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_{Photo copyright 2009 NBAE (Photo by David Sherman/NBAE via Getty Images)}

Game #58, Home Game #29: Minnesota 82, Portland 102

Game #59, Home Game #30: Minnesota 94, Houston 105

Season Record: 18-41

1. Moot Scrappy

The Wolves played their worst game under Kevin McHale Friday night versus Portland, an abomination of insufficient talent parlayed with lackluster effort and an inappropriately appropriate defeatist attitude. McHale didn't make excuses in his postgame. "We didn't muster any energy, didn't play with energy or effort and that's discouraging. Tomorrow we'll have a hard practice and get back at it. That effort is not acceptable...if we had two guys on the boards, they had three; if we had three, they had four...but we'll get better, tomorrow we'll practice and we'll play better the next game."

That would be tonight's tilt against Houston, another hellish matchup for the Jefferson-less Wolves, for the Rockets are the Clydesdales of the NBA, with a bunch of big-footed thoroughbreds such as Yao Ming, Luis Scola, Ron Artest and Shane Battier, with the pocket-point guard Aaron Brooks rounding out their otherwise brawny starting five. Confronting them was a team that, ever since Jefferson went down, has been like a grapefruit, sliced in half (starters and bench), with the two sides then alternately placed face-down on the electric rotary juicer. A lot of their juice was spent trying to stay with the vastly superior Lakers and Jazz last week--strong efforts that ground up their sinew, leaving soft, dented hunks of mostly rind. That's what got put back on the rotor of the Trailblazers and Rockets this weekend. The Portland game featured a Wolves team that fully grasped how overmatched they were, the mental inferiority catching up with (and catching on to) the physical interiority. It felt like the beginning of the end for this season.

I showed up at Target Center tonight to see if McHale could be as good as his word: Would the Wolves "get better," and not roll over against another ballclub that was generally ready and willing to put a whupping on the vulnerable squads around the league?  Or was Minnesota indeed ready to be taken out with the eggshells and coffee grounds?

The suspense from that tortured analogy is killing you, I know, but alas, there was no satisfying answer either way. The Wolves played hard almost the entire time, played well in spurts, didn't disgrace themselves or prompt disgust, and, worse, boredom, as often as they had against Portland. That said, it wasn't hard to discern that if the Rockets performed with even a modicum of interest and cohesion, the Wolves were going down, and the chances of it getting ugly were relatively high. This was, after all, an opponent that had already beaten Minnesota twice, by 7 and 17 points, and those were games in which Jefferson made 90-inch mincemeat out of Yao, racking up 34 and 36 points, respectively. As the starting lineups were introduced, and Big Al was off somewhere setting his surgically repaired knee on something soft, one could span the evening's matchups and pronounce most of them ludicrous.

To spare the 6-8 rook Kevin Love the indignity of pretending to play center against a legit big, McHale reprised the large frontcourt he trotted out against Portland. Thus, out-of-shape Jason Collins would contend with Yao, Love would face the Argentinian power forward Scola and Ryan Gomes would test his mettle against Artest. Uh huh. But it was in the backcourt where things really got hincky. The 6-4 Randy Foye drew the 6-8 defensive specialist Shane Battier. And the little waterbug Brooks would go up against not his near-equal in Bassy Telfair, who was injured and in street clothes, but the slow, aging vet Kevin Ollie.

The Rockets hit their first 7 shots, then four of their next five--that's 11-12 FG, folks--before Love blocked a Scola jumper. Fortunately, it was coming so easily on the offensive end that Houston was lulled into exchanging baskets via humdrum D. To the extent the Wolves pressed the action, Foye was the most impressive, using his speed to gain space for his jumpers, hitting 3-6 FG versus Battier. Gomes was burning the mercurial Artest, who seemed more intent at stopping penetration and let his man pop out for perimeter J's, making 5-6 FG for 11 points in the first. Love likewise stepped out for a pair of midrange jumpers. After one, it was only 29-23. And after getting 19 points out of its bench in the second period--with Craig Smith and newcomer Bobby Brown earning most of the kudos, as was true versus the Blazers--while outscoring Houston 30-25, the Wolves were down a mere point at the break.

Yet, as was also true Friday against Portland, everything fell apart in the third quarter. Down just 5 with 10:30 to play in the third versus the Blazers, the Wolves suffered a 5:02 stretch in which they were outscored 18-2 (a Love jumper prevented a whitewash). Tonight, the Wolves did that a bucket better, or worse. Actually up by a point with 8:17 to go in the third, Minnesota's offense again seized up like an engine without oil. Houston burst out on a 20-2 run--and the basket was registered on a 16-foot set shot by Jason Collins, who unforgivably tried a heat check and airballed a 17-footer on the next possession. It was grisly. Brooks ran circles around Ollie and then Brooks, thus reducing Ollie's comments in the Sunday Strib--about how Brooks will stay in the league a long time because, like Ollie himself, he emphasizes defense--to the level of farce. Brooks, the second-year pro who owns the point with the trade of Rafer Alston to Orlando, had 9 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, zero turnovers and a steal for the period.

It was also farce watching Craig Smith take a shot at guarding Yao. McHale more accurately referred to it as "circling the wagons," as the Rhino mostly fronted this biggest of bigs, while the weakside help and wing players were on constant alert. Yao being Yao, he didn't try to clear the rabble with rim-shaking slams a la Shaq, but mostly fumbled around like a scene from Gulliver's Travels and/or dished it out to his open teammates,primarily Artest, who converted jumpers. After three periods it was 83-69 Houston, making the final period garbage time--turn that Rhino loose!--for the second straight game. This time after the final whistle, McHale didn't vow getting better, conceded his squad is worn down, and, when asked what he is learning from these games, segued into saying that nobody feels sorry for you in this league and you have to keep fighting, etc, etc.

Okay, so what have *we* learned from these dual shellackings? That large, long, physical, deliberate opponents present the most dreadful matchups for this current conglomeration of Wolves. That although Jefferson is at best a mediocre defender, his absence makes opponents' point totals skyrocket, because the Wolves are forced to push the pace and don't have the defensive goods to sustain it at the other end. That Love may be a very good rebounder but he is not superhuman, and can be eclipsed by bigger and often-wiser foes making him the sole source of their attention. In a composite 51:27 this weekend, the rook grabbed a mere six caroms, and just one was off the offensive glass. That Jason Collins needs a pair of shorts another size up--a couple of parachutes stitched together might do the trick. That Kevin McHale is still doing a pretty good job motivating his troops, but that an ugly reckoning is still easy to behold in the future. (Although it still won't be as ugly as the days of Mark Blount and Ricky Davis, let alone Christian Laettner and Chuck Person.) That if you gave Craig Smith 38 minutes per night, both he and the man he was guarding would be a good bet to go off for 30 points. That Brian Cardinal is already auditioning to be the heavy in Guy Ritchie shoot-em-ups, clubbing opponents every time they have the temerity to beat him or one of his teammates off the dribble. That general manager Jim Stack's pronouncement that the team most needs a playmaker and a physical defensive presence at the rim still holds true two months later, but that neither Bobby Brown nor Shelden Williams seem to fit the bill.  

2. The Fad

We're probably going to be hearing a lot about Bobby Brown in the next few days. It is the time of year when the doldrums really become entrenched for bad ballclubs, and any swatch of apparent good news is flogged for all its worth. By dint of his name-sharing with the r&b/reality antihero, Brown has already exposed the most shamelessly cliched wannabe comics covering the team. One media wag sitting behind me tonight openly yearned for a game-winning shot by the Wolves' new acquisition, so he could write: Brown Beats Houston for his headline, and that is actually one of the more creative bon mots thus far.

But Brown's 15 points in limited burn versus Portland on Friday, followed by four quick dimes in the first half against Houston Sunday will have the hope-mongers hauling out their pumps and inner tubes. I confess the cluster of assists were a pleasant surprise, but hold to my position that Brown is a poor man's Randy Foye, meaning he simply doesn't have the DNA to be even a solid backup point guard in the NBA, but can cobble together enough moments to foster a good delusion about his potential as floor general. To be fair, the Wolves' looked better with Brown running the show than with Ollie at the point, although it helps that McHale thinks he needs some scoring off the bench and is thus bringing Brown in with Mike Miller and/or Craig Smith, a duo that can really lighten the load for a point in the half court. Like Foye, Brown is a volume shooter--he was a collective 8-17 FG in a combined 38:59 this weekend--who can dazzle with a fancy pass and impress with a smart one every now and then. But thus far he also seems like Foye in that his dribbling isn't impregnable and the consistency of his passing (and decision to pass or shoot) remains a work in progress. Aside from prodding bad humor out of people, there really isn't anything wrong with having him around. But in my admittedly snap judgement, he doesn't feel like the answer to anything on this team. At best, he's a Kirk Snyder redux; a diversion for the dog days of March.

3. The Future of Miller

Remember when Michael Jackson changed from black to white? It was bizarre, fascinating, seemingly rooted in some sort of deep-seated impulse, that, regardless of whether it was macabre or utterly reasonable, cried out for an explanation. The stubborn metamorphosis of Mike Miller from scorer to ball distributor has a similar vibe. For a while, the rationale was that Miller was undergoing a terrible shooting slump and shrewdly utilizing his complementary skills until the deadeye regained focus. But Miller has had the hot hand for well over a month now, and continues to prefer trying to dish to his less accurate teammates, a pattern that, if anything, is growing more outlandish. Over the past three games--all double-digit losses for Minnesota--Miller is shooting a scintillating 18-23 FG, which is an amazing 77% but also amounts to less than 8 shots per game. Meanwhile, in each of those three games, Miller has led the Wolves in both assists and turnovers. Clearly he has become the team's most impactful passer.

It is very easy to run hot and cold on a player who withholds a skill that is vital to the team's success while promoting a lesser skill that fosters ball movement and generally enhances team unity. My fascination has been mostly negative, which is a sign of my stupidity--fascination is an exercise and engagement of the mind that should rarely if ever be wasted or besmirched--so I've tried to look upon this personality change of Miller's more kindly. Against Portland, that was easy. With Collins in the lineup to lessen the Blazers' size advantage, someone had to sit, and McHale opted for Miller so he could also generate more scoring in the second unit. Miller handled all this was pure enthusiasm, a classy move redolent of veteran leadership. In his first stint in his new role, he came in and immediately grabbed a rebound and delivered a  pass to Gomes for a slam, played great defense on Travis Outlaw, tipped in a missed layup by Telfair, buried a long jumper and assisted on a three--pointer by Carney--all within the final 3:56 of the first quarter.

My postgame questions to McHale about Miller generally have had a negative undercurrent, so it was nice to note after Friday's game that he seems to have settled into his 6th man role without a hitch. But McHale, who had generally rebutted my negativity in those previous press conferences, had also switched places. Specifically, he noticed that while Miller was converting 85.7% of his shots (6-7FG), his teammates were converting just 38.3% (23-60 FG). "We'd like to get Mike shooting 12 to 15 shots per game," McHale said with a downcast tone, adding ruefully, and with perhaps a little sarcasm, "but Mike doesn't take bad shots."

On Sunday, Ron Artest presented all kinds of problems for Miller with his length and aggressiveness. At the end of the Wolves' sound thrashing, Miller, as noted, had led Minnesota in assists with 5, but also committed a team high five turnovers in 32:20. But most obviously he once again seemed loathe to shoot, going 3-5 FG in 32:20. Of the ten players who logged double-digits minutes, only Brian Cardinal put the ball up with less frequency per-minute-played. This is by now a typical occurrence.

It's natural to wonder if Miller's change of persona has anything to do with his uncertain status on the team. He is making between nine and ten million dollars per season, second only to Al Jefferson on the ballclub, but the contract expires at the end of next season--the golden 2010 era when LeBron and Wade and Bosh, etc., can be free agents.

The Wolves frequently have stated that the draft day trade involving Love and Mayo would not have occurred without the inclusion of Miller, and they professed great excitement about Miller joining the team and providing them with an outside option that could spread the floor and stretch the defenses away from Jefferson. Yet just as frequently they have expressed great excitement about all the salary cap flexibility they will have in 2010--much of it because Miller's deal comes off the books. According to people close to the team, Miller was very aware of preseason trade rumors that had him going to LA (among other places) for Lamar Odom. To this day, he has kept his wife and children down in Memphis, where he toiled for the Grizzlies. And among the major pieces on the team, Miller's name was again prominently bandied about in rumors near the close of last month's trade deadline.

How do Mike Miller and Timberwolves really feel about each other, and how is that affecting the bizarre style of play Miller is performing this season? I invite the beat writers from the dailies to take a crack at this. Otherwise, sooner or later, I'm going to ask around and put a little reporting behind my own speculation. Right now, however, it remains a mystery. Perhaps even to the principals themselves.