02/11/2010 - 14:18
Good Hustle, Tough Break
by
Matt Martino
You can’t fault Al Jefferson and the Minnesota Timberwolves for their effort on Wednesday night at the Target Center.
But the young Wolves will admit that an unnecessary hustle play cost them a win against the Charlotte Bobcats.
The Wolves led 92-91 with nine seconds remaining when Charlotte's Boris Diaw missed a 21-footer. Both Al and teammate Corey Brewer chased after the ball along the baseline. Brewer saved the ball from going out of bounds, but flipped it right to Bobcats center Nazr Mohammed whose game-winning dunk gave the Bobcats a 93-92 victory.
"I'm pretty sure if we could do anything [different] we would have done it," Al told the Star-Tribune. "The ball was going out of bounds and he just threw it back and it went to the wrong player."
Big Al led Minnesota with 19 points, 10 rebounds, and two blocks.
Ramon Sessions scored the go-ahead basket for the Wolves on a dunk, giving Minnesota a 90-89 lead with 1:32 left. On the next possession Al followed with a short hook shot to put his team up by three with 57.1 seconds remaining.
"We definitely had the momentum then," rookie guard Wayne Ellington told the Pioneer Press. "One little play can turn the game around."
The Wolves trailed by 21 in the second quarter, trimmed the lead to 10 points after three, and then went on a furious fourth-quarter rally. Minnesota outscored Charlotte 22-13 in the final frame and took their biggest lead of the game, three points, on Al’s jump hook.
"Yeah it [hurts]," said No. 25. "It would have helped if we hadn't got down 20 points. But that's just how it goes. It showed that we were determined to make a comeback and had a chance to win. But we lost by one rebound."
The decision showed that the Timberwolves still have things to learn about the nuances of the game, but the fact that a player would hustle that hard is otherwise a positive sign.
"Normally you don't want to throw the ball back under your opponent's basket," coach Kurt Rambis said. "But we also had three players who were standing around 20 feet from the basket and not one of them made a move to the basket when the shot went up.
"That timeout before, I mentioned to them that they were one rebound away from a win and all they had to do was find a way to get that rebound. They couldn't come up with it."
ALL-STAR BREAK
The Wolves hit the unofficial halfway point at 13-40. Minnesota is off until February 17, when they travel to Detroit to play the Pistons (18-32).
Al is recovering nicely from knee surgery, averaging 18 points and 10 rebounds thus far in the season. Considering it was only a year ago when he tore his ACL, Big Al is quickly catching up to last year’s career-high averages of 23 points and 11 rebounds.
RELATED STORIES
Brief lapse spoils bold comeback (Minneapolis Star-Tribune, February 11, 2009)
http://www.startribune.com/sports/wolves/84055382.html?page=1&c=y
A not-so-gripping loss (Pioneer Press, February 11, 2009)
http://www.twincities.com/sports/ci_14377674?source=rss
Timberwolves' rally falls short thanks to Mohammed's dunk (AP, February 10, 2010)
http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=300210016
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