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_{Photo copyright 2008 NBAE (Photo by David Sherman/NBAE via Getty Images)}

Game # 2, Home Game #2: Minnesota 85, Dallas 95

Game # 3, Road Game #1: Oklahoma City 88, Minnesota 85

Season record: 1-2

1. Untrustworthy

The Wolves had just manufactured their first loss of the season against a very ordinary Dallas Mavericks ballclub and Randy Wittman was at the postgame microphone. Rather than offer any introductory remarks, he simply said, "Questions?" Silence.

The unofficial ritual of these things is that you start off with general topics and gradually hone in on specificities; sort of a priming-the-pump kind of deal, which is why I prefer to wait until the postgame press conference is well under way before unburdening myself of my own curiosities. But as the stillness reached the awkward stage, I figured what the heck and blurted out what was on my mind: What did you think of the way Al [Jefferson] and Miller played on defense tonight?

"Whaatt?!" Witt said, rather incredulously, wheeling in my direction with a perplexed smile on his face while muttering that he didn't even know what I was asking. Well, what I was really asking was why Mike Miller had just covered his man like his shoes were full of cement the first two games of the season, and why Jefferson's vaunted improvement on defensive rotations and overall staunch protection of the paint in the second half of last season now seemed like a mirage, replaced by last year's first-half Al, a second late and an inch short in preventing points.  But rather than leaping forth with such an accusatory blast, I was trying to follow the rules of the postgame dance by moseying into the subject. Even so, the question still wasn't innocuous enough, and in softening the tone and content, all I'd done was make it more vague. 

Put simply, I was apparently coming off as incoherent and a little out of my league. Most of you won't be surprised to hear that I've had some experience in this sort of circumstance, and have learned that if you're painted into a corner with a dunce cap on your head, you may as well seek to "smarten up" by pressing forward and at least getting some information out of the exchange.  So I asked again, a little more pointedly, if the coach felt that Jefferson and Miller had defended Dallas well, while indicating either in words or tone of voice (I honestly can't remember) that I was dubious about the result.

Then Witt gave a solid, somewhat revealing answer. "The problem with tonight's game at both ends of the floor is we don't have that trust factor," he said, adding that that what had helped make them a good team and what they had worked on for four weeks in training camp from a defensive standpoint. "It makes it look like there were a lot of screwups, but it boils down tonight to the trust factor." He explained that some of it was the way people were responding on pick-and-rolls, how people talked, how people reacted. "I don't know if that answers your question or not," he concluded, with a shake of his head.

It seemed to me that Witt was not so subtly defending his two most important offensive players by inferring that you have to know the schemes the team was running to know where the breakdowns were occurring. In the locker room, the ever-personable Ryan Gomes contributed to that impression by saying that on defense Saturday, "sometimes we're trying to go a different route than the route we had planned in our defensive scheme. Sometimes as a player you might think it is the right way, you might want to take a gamble and it costs you. That's what happened tonight."

Being slower afoot, Jefferson and Miller are more likely to be exposed by these breakdowns in communication because they can't adjust as quickly. And perhaps that's why Corey Brewer--who looks like a terror on D, but also gambles a fair bit--didn't play at all in the 4th quarter. In any case, in defending his players from individual blame, the coach ultimately cast aspersions on himself. Throughout training camp, team defense was presented as priorities A through Z by Wittman. Now, in just Game #2, his players were already abandoning the systemic mechanisms and trust in team unity that is the key ingredient in making it work.

To Wittman's credit, he did not oversell the Mavericks as a vastly superior team; on the contrary, he announced it was a game that his ballclub could have won. Yet the Wolves weren't finished buzz-killing the enthusiasm of their suffering faithful this weekend. Sunday night, they traveled to Oklahoma City to play the deservedly winless Thunder (formerly the Seattle Sonics), and again spit the bit, losing 88-85. As blame factors go, lack of trust was passe; this time out, the Wolves were "too relaxed." As in yielding 25 second-chance points, many due to the 19 offensive rebounds the Thunder corralled. There was no concentration, no finding your man and boxing him out, Witt mentioned, revealing that the opponents shot a paltry 25% on their set half-court plays in the first half but were able to boost it to 40% overall due to all the putbacks and second chances they had. 

The Strib's Jerry Zgoda admirably asked if lack of size on the front line had anything to do with it, and Wittman tersely and strongly denied that it did.

So, here we go again. Whatever you want to call it--I've dubbed it Smallball--the Wolves are once again losing games to mediocre at best (Dallas) and bad (Oklahoma City) teams with Al Jefferson as their most rugged defender in the paint.

I've heard all the Mark Madsen jokes, and I'll make no brief for the guy's exalted skills and coordination. But in two losses of the sort that Kevin McHale always describes as potentially defining a season and a mindset if they happen too early and too often, the blame had been laid on a lack of trust and too much relaxation generating a lack of follow-through. I can tell you that Madsen won't gamble foolishly--he'll deliver the scheme with utterly trustworthy fidelity. I can also tell you that there will be nothing relaxed about the way Mad Dog boxes out or conducts his interior rotations. Maybe that's why his plus/minus totals are always surprisingly strong.

When healthy, I'd imagine Jason Collins will be a better option for the pivot. But until then, let's get a center who prioritizes defending the paint and thus has a keen understanding of the way it works via the team-trust dynamic, to be that man in the middle. Ryan Gomes has a huge heart and a fair amount of versatility, but putting Gomes at power forward while Jefferson is at center does neither player any favors--it's corrosive chemistry. Gomes was able to use his quickness to go off for a flurry of buckets on Nick Collison early in the third, but over the course of 48 minutes, the Thunder simply had too much depth and size in its front court. At the very least, can we give Madsen most of Craig Smith's minutes: The Rhino was a combined minus -22 over 35:13 this weekend. And yes, for all you Kevin Love fans, he would be a better option as a starter right now, replacing either Gomes or Brewer. But he's a rookie who is going to make a lot of rookie mistakes--like gambling out of the scheme and losing his man on the box-outs.

Put succinctly, if the Timberwolves are indeed going to make defense a priority and an identity, it would behoove them to play at least one person at the power forward or center spot whose personal identity is oriented primarily toward defense. You might even beat Oklahoma City that way.

2. Spreading the Blame

Of course the littler guys in the backcourt and the offensive dudes are hardly immune from blame for this wretched 1-2 start, in which the Wolves have played two of the six worst teams in the league and an aging ballclub that is clearly in decline. Let's call out a few names and levy specific criticisms.

The most obvious culprit is Randy Foye, of course, the starting point guard who sat for nearly all of crunchtime in the Wolves' opening-night victory and has made Bassy Telfair's shooting stroke seem like George Gervin's with an abominable 3-24 FG performance over the weekend, including Sunday night's 0-10 swan dive into the dumpster.

We all know everyone goes through shooting slumps, so let's be clear that it is not so much that Foye is missing, but when and how he is missing. After Foye's opposite, the Thunder's Russell Westbrook, drove for a layup to put Oklahoma City up by a point late in the game, the teams exchanged misses until there was 1:04 left and the Wolves called timeout. As the point guard, Foye is responsible for ensuring that somebody be in a position to make a good shot.The clearcut first option was Jefferson, who had one of his vintage games, going 11-17 FG for 24 points while garnering 13 rebounds (he also went to the line only twice and registered zero assists, also part of his vintage package). The worst option, given that he was 3-14 FG the previous night and 0-8 thus far in this game, was Foye himself. And yet with a mere 48 seconds on the clock, there was Foye, getting his shot blocked by Jeff Green.

Collison scored on a nifty left-handed runner (Jefferson's defense was good on this play; Collison offense just a little better) to make it 88-85, leading to another timeout with 16 seconds to go. McCants comes in the game for Brewer, teaming with Miller for dual threat trey shooting that could tie the game. Instead, four seconds into the play, Foye exchews both sharpshooters, and the low-post stud Jefferson, in favor of his own layup clank, a shot the stupidity of which was compounded by its high degree of difficulty. Got that? After shooting 0-9 FG and 3-23 FG over the past two games, Foye jacked up a difficult layup (requiring some physical contortion) with his team down by three points, 12 seconds on the clock, with McCants, Miller and Jefferson as spectators. After the game Wittman again repeated that Foye had to play better. Asked if there was any chance Foye would be replaced, with Kevin Ollie turning three straight solid performances and Telfair coming off his three game suspension, Wittman paused and then said, "we don't play again until Wednesday." That's not a ringing endorsement--nor should it be.

Move on to Mike Miller, who seems convinced the Wolves acquired him not to deter double-teams on Jefferson by standing a far distance away from Big Al and setting himself up to rain forth a series of his gloriously accurate long-range jumpers, but instead to utilize his blazing foot speed off the dribble and othewise facilitate ball movement. Through the first three games of the season, Miller has played 108 minutes and launched 26 shots. Of the ten players who have logged time for the Wolves this year, only backup point guard Kevin Ollie has shot less frequently on a per-minute basis.This noble selflessness would be admirable if it was actually helping the team's offense. Alas, it is not. The best way to get an opposing defense to respond to an outside scoring threat and free up space for Jefferson, is to demonstrate that that threat exists. The recalcitrant Miller hasn't done this and the triple teams in the paint on Big Al are growing in frequency.

Then there is Rashad McCants, who once again seems incapable of regulating the flow of his offense, making him very predictable to defend. For most of Sunday's game, McCants preferred to play a modestly supporting role, relatively devoid of histrionics and highlight-reel exploits. Through three periods, he was scoreless, yet was plus +1 in 13:53, while the Wolves in general were up 3, 73-70. Then Miller and Jefferson left the game, leaving Shaddy with Love, Smith, Gomes and Ollie to play with, and a flip switched in his aggression toward the hoop, an intent telegraphed to everyone paying half-attention to the flow of the game. He registered his first points of the game on a jumper with 9:41 to play, bringing the Wolves within a point. For the next three minutes, Minnesota's offense was Shaddy's fiefdom. Five seconds into the shot clock, he drove the lane and missed a layup. The next possession he drove the lane and earned a trip to the foul line, making both. Then he worked his special juju with Craig Smith, feeding the Rhino for a pretty dime. But the man who'd been Mr. Nonchalant was growing increasingly maniacal and tunnel-visioned. There was absolutely no mystery surrounding his plans the next two times down the floor--the Thunder defenders had become Shaddy's personal gauntlet, and after a missed layup and a turnover, Wittman yanked him in favor of Miller until the final seconds. 

The damage wasn't as egregious as Foye's horrible play or Miller's odd aversion to shooting; in part because the Wolves' brass keep a much tighter leash on McCants and his wayward habits. But if Shaddy could figure out a way to make himself an unpredictable second option to Jefferson or Miller, instead of either the only option or the fourth option, it would lessen the soap opera that is his Timberwolves' career to date.

3. Boob Tube 

Because it is so early in the season, and I haven't steeled myself to ignore it or dismiss it, I plead to the folks at FSN North to stop insulting our intelligence. Leading into the postgame show, anchor Marney Gellner proclaimed that "there were a lot of positives" to be gleaned from Sunday's night game. Really? Even genial homer Tom Hanneman noted that if the Wolves were going to be taken at all seriously this season, they had to beat league doormats like the Thunder on the road. That the Wolves instead lost to a team that is by consensus slated to finish either 14th or 15th among the 15 Western Conference teams, does not put fans in the mood to hear that there really were a lot of silver linings in this enormous sack of shit that had just spilled into the eyes of the horrified faithful.

Then we go to sideline reporter Telly Hughes, interviewing Thunder point guard Russell Westbrook, who had a nice night. Hughes asked Westbrook two questions. The first was, how does it feel to get your first-ever win at home as an OKC franchise? The second was, are you getting more comfortable after three games in the NBA?  And that was it, interview over. And thanks to Telly Hughes, we now know that Russell Westbrook is feeling really glad his team won at home for its fans and that he is becoming more comfortable playing in the NBA. Who would have guessed?

If I wasn't waiting to hear Randy Wittman's pearls of wisdom, I would have clicked off the set. And yes, my own time to look stupid and vapid is surely on its way.