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  • Timberwolves at Hawks

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    lethalweapon3

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    “Olivia is OURS, KG! No, you can’t have her back!”

     

    The scene: Sacramento, California. The Minnesota Timberwolves are kicking off yet another horrific season on the wrong foot. This was after becoming the first NBA team to have lost 60 or more games in its past four seasons. Tom Gugliotta and Sam Mitchell, in particular, are having terrible shooting nights at raucous ARCO Arena. The long face on head coach Bill Blair was evident to assistant Randy Wittman. It’s only Game 1, but enough was enough.

    Trying to keeping the deficit close, Blair (replaced, a few weeks later, by Kevin McHale’s former college teammate and handpicked general manager, Flip Saunders) has the presence of mind to turn to his newest player off the bench: a raw, wiry lottery talent fresh from a Chicago high school named Kevin Garnett, who makes all four of his shots and keeps the T’wolves in contention. On that day, Teen Wolf was officially introduced to the NBA world.

    The date: November 3, 1995. Twelve days later in New Jersey, Karl-Anthony Towns was officially introduced to the entire world. As a newborn.

    Fast forward, to November 9, 2015. Tom Gugliotta is a part-time TV analyst for one of the hottest teams in the NBA, the Atlanta Hawks. Due to the unfortunate passing of Flip Saunders, Sam Mitchell is elevated from assistant coach to head coach, full time. And Kevin Garnett and Karl-Anthony Towns share the frontcourt in the starting lineup for the Timberwolves (3-2), who are in Philips Arena (8:00 PM Eastern, Fox Sports South) looking to improve to 4-0 on the road this season, while stopping the Hawks (7-1) from enjoying an eighth consecutive NBA victory.

    Much like their silver-and-black two-tone wolf-head logo, the contrast between youth and experience on the Minnesota roster is striking. At one end of the spectrum, there’s Garnett, the 39-year-old former league MVP, who has yet, intentionally, to score more than four points in a game. There’s 35-year-old Tayshaun Prince, who starts at small forward and hasn’t scored much more than KG.

    There’s the 32-year-old Kevin Martin, who leads the team in scoring (18.8 PPG) despite getting relegated to the reserves unit by Mitchell in the preseason. He’s likely to play tonight after missing Minnesota’s last contest, a win over the Bulls, on personal leave. The perpetually injured 300-pounder Nikola Pekovic is on the verge of 30 years of age. In case of a point guard emergency, you can always break the glass for Andre Methuselah Miller, two months older than the cagey KG.

    At the other end, you’ve got Towns, the Wolves’ second-straight rookie to be drafted first overall in the NBA Draft. A Teen Wolf himself for just six more days, the center (3.0 BPG, 4th in NBA; 9.6 RPG) is already making a strong impression out of the gate. Six months his senior is Andrew Wiggins, the reigning NBA rookie of the year, who joins Towns as part of the future class of NBA mega-stars.

    The spotlight has waned on Ricky Rubio (9.2 APG, 2nd in NBA, 2.2 SPG), once a hyped teen prospect himself from his Euro exploits. But the Timberwolves’ floor leader is only 25 in his fifth NBA campaign. Rubio joins Gorgui Dieng (a disciple of Team Africa assistant Mike Budenholzer over the summer), former Hawk rookie Adreian Payne, Shabazz Muhammad, Zach LaVine, and Towns’ fellow first-rounder Tyus Jones as members of Minnesota’s 25-and-under youth corps.

    Straddling the fence, there are middle-aged newcomers in the mix. Croatian 29-year-old Damjan Rudez (DAH-moe RAH-desh, just like it looks) returns for his second NBA season after getting thrown to the small-w wolves as a member of the Paul George-less Pacers in 2014-15. Serbian 27-year-old Nemanja Bjelica (NEH-mahn-ya BYELL-ett-sah, phonetically similar to “booyikah booyikah”) finally comes across the pond after winning Euroleague MVP for Turkish power Fenerbahce.

    This team was carefully crafted by Saunders, who guided a gravity-defying Garnett and the T’wolves through eight consecutive playoff-bound seasons from 1997 through 2004 (Minnesota has had none since). Flip returned in 2013 to lead the team, first from the front office as GM, and then back along the sidelines a year later. Pekovic and Rubio are the only holdovers preceding the second regime of Saunders, who handed both players contract extensions in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Saunders built this racecar, but after succumbing to cancer in October, it’s been left to GM Milt Newton and Mitchell to steer it to long-awaited success.

    Outside of maybe Salt Lake City, you’ll find no existing NBA head coach more reverent of what Mike Budenholzer is accomplishing in Atlanta than Mitchell. Sam was a radio commentator for the Hawks Radio Network and an NBATV analyst during Budenholzer’s maiden campaign in 2013-14, and was effusive in praise throughout the downs and ups of that season. An assistant gig in Atlanta never materialized for the Columbus, Georgia native and former Mercer star. But in the summer of 2014, the 2007 NBA Coach of the Year got the call from Saunders to head north and join him (plus ex-Wolves coach and Flip confidant Sidney Lowe, and Flip’s son, assistant coach Ryan Saunders) on the sideline.

    It’s a tall order for anyone tasked with mixing youth and inexperience into an NBA rotation and producing instant success on the floor. Yet Mitchell happily turns to his cadre of codgers to guide and instruct the youngsters in the starting unit, among the reserves, on the bench and in the locker room. None more so than the man who remains the franchise face. "He tells them everyday, at this point in his career, it's about them, not him," Mitchell said, as reported by USA Today. "I wouldn't trade him off this team for nothing in the world."

    "They're just so encouraging for the young guys. They just give so much knowledge," Smitch said of his vets. "It's one thing as coaches, we can say it all the time, but when those guys who are out there have actually done it and won championships, when they say it, it just means a lot more." Wiggins (17.2 PPG, 32.4 2FG%) has struggled with his offense this season, but on Saturday in Garnett’s old stomping grounds of Chicago, Professor Garnett took Wiggins aside in timeouts and, using other players as props, demonstrated how to use pump fakes and spin moves to his advantage.

    The pupil put Garnett’s tutelage to good use. Wiggins, whose dad was a rookie for Chicago in ’84, cut to the paint off a feed from Rubio, and put the Bulls’ Taj Gibson on spin cycle for his 30th and 31st points, a game-tying jam with one minute to go. In the ensuing overtime, Minnesota’s stifling defense – yes, you heard that right (93.1 opponent points per 100 possessions, 3rd in NBA) – shut out the Bulls (35.5 FG% on Saturday) for a stunning 102-93 victory that lifts their spirits ahead of tonight’s contest in Atlanta.

    A bit later that night, Atlanta found themselves down at home, 92-90 to Washington with just over six minutes left to play. Then, the Hawks turned on the heat lamps on John Wall, Bradley Beal, and the latest “At Least You Tried” career-high award winner, Otto Porter. A 24-7 close to the game began with a big three-pointer from the returning Mike Muscala, continued with big plays on both ends by Kent Bazemore (career-high 25 points, two fourth-quarter steals) and Atlanta’s second unit versus the flummoxed Wizard starters, and finished with clutch free throw shooting and point-guard-assisted threes that sent the Philips Arena crowd into a Saturday Night frenzy.

    While Garnett and Prince helping with defense and rebounding for Minnesota, they’re instructing their teammates not to let opponents get away with open shots. Wolves’ opponents are hitting just 39.4 percent of defended shots, second-lowest only to Quin Snyder’s Jazz (37.6 opponent FG%).

    Rather than merely accepting getting beaten off the dribble or off a cut, the Wolves would rather hack (NBA-high 24.4 personal fouls per game) before shots go up, and make opponents take the ball back out. Despite leading the league in foul calls, Minnesota’s opponents have only averaged 24.6 free throw attempts (14th in NBA). The Hawks have done well with the free throw trips they’ve made, hitting 81.5 FT% (4th in NBA) in their games, including 83.1% in fourth quarters. Atlanta won’t want to leave points off the board tonight the way Chicago (70 FT%) did at home on Saturday.

    The Wolves also want to force the action on offense and rely on contact, drawing 25.6 fouls per game (2nd in NBA) and granted a league-high 33.2 free throw attempts. Martin is particularly notorious for driving into contact if a jumper isn’t open. As Minnesota turns up the physical play, and while Garnett is busy telling Muscala his mammy tastes like Mueslix, or something, composure will be critical to Atlanta executing their gameplan.

    After flustering Wall and Beal into 15 combined turnovers, the Hawks will have a tougher time with Rubio, whose 4.6 assist-turnover ratio ranks 3rd among NBA guards logging at least 25 minutes per game. Atlanta defenders will have to work to seal off Timberwolf teammates, compelling Rubio (39.2 FG%, 22.2 3FG%) to call his own number.

    Perhaps in memoriam of Flip, the Wolves still love to shoot from mid-range (29.4 FGAs per game, 2nd in NBA; 30.6 FG%, last in NBA). They don’t take many shots above-the-break (10.4 3FGAs per game, 29th in NBA; 26.9 3FG%, 28th in NBA) while the next three-pointer they make from the right corner (0.6 3FGAs per game, last in NBA) will be their first on the young season.

    Enjoying consecutive home games for the first time this season, Jeff Teague and the Hawks take more efficient shots than Minnesota, but must be focused and precise with their halfcourt execution. If Atlanta outperforms their listless 2-for-16 shooting start versus Washington, they’ll be hard to catch at the back end of the game. Only Golden State has a better net rating than Atlanta in the first quarter (+14.8 points per 100 possessions), and only Detroit and Miami have a superior net rating to the Hawks in the fourth quarter (+14.3 points per 100 possessions).

     

    Let’s Go Hawks!

    ~lw3


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