Quick Little Wolves, Big Slow Al: A Mismatch?

11/02/2009

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Big Al's lost the weight, but hasn't found his place in a new up-tempo offense.

If the Timberwolves are a better overall team this year than they were last year, it isn’t by much. They are less experienced and have less scoring punch.

They are, however, far more athletic. The difference is striking. Last season, they walked up court, passed the ball in to Al Jefferson, he took 10 seconds to put a post move on, then he either shot or passed back out to Mike Miller, who created some faux penetration before wildly kicking it out to Telfair or Foye, who took a contested jumpshot. Rinse and repeat.

Through three games, you can already see that there will be no walking up the court this season. This team’s offense comes largely off its ball-hawking defense, and even when they play in the half-court, they play quickly and attack. Jonny Flynn and Ramon Sessions look to push up court and penetrate on almost every possession, and the wings cut and move without the ball more each game than they did all last season. It’s a lot of fun to watch, even though the talent level isn’t all that high.

There’s a problematic aspect to this fun, new style of ball the Wolves are playing, though. Al Jefferson, the team’s most skilled player and anchor of its rebuilding project, so far appears to be the proverbial square peg to the offense’s round hole. He’s scored 9, 12, and 21 points in the team’s three games, and the 21 came in a frustrating 9-23 shooting performance in the team’s loss to the Suns. Simply put, Jefferson appears to be in slow-mo while the team around him is playing at hyper-speed.

I’m fully aware that Jefferson isn’t 100 percent back from his nasty knee injury, and that’s what I’ve been telling myself. And to be sure, it’s definitely at least part of the problem. His conditioning, timing, and rhythm are all lacking. He’s rusty. But, and this is purely based on subjective observation that may or may not be Minnesotan pessimism, it looks like there is a bigger and more sinister problem. When he’s 100 percent, yes, he would probably short-arm a lot less of his turn-around tear drops. But the thing is, he plays slow. Always has, even when healthy. And I think it is a problem when a team’s best player is so obviously not suited to play in the team’s offensive scheme.

Today against Phoenix, the Wolves hung in the game for a long time (and to be fair, Al was excellent early on, scoring 11 in the first quarter before disappearing for the rest of the game). Eventually, they fell behind by 17 points with 7 minutes remaining. Then they got hot, and it looked like the season opener all over again as they pulled to within 5 by the two-minute mark. And guess who wasn’t on the court during that time period? Yup. And when he then went back on the court, guess what happened? The defensive rotations got slower, Phoenix got an easy dunk and a 3-pointer, and the game was out of reach.

It’s early enough in the season that it would be wrong of me to make any definitive statements on this matter. On this blog, I want to attempt to be as reasonable, thoughtful, and contemplative as possible. But I will say this: So far this season, the Wolves have played better when Al Jefferson is sitting. During their late run back into the game tonight, they were quick, they pounced on rebounds and ball carriers on defense. They pushed the ball, drove to the basket and found open shooters on offense. They played decidedly un-Jefferson-like. I think the Wolves’ best five-man line-up right now looks like this: Flynn-Ellington-Brewer-Gomes-Hollins. It’s swarming, breakneck, disorganized, and fun. But both of the team’s big comeback runs so far have come from that swarming, chaotic style of play.

It’s not time to hit the panic button, and I’m not calling for Big Al’s head. But I will be watching this issue closely, and if this is going to work, we should see Al start to look quicker and more comfortable in the offense (read: he will have to develop more of a quick-hit game than his plodding low-post style) as the season progresses.

Some other observations from the Wolves’ encouraging showing tonight:

• The player you saw tonight is the player Corey Brewer needs to be every night. Brewer was, again, a terror on defense. He’s long and quick enough to be very disruptive on that end. And his jumpshot was assured and accurate. Brewer really looked at home in the little give-and-go thing the Wolves run out of their triangle. A player on the elbow in the high post gets the ball, and Corey cuts right by him on his way to the basket. The post hands Corey the ball as he cuts by, Brewer uses him as a screen, dribbles once, pulls up, and fires. He gets to use his athleticism to run off the screen and get open, he doesn’t have to catch a pass and square up, and he doesn’t have to dribble much. It’s a good play for him, and he nailed it repeatedly tonight.
• Sessions got the lion’s share of the minutes tonight, including down the stretch. He’s a very smooth operator. He has the clear upper hand in what Rambis calls “organizing the offense.” Flynn is pretty clearly the more dynamic player, but he may have a rookie tendency to look to score 1-on-1 too often when he should be setting up the triangle. I sincerely hope Rambis doesn’t put Flynn in “the doghouse,” because the guy might be the best option this team has on offense, and he’s bright enough to figure out the offense as the season wears on. He’s going to be special, Kurt. I just hope you’re willing to take the lumps that come along the way.
• Wayne Ellington started finding his shot tonight.
• So did Ryan Gomes.
• Steve Nash seems to be getting old very quickly.
• Grant Hill does not.

A fun game tonight. A loss, but a loss in which the team hung around and scrapped with a far more talented and experienced opponent. For long stretches, you could see the combination of fast-break-off-turnovers and aggressive-motion-based half-court offense that Rambis has talked about. Let’s hope the team carries it over into a more winnable game tomorrow night against the Blake Griffin-less Clippers.

Thanks for reading, and Go Wolves.

 

 

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