Game Report - Wolves v. Celtics

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Lipoli390
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Joined: Mon Jul 08, 2013 12:00 am

Game Report - Wolves v. Celtics

Post by Lipoli390 »

Good crowd tonight, although not the sort of capacity crowds we used to see at Celtic games here when KG was with one of the Celtics. But the crowd got into it and it was definitely a very fun game. The Celtics are a bad team. So this was obviously a game the Wolves had to win. And the good news is that the Wolves not only won, but did so convincingly even though some of our starters did not have particularly good nights.

Four of our five starters struggled a bit. Love had 23 points on 44 shooting, 50% from behind the arc and 7-7 from the line. He also had 12 boards. That's a darn good night in spite of his 7 turnovers. Not his best performance, but he was obviously very solid. Ricky had another poor shooting night, but had 6 boards, 7 assists and a steal. Martin had a terrible shooting night, but he did get 6 boards and 2 steals. Corey also had another poor shooting night, but he had 2 steals and held Green in check defensively. Not bad for struggling. :)

The keys for the Wolves tonight were Pekovic, Dante and JJ. Those three were huge for the home team and made sure the Celtics never really had a shot at winning this one. That's the second good game in a row for JJ. He looks like he's finally gotten back to his old self. Pek was terrific tonight. It's becoming clear that his early season struggles were the product of poor conditioning, not lack of effort. He really does give a great effort. But he's now getting into game shape and it's making him much more effective. He moves better and the touch on his shot is much better now that he seems to have his legs under him.

I also really like Hummel out there tonight. He is a really smart player. He gets to the right spot on the offensive end and rarely misses an assignment on the defensive end. His shot is coming along. I also noticed that he's a heck of an athlete. He has really gets up for rebounds and runs the court extremely well. I noticed that he's not wearing any knee braces. He's definitely establishing himself as an important part of the rotation.

Interesting moment during a time out with about 3 minutes left in the game. Adelman was talking to the players in the huddle along the bench as he always does. All the players suited up for the game were listening except Derrick Williams who was joking around with Shabazz who was in street cloths with a sprained ankle. Adelman looked over at Williams, got his attention and pointed at his eyes, telling him to pay attention because he was about to be inserted in the game. I suspect that was a microcosm of what Adelman sees every day in practice as well as games -- and it is likely the source of Adelman's frustration with Derrick. The other source of frustration with Derrick was obvious in those last 3 minutes when Derrick was in the game. Not moving without the ball, showing terrible form on a jump shot and then getting stuffed going to the hole as he, to paraphrase Flip's, again showed an aversion to contact.

Watching Derrick's demeanor on the bench AND in recent games is perplexing. He seems to want to look cool and nonchalant rather than intense or aggressive. Very strange. What a waste of talent.

Otherwise, this was an important win -- one we had to get. Now let's see how we do next week against the Clippers and Nets.

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