Points in the Paint: Wolves with a 44-20 advantage. 3.) Team Turnovers (Points Off Turnovers): TWolves turn it over 16 times for 8 OKC points, OKC turns it over 21 times for 25 TWolves points. The Wolves had just 4 turnovers at halftime! Needless to say, they were taking care of the basketball! The most important thing the Wolves need to do is to build off of this win and don't get arrogant. At the end of the day, you went up against a Westbrook-less Thunder team that featured Durant having a rare 'off' night, don't expect it to happen again. Minny heads to New York to take on the Knicks on Sunday and they have to come out just as strong as they did tonight, jump on NYK early and play a full 48-minutes, again. |
Cody D. AndersonA Wolves fan bringing you Gameday Recaps all season long! 2014-15 Game ArchivesGameday Archives
December 2015
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