HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Stop now if you’re a Philadelphia 76ers fan tired of reading encouraging reports about Andrew Bynum and his potential return to action.
But if you’re still a believer in the power of the big man and what he could do for the Sixers, this might be the stocking stuffer that’ll make your Christmas. Bynum, strictly an observer so far this season due to knee issues, seems to be feeling much better these days and is potentially on his way back sooner rather than later, per Bob Cooney of the Daily News.
Apparently seeing his old teammates from Los Angeles boosted Bynum’s spirits a bit over the weekend:
Former teammates made their way into the Sixers locker room before the game after the media was cleared, probably stopping by to see their former running mate.
“Winning championships there was fun,” said Bynum. “But obviously my time there is done. Health is the main concern with me now. I don’t regret anything. Personally, they traded No. 1 (him) for No. 2 (Dwight Howard) and that is what happened. I think Dwight is a great player and has to get accustomed to playing and not touching the ball on every play.”
While Bynum has done nothing more than observe during his time here, he appears to be itching more than ever to get back on the floor. His doctor’s visit on Thursday will go a long way on letting everyone know how soon that is to happening.
“I think I could do wonders for this team because right now we don’t have a lot of post threat and that would help free up a lot of our guys from the outside – knock down shooters and Jrue and Evan are playing a lot with the ball right now so it would be good to join them and Thaddeus, also.
“The update is that I’m feeling much better. From the beginning of this year, the state of the injury when I see the doctor hopefully I’ll be cleared for impact. Only the left knee (is hurting) the right knee is fine.”
Fine, so the news isn’t all good if Bynum’s left knee is still hurting. Still, the Sixers could know as soon as Thursday when they’ll have Bynum back in action. He’ll need time to get in game shape and get up to speed as quickly as possible to help out a Sixers team that has lost three straight and is fighting to stay at .500 or better right now.
If the Sixers want to stay in the playoff mix they’ll need a boost. And an inspired and reasonably healthy Bynum could be exactly what they need to get them back on track.
HANG TIME, Texas – The shot that will get the big run on all the highlights shows and the most clicks on YouTube will, of course, be Damian Lillard’s frozen rope jumper with 0.3 seconds left that provided the margin of difference in the Blazers’ 95-94 win over the Hornets on Sunday night.
But it says here that just as big a play came a little over a minute earlier and it wasn’t by a guard, forward or center and not by anyone in a Portland or New Orleans uniform.
Take a bow, referee David Guthrie.
The Blazers had squandered most of their 16-point lead when LaMarcus Aldridge got the ball on the left wing in front of the New Orleans’ bench and turned to drive the baseline on Ryan Anderson. Aldridge leaned in just slightly with his left shoulder and might have drawn a whistle for an offensive foul. Except that Anderson reacted as if he’d been charged by every bull that had ever run through the streets of Pamplona and flung himself to the floor.
What happened next? Aldridge simply stepped back and nailed a 15-footer with 1:04 showing on the clock that turned out to be the bucket that set up Lillard’s heroics.
Guthrie simply watched. And there wasn’t a peep of protest from the Hornets’ bench.
A flop is a flop is a flop. There was no need to send the video feed to the league office and wait for a ruling from the Sheriff of Floppingham, a.k.a. Stu Jackson. No need to wait a few days to levy a fine or pass down heavy-handed punishment after the fact. None of the extra level of bureaucratic nonsense that has entered the game this season with the advent of the Flop Council.
I would like to see flopping taken out of the game as much as the next guy. But we’re not even two months into the season and I’m already fed up hearing color commentators on League Pass talk nightly about whether this player should be warned or whether that player will get the dreaded fine notice or maybe a particularly egregious violator will be made to play for the next several weeks wearing a dunce cap and a bright red nose.
It’s a call that should be made — or not — right then and right there by the game officials on the scene, not somebody sitting in a New York office with a remote control in his hand, actually undercutting officials by second-guessing them. Tell them to be definitive on the spot.
If you want to drop the hammer on floppers, give the referees the power to slap them with technical fouls, maybe even an extra free throw for every additional violation in a game.
Or better yet, simply instruct them all to react like David Guthrie. Just ignore the fakers and let the game play on.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Coach George Karl, while emphasizing his recovery from cancer continues to go well and that he still sees a long future with the Nuggets, raised the possibility Sunday that he will ask for a reduced work load during particularly crowded times in the schedule.
The seventh-winningest coach in league history told NBA.com that the travel has become especially wearing and that he may speak with team officials about staying overnight in a city and flying to the next stop the following morning, rather than leaving with the team after the game and often arriving early in the morning.
Karl said he does not, however, envision missing games.
“I don’t think it’ll ever go that far,” he said. “I’ve thought about not traveling with the team on the late-night flights. I’ve thought about instead of getting to bed at 4 o’clock in the morning, I’ll let my coaches have the morning shootaround. I’ll sleep in in L.A. or I’ll sleep in in Sacramento, get up at 7:30 or 8 o’clock, catch a flight. I’ve thought about that. But my energy level is getting better and stronger every year. I’m feeling healthier. I’m trying to eat better. People ask me all the time how am I doing. I’m doing a hell of a lot better than I was doing before I got cancer.”
Karl, 62, missed part of 2009-10 after being diagnosed with cancer in the neck and throat. His return the next season was one of the inspirational stories of the league, and he used his high profile to encourage fundraising and checkups for early detection, all while becoming just the seventh coach to win 1,000 games and then, at the end of 2011-12, coaching heavy underdogs to a Game 7 against the Lakers in the first round of the playoffs.
This season has been a particular physical challenge because the Nuggets have played 18 of the first 25 games on the road, most recently the 122-97 rout of the Kings at Sleep Train Arena. It has taken a toll on Karl. That he did not ask for relief in the first quarter, the worst of the 2012-13 travel merry-go-round, indicates he may not do anything soon, but the chance it will happen in the future has become undeniable.
“The NBA is four to five games a week,” he told NBA.com. “I think I can handle that the way I’m doing it now, but I also don’t want to intensify my life any more. I would like to slowly cut whatever I’m cutting. Five or 10 percent of my intensity. I don’t want the organization to be unhappy with me. I think my organization’s happy with me, but I delegate a lot. I give it to my assistant coaches a lot more than I think most coaches do.”
Karl has other coaching decisions to make down the line. He still wants to work with on the bench with son Coby Karl, a late cut in camp by the Trail Blazers who now plays with the Idaho Stampede of the National Basketball Development League. Both have experience in Europe – George as a coach, Coby as a player – and the elder Karl has also thought about one day returning there to coach, an interesting notion considering NBA opportunities will never disappear if his time in Denver does end.
“The way I phrase that is,” George Karl said, “every year I think my window of thinking about retiring is bigger than it’s ever been. But it’s still not very big.”
So he still envisions himself with the Nuggets for several more seasons.
“This team here, I see me coaching for a while because I think it has a chance to be really good,” he said.
HANGTIME SOUTHWEST – The San Antonio Spurs could again be without Manu Ginobili after he suffered a contusion to the left quadriceps in a collision with Boston’s Chris Wilcox Saturday night.
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich did not sound optimistic that Ginobili will be fit to play in Monday’s showdown at Oklahoma City.
“He got a thigh contusion just above his knee and one would think he is going to be stiffer than hell tomorrow,” Popovich told reporters after the Spurs beat Boston, 103-88 to improve to 19-6, two games behind the Thunder in the loss column. “It’s hard to believe he’d be ready day after tomorrow for Oklahoma, but I’m not sure.”
The Spurs just hope Ginobili isn’t out for long. The way he gripped his leg on the floor for a few minutes late in the first quarter certainly had everyone holding their breath.
No stranger to sprains, strains and contusions, Ginobili, 35, missed the first two games of the season with back spasms. The only other game he missed was the infamous Miami no-show when Popovich sent four of his regulars home, resulting in a $250,000 fine levied by the league.
Having returned to his sixth man role, Ginobili is averaging 11.5 points a game on 42.1 percent shooting and 35.1 percent from the 3-point arc. While his stats are down, his presence as a creative playmaker and the attention he demands from defenses is impossible to duplicate.
The Spurs are expecting good news this week. Forward Stephen Jackson tweeted that he’s excited about returning to action on Monday against the Thunder. Jackson broke a finger in November.
Second-year forward Kawhi Leonard is also expected back some time this week after missing a month with quad tendinitis.
HANGTIME SOUTHWEST – Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers laid his frustration at the feet of the referees.
“It’s hard to win games on the road when a team goes to the line like that and we don’t go to the line,” said Rivers, unhappy with the San Antonio Spurs’ lopsided free-throw differential, 20 to the Celtics’ eight.
Kevin Garnett piled on the refs, too, only blaming the Spurs’ AT&T Center as being one tough place to play and, therefore, to get a call.
“These guys [the Spurs] are a well-oiled machine. This place is one hard place to play in,” Garnett said Saturday night after the Spurs added to the Celtics’ misery with a 103-88 victory. “You are not going to get many calls in here to begin with. It’s your team versus whoever else is in here. We did have some fans in the stands but when you come here it is a tough place to play.”
OK, but that would not explain the Celtics’ stunning success in San Antonio over the years. Boston had won the last five meetings in South Texas going back to the Spurs’ last home win against the Celtics on Dec. 9, 2005, back when San Antonio had only half of its eventual four championship banners hanging in the rafters.
The Spurs and Celtics are often compared as mirror images from different conferences because of their aging stars. Both teams advanced to their respective conference’s final playoff round last season, but San Antonio, bolstered by a youthful, sharpshooting supporting case, is again rolling at 19-6 with an impressive point-differential of plus-7.8.
The Celtics woke up this morning out of the Eastern Conference playoff mix at 12-11, with a concerning minus-0.5 point-differential.
San Antonio, a terrific 3-point shooting team, killed Boston from beyond the arc, hitting 12-of-25. In Friday’s loss at Houston, the Rockets drained 10-of-27. Defending the 3-point shot has been a recurring issue for these Celtics, ranking in the bottom half of the league.
Boston reached its high-water mark for the season at 12-9 at home last week when it barely held on at home to beat a mediocre Dallas team in overtime. Then came the two road losses at Houston and San Antonio to drop Boston to an unaccustomed 4-7 on the road.
Next up is a four-game stretch against East foes, culminating on Christmas Day at struggling Brooklyn.
Getting back to East play might seem like a good thing. Only the Celtics are 7-8 against its own conference, which is clearly the weaker of the two.
Boston has passed the quarter point of its season. Those sunny preseason forecasts for another East finals run to challenge the Miami Heat are shrouded by low-hanging clouds.
MINNEAPOLIS – At first, it looked like a double-wicket shot. It truly appeared – in real time – as if Minnesota Timberwolves guard Ricky Rubio had delivered a perfectly executed, improbably conceived bounce pass through his own legs AND through Dallas defender Elton Brand‘s legs too.
Only in replay, slowed down, was it clear that Rubio’s pass had gone just past Brand’s left leg rather than behind it, not that the Mavericks forward noticed. The basketball reached its destination right about the time the Target Center crowd realized what it was seeing, and Greg Stiemsma finished off with a simple layup for a very unsimple highlight.
“Playing with Rajon [Rondo] last year, I’ll say it was kind of similar, where you almost have to expect the ball every time you roll, every time you dive,” Stiemsma said of playing his first game with Rubio, the Wolves’ clever and, finally, available point guard.
“We’ve been running through some drills with him the last couple weeks, some pick-and-roll stuff. Even there, Ricky’s going between his legs, behind his back, all that in the drills.”
That one was Rubio’s piece de resistance (that’s Spanish, right?) in his first game in nine months. But there were others: Rubio shoveling a pass to J.J. Barea as they crisscrossed for a reverse layup. Rubio sticking a long arm into O.J. Mayo‘s passing lane, switching defense into offense in an instant as his dark eyes immediately searched for an open man. Rubio working the baseline like Gretzky behind the net, finding Luke Ridnour 18 feet out for a jumper.
With Rubio running the point, there’s always the risk for his four teammates of snuffing another of the kid’s wonderous assists and snuffing a video treasure. Worse, there’s the risk of getting hit in the head or the face by the ball if one is caught unaware. And so it was a risky night in downtown Minneapolis Saturday, where Rubio continued his comeback from knee surgery.
It is continuing, for al the excitement and the instant results. Rubio was on a minutes leash of (cough) 16-18 minutes Saturday and will build up his participation time gradually, coach Rick Adelman said. He probably won’t play in both ends of the Wolves’ back-to-back trip to Orlando Monday and Miami Tuesday. And after all the inactivity and rehab from surgery to repair the ACL and MCL ligaments torn in his left knee in March, Rubio’s performance curve figures to have a few ripples, maybe even reversals, in it.
Still, he electrified the crowd of 18,173 (the Wolves sold an extra 1,750 tickets in the hours before tipoff) and seemed to make them forget that All-Star Kevin Love was a late scratch due to the flu (Love hoped to play through his bruised right thumb, before the Wolves sent him home as a sickie). Rubio certainly animated Adelman, who lavished praise on his team afterward and even saved a little for himself.
“When he has the ball in his hands,” Adelman said, “I’m a lot better coach.”
If Houdini had come back from surgery, he would have started with a few card tricks. But Rubio came back sawing the lady in half, only from behind his back.
His first shift began with 1:47 left in the first quarter and ended at 6:16 of the second. In that 7:31 stint, he had four points, four assists and a steal. The Target Center had its second lineup thrill of the season – Love surprised them all with his sudden comeback from a broken hand the night before Thanksgiving. Folks boomed “Rubio! Rubio!” for him just for trotting to the scorer’s table.
“I can’t say with words how it felt,” the 22-year-old said.
Derrick Williams could. The disappointing No. 2 pick in 2011 scored 12 points with five rebounds in the first half, Rubio’s return applying paddles to his game. “That’s the best I’ve felt since I’ve been here, honestly,” Williams said.
Rubio’s second shift started at 4:37 of the third quarter and ended 7:15 minutes later. That pushed him to 14:46 for the game, Adelman holding back a few of Rubio’s rationed minutes just in case. And sure enough, when the Wolves’ 15-point lead dwindled to one with 3:16 left, Rubio came back in.
Key moment this time? A pile-up near the sideline with Dallas’ husky Derek Fisher. Fisher already was coming on like a Grinch trying to swipe Christmas, scoring nine points in the fourth. Now he was tangled up on the floor with the Spanish unicorn. But two men went down and two got up, both fine, Fisher tapping Rubio on the chest.
“Once guys come out there, everything’s free to go,” Fisher said. “But you’re obviously never trying to hurt a guy. I just asked him if he was OK real quick.”
Rubio’s third shift ended with regulation, his shot from out top bouncing off, same as a couple of Minnesota tips. Adelman showed great restraint in sitting him through the overtime. There was the minutes limit and, besides, Rubio was tired.
“That kills me inside,” Rubio said, smiling as always, “but we did a great job.”
Officially, Rubio was a mere +1 in plus/minus. But his impact had been more contagious to the other Wolves than Love’s flu. Andrei Kirilenko dominated the 12-4 overtime with five points, three boards and an assist.
“We’re going to do big things with this team this year, just showing how we played in overtime, getting that 10-0 run,” Rubio said. “It was amazing … They gave me a great gift, that W in overtime.”
Only fair for a guy who dishes so many gifts himself. As Dallas’ Dahntay Jones said of Rubio’s impact: “You have people flying down the court, because they know he’s looking for them. He’s special.”
Kirilenko ticked off the names of the great playmaking point guards with whom he has played: John Stockton, Mark Jackson, Deron Williams. “Ricky is one of those guys because when he sees opportunity, he goes there. I learned from the best how to get open – and how not to get hit on the back,” Kirilenko said.
“It’s always a privilege to play with those kind of guys. Especially if you can play without the ball – you know if you get open, you’re going to get the ball.”
Rubio changes the whole dynamic of playing without the ball – no one is without the ball for long when he’s on the floor. Rubio’s back, and defenders’ heads are swiveling again.
HANGTIME SOUTHWEST –Jason Kidd and Jerry Stackhouse have played a lot of games in the NBA. They’ve seen a lot of rules changes in their time and the increased use of instant replay. Stackhouse would like to see a little more.
The Brooklyn Nets’ top 3-point shooter missed his second consecutive game Friday night with a sore right knee that he hurt trying to close on Kidd’s game-winning 3-pointer Tuesday night that gave the crosstown New York Knicks the victory.
The problem Stackhouse has is that Kidd stuck out his right leg to the side as he came down, attempting to draw a foul, which he did. He also drew contact with Stackhouse, who has a history of knee ailments and went careening to the floor.
Kristie Ackert of the New York Daily News reported that Stackhouse hopes the play will “initiate more enforcement of such calls and maybe the use of instant replay for referees to rule correctly.” She continued: “Replays of Kidd’s shot show it could have been waved off as part of the NBA’s crackdown on the ‘Reggie Miller’ rule. The league is asking officials to call offensive fouls on players who kick out their feet to initiate contact during jump shots. Kidd, who fell backwards after hitting the shot, also could have been called for flopping.”
Said Stackhouse, who is likely to miss Saturday’s game against Chicago and return Tuesday: “They have that stuff as point of emphasis but not until you see it in a game, then they look it. Now it really may become a point of emphasis. Maybe we have to be the sacrificial lamb a little bit.”
While Kidd was awarded the and-1 opportunity, Stackhouse got the foul and a sore that’s knocked him out of action. Stackhouse said he’d like to see the officials given the ability to review the play and judge it off the replay.
“They can go back and see whether it was a 3-point shot or a two-point shot,” Stackhouse said. “If that’s the case, you can go back and see what really happened on the play. I would love to see us get to that point.”
If Stackhouse is back by Tuesday, it means he’ll be ready to go for Wednesday’s third meeting against the Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
HANGTIME SOUTHWEST – We all know athletes love to pull the “taken-out-of-context” card when something they say hits print or cyberspace and causes a stir.
And that’s when they’re English-speaking Americans.
UPDATE: On Saturday, Bargnani claimed that he was misquoted. However, the Italian journalist who interviewed Bargnani said that is not the case.
An emotional Andrea Bargnani made it clear he was misqoted by Italian media. Not pleased. Teammates knew he didn't say it like that— Ryan Wolstat (@WolstatSun) December 15, 2012
Apparently, Bargnani hasn’t watched the Washington Wizards.
OK, so that was an unnecessary potshot. There’s nothing funny about how hot the seat of Raptors coach Dwane Casey has become in the early stages of his second season. Casey, by nature, is a calm soul and he immediately told everyone to settle down, that the Bargnani quotes just might be a case of language-barrier word tricks that foul up the translation.
“When I read it, it doesn’t sound like some of the words are Andrea’s English, first of all, so I’m sure some of it was lost in translation,” Casey told reporters. “I’ll ask him about it. Every guy has his right to his own opinion, I don’t monitor guys’ opinions or what they say.
“Me personally, I would be very careful how I would interpret that, because we’ve all traveled and I’ve seen some crazy articles come out. A lot of it’s lost in translation. I don’t know what his intentions are or what he meant by his statement, but I’ll ask him.”
It wouldn’t be the first time an overseas newspaper, perhaps unintentionally, exaggerated a story or delivered in translation some variance on the subject’s actual meaning or context.
Here’s how the newspaper, La Gazetta dello Sport, translated Bargnani’s statements about his club:
“Nothing has worked from the beginning of the season. We are pretty much the worst team in the NBA. This summer’s moves in the market were made to build a winning team, but we are not winning.
“We are below all of the expectations. No one is used to playing with anyone. We have won four games: it’s a tragic thing. Whatever way you look at it, it is a desperate situation. Since four years ago, we have kept losing. To improve, the only thing we can do is to win, and for now, we have not.”
Bargnani, 27, has taken plenty of grief in Toronto as a scapegoat for the team’s ongoing struggles, and the former No. 1 draft pick is a frequent trending topic on the rumor mill. He wasn’t on the floor Friday night for the Raptors’ resounding 95-74 victory over the visiting Dallas Mavericks because of a torn ligament in his right elbow and a strained right wrist sustained Monday night at Portland. He could be out for more than a month.
The win snapped Toronto’s six-game losing skid and got the Raps just their fifth win in 24 games.
Casey’s beleaguered club will continue to try to turn things around, to string together some wins and make their perimeter-shooting big man eat his words.
HANGTIME SOUTHWEST –Robert Pack, Travis Best, Antoine Walker, Antoine Wright, Dan Dickau, Erick Dampier, Danny Manning.
Just a few of the names that contributed along the way to the Dallas Mavericks’ remarkable (but once not unrivaled) 3-point shooting streak. For 1,108 consecutive games entering Friday night’s chilly visit to Toronto, at least one Mavericks player has made at least one 3-point shot.
Back when gas cost a buck-seventeen, before George W. Bush became president, as Y2K threatened every last computer, even pre-dating Mark Cuban‘s first NBA fine, Michael Finley and Erick Strickland combined to make three 3-pointers in a 97-90 win over the Sacramento Kings at the now-demolished Reunion Arena.
The date was Feb. 27, 1999.
Keith Van Horn, Cedric Ceballos, Shawn Bradley, Trenton Hassell, Adam Harrington, Danny Manning, Rawle Marshall.
On Feb. 26, 1999, the season was just 13 games old because of the lockout. Dirk Nowitzki was a rookie. Don Nelson was in his second year as head coach. The Mavs were 4-9, but had won two in a row when they got to Salt Lake City. In the middle game of a back-to-back-to-back, the Mavs missed all eight 3-point attempts and lost to the Jazz 80-65.
Incredibly, it would still stand as the last game that the Mavs didn’t make at least one 3-pointer as they arrived Friday at Air Canada Centre.
Drew Gooden, Juwan Howard, Antoine Rigaudeau, Steve Novak, Matt Carroll, Jerry Stackhouse, Vernon Maxwell.
On this night, the Mavs would not have available the franchise’s top three active 3-point shooters. Nowitzki, the all-time leader, remains shelved after October knee surgery. Jason Terry, second, plays for the Boston Celtics. Jason Kidd, fourth, plays for the New York Knicks. Third on the list is Finley. He works in the Mavs’ front office.
As play entered the fourth quarter, the Raptors held a 69-55 lead. One reason was Dallas had yet to make a 3-pointer, missing all 12 attempts. Toronto had made seven of its 24, hardly a flattering percentage, yet a 21-point differential nonetheless.
Early in the fourth quarter, Derek Fisher looked to have extended the streak to 1,109. But after a replay review, Fisher’s foot was determined to be stepping on the arc. Two points.
Dallas would attempt one more and miss it: 0-for-13.
Brandon Bass, Steve Nash, J.J. Barea, James Singleton, Kelenna Azubuike, Alexis Ajinca, Lamar Odom.
Fifteen times during the streak, the Mavs skated by with a lone 3-pointer. Arguably the most famous streak-saver came on April 19, 2006, the final game of the season. With a playoff seed wrapped up, coach Avery Johnson sat out some starters, including Nowitzki getting his first rest of the season, and he greatly limited others.
With Dallas trailing 84-68 to the Seattle SuperSonics, Johnson drew up a play to get DeSagana Diop his first career 3-pointer with less than a minute to go in the 7-foot center’s fifth season.
By gosh, he hit it.
“You think I would’ve shot it if he [Johnson] didn’t draw it up?” Diop would say, smiling.
The streak lived on, 610 games strong, into another offseason.
Wang Zhizhi, Eduardo Najera, Josh Howard, Marquis Daniels, Antawn Jamison, Christian Laettner, Hubert Davis.
The second-longest consecutive 3-point streak in NBA history belongs, coincidentally, to the Raptors at 986 games.
And now for the truly bizarre part. Remember the date Feb. 26, 1999? The night the Mavs went 0-for-8 from behind the arc in Utah — the last game they would not make at least one 3-pointer for the next 13 years — the Raptors’ Vince Carter, Doug Christie and DeeBrown combined to make four 3-pointers in a 102-92 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Who knows how minuscule the odds, but one night before the Mavs embarked on their record streak, the Raptors had started their own, one that would span 986 games until Jan. 24, 2011.
On Dec. 14, 2012, the Raptors finally stopped Dallas’ at a potentially untouchable 1,108.
MINNEAPOLIS – Ricky Rubio figures to be a lot of things when he finally returns to the Minnesota Timberwolves’ lineup nine months after knee surgery and rehab: A hardwood savior. A gate attraction. An emotional boost. A coaching challenge, however welcome, as far as blending Rick Adelman‘s new with his existing.
Most of all, Rubio’s 2012-13 debut – expected to come Saturday night when the team plays host to the Dallas Mavericks at Target Center – figures to be a big happy headline for a franchise rather lacking in those across its 24 seasons.
Here are three more things the charismatic second-year point guard will be when he plays for the first time since tearing the ACL and MCL ligaments in his left knee in an innocent-looking collision with Kobe Bryant back on March 9:
A diversion (from the Kevin Love hubbub that flaired up Tuesday over an Internet story full of unhappy quotes from the Wolves’ power forward).
A one-man cavalry (shoring up a backcourt thinned by injuries to Brandon Roy, Josh Howard and Malcolm Lee).
And … an unfair advantage?
It almost seems that way. The Timberwolves are 11-9 despite playing a quarter of their season without Rubio and the first 10 games without Love, the All-Star power forward who broke two bones in his right hand in training camp. They have weathered other injuries, too, but there they sit in the seventh spot in the Western Conference standings, generally getting healthier and positioned to climb even higher.
When Rubio went down last spring, the fear within the team was that his knee injury would cost Minnesota not just a run at the 2012 postseason but possibly a shot at getting there in 2013, too. If the Wolves started, say, 6-14 through their first 20 games, they might find themselves too far back, needing too many breaks and coincidences, to climb back above .500 to chase down even the eighth seed.
Well, look at them now. With Adelman doing a masterful job of plugging holes and finding mismatches, the Wolves are off to their best start since Kevin Garnett‘s last season with them. They have won five of their last six games and are 6-6 against teams that are .500 or better. If the goal was to stay competitive and viable as a playoff challenger while Love and Rubio were out, the Wolves have overachieved.
The schedule is a grind at the moment. The back-to-back this weekend vs. the Hornets and Mavericks is followed hard by an Orlando-Miami swing Monday and Tuesday, during which Rubio’s minutes – or even involvement in one or both – likely will be carefully managed. (A confab of team and medical personnel Saturday morning was expected to give him the green-light to face Dallas.)
After this stretch, though, Minnesota plays just four games in a stretch of 14 days, three across the 12 days from Dec. 21 through Jan. 1. It is 9-5 when getting at least one day of rest between games.
Rubio’s impact could be profound. He returns to an overhauled roster, with only six faces back from the group that went 5-20 after he went down.
The team’s two Clydesdales up front – Nikola Pekovic and Love – should get more opportunities at the rim, with Rubio’s interior passes and the defensive attention he’ll draw. In particular, Love – who might have come back too soon, judging by his continued hand discomfort and miserable shooting percentages — should get more open looks as he and the point guard sync up their games again.
The pressure Rubio puts on the defense and the angles he sees could be golden for shooters such as Chase Buddinger and Roy, if only they were healthy now. Luke Ridnour will benefit in their absence. And so will the team’s Russian connection. The way Andrei Kirilenko moves without the ball and uses the baseline, he and Rubio could be good for a couple highlight set-ups per night. And teaming Alexey Shved – no longer a mere Rubio placeholder – with him in the backcourt hints at some crafty ball-sharing and scoring chances at one end, better-than-expected defense at the other.
“He’s one of those kind of guys who can make a difference in the game,” Kirilenko told reporters after a Wolves practice this week. “In practice you see that every attack, every possession offensively and defensively. Those guys are pretty rare. … He’s just adding some more something to the game. He can run the ball, he can really create that up-tempo and his passes are unbelievable.”
And they’ll be coming now to rev up, rather than just rescue, the Timberwolves.
Episode #96: Are the Knicks for real? Are Kobe and the Lakers in trouble? What's up with D-Wade? The Hang Time crew breaks it all down.
