03/25/2010 - 14:28
Always A Bright Spot
by
Devon Jeffreys
As the Minnesota Timberwolves fight toward the end of one of the most frustrating seasons in franchise history, Al Jefferson continues to provide a bright spot on the floor nearly every night.
Nearly fully recovered from his knee injury, Al has been showing off his scoring side lately. Benjamin Polk of Minnesota's City Pages says No. 25 is the number one reason for T-Wolves fans to remain optimistic in the face in a season filled with adversity.
"Reason 1: The Jefferson
Remember when, before his knee injury, Al Jefferson used to enchant defenders, used to wrap them into complicated little knots, unwrap them, and then re-wrap them into different knots? Well, he's starting to do it again. Al befuddled Chris Bosh and a host of others in the first quarter of Monday's game against Toronto. He put them off-balance with his rubbery up-fake; he dropped supple baseline spins; he split a double-team with an inside pivot and lefty layup. Even more encouraging: against the Bobcats, he induced Theo Ratliff to jump for that shot-fake, then spun into the paint and finished with a flat-footed, two-handed dunk. This is a move that, three months ago, Al was simply physically unable to pull off."
Al was at his competitive best on Wednesday night, scoring 21 points on 9-16 shooting, but the Timberwolves were unable to sustain strong surges on the defensive end, falling 108-95 to the Bobcats in Charlotte.
No. 25 scored 11 of his 21 points in the first quarter as Minnesota jumped out to a 33-30 lead after one quarter. Stop-n-Pop from Canis Hoopus, described Al's aggressive play in the first quarter:
"Al Jefferson had one of his better quarters of the year in the 1st quarter and he was being single-teamed until he started to make his move towards the basket. What was nice to see from Al in the 1st quarter was that he was quick with the ball and the double team couldn't come quickly enough. As many of you will remember from the last game against the Bobcats (and against many other opponents this season, as it seems to be "the book" on Jefferson), Charlotte would let Big Al take a slow back-step or two (sometimes waiting for him to put his head down) before sending Boris Diaw, Wallace, or Captain Jack at him from up top, knowing full-well that he wasn't going to be able to make the right pass with his mind already made up to take it to the hoop.
Last night in the first quarter, Al was decisive with the ball. He went quickly and he even did away with some of his old-man rec-league moves for some season-best displays of quickness and power. When was the last time we saw the guy snap the rim with a two-handed power dunk?"
Al showed off a sparkling clean jumper, a some bewildering post moves to keep the Bobcats defense off balance and he looked healthy as he went to work, attacking the basket at will.
COME BACK TO ME
But then, in the second quarter, Al came out for a breather. When he left the game, the Wolves led by seven, by the time he returned they were down by one.
The Bobcats sustained a 20-0 run late in the second quarter and subsequently ran away with the game. At the same time, the Wolves never went back to Al. He scored 10 points over the final three frames after his breakout first.
Stop-N-Pop from Canis Hoopus cut into the team for poor decision making:
"During the 6+ minute run, Big Al left the action for a breather with the score 43-36 in the Wolves' favor. He re-entered the game with the Cats up by one at 43-44. For the remainder of the run, the none of the little guys in blue saw fit to dump the damn ball down to the one guy who had it going. Corey Brewer was the worst offender, posting an amazing one minute stretch of 3 straight offensive possessions that went like this: turnover, bad pass, blocked lay up. After that last blocked lay up, the score was 43-52 without a single Big Al shot since he left the game with a 7 point lead.
There are some pretty basic concepts in life, business, the NBA, whatever. One of them is that when things go bad, you go back to the basics--you do what you do best; you do what has worked until you can figure out how to adapt. Your Minnesota Timberwolves apparently haven't read this memo."
Though he was rendered relatively silent the rest of the way on offense, Al added five rebounds, three blocks, two assists and a steal in an overall impressive night.
Polk continued in his column for City Pages that the Wolves seem to have a great plan to go to No. 25 from the get-go, but the plan falls apart after the first quarter:
"I think you'll notice that most positive things here have a caveat attached. This one has two. First, although Jefferson has done such terrific damage in the first quarter of recent games, the Wolves have been unable to go back inside later in the game. The team will endure their customary stretches of wretched offense, of stilted ball movement and contested jumpers, without Al ever touching the ball. Part of this has to do with a diminished aggressiveness on Big Al's part as the game wears on. But part of it comes down to simple execution: when the Wolves' don't space the floor and don't move the ball and begin to rely only on their one-on-one skills, its very hard for them to get the ball inside to Al in good position."
RELATED STORIES
A run for the ages (Canis Hoopus, March 25, 2010)
http://www.canishoopus.com/2010/3/25/1389570/a-run-for-the-ages
Timberwolves give reasons to hope in this cosmic bummer of a season (City Pages, March 25, 2010)
http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2010/03/timberwolves_re.php
Bobcats vs. Timberwolves Play by Play (NBA.com, March 25, 2010)
http://www.nba.com/games/20100324/MINCHA/gameinfo.html?ls=gt2hp0020901059
Bookmark/Search this post with:
Printer-friendly version
Send to friend
