Posts Tagged ‘Rick Adelman’

< Older Entries
Newer Entries >

Blogtable: Who’s Let You Down?

March 20, 2013  ·  11:30AM

Each week, we’ll ask our stable of scribes to weigh in on the three most important NBA topics of the day — and then give you a chance to step on the scale, too, in the comments below.

Week 21: Miami at Boston lessons | Who wants Bynum? | Player, coach, team that’s let you down?

Kobe Bryant has been stellar, but the Lakers still have been a letdown. (Fernando Medina/NBAE via Getty Images)

Kobe Bryant has been stellar, but the Lakers still have been a letdown. (Fernando Medina/NBAE via Getty Images)

Name a player, coach or team who has disappointed you this year.

Steve Aschburner: Disappointment doesn’t necessarily require blame, so my choice is the Minnesota Timberwolves. For the first time since about 2004, there was a real buzz in the Twin Cities as the Wolves opened training camp, owing to the improvements in 2011-12 under Rick Adelman, positive updates on Ricky Rubio‘s knee-surgery rehab, some smart off-season roster moves and the continued development of Kevin Love as one of the game’s elite, and highly watchable, power forwards. Then Brandon Roy (predictably, frankly), Chase Budinger and worst of all Love went down – went down hard – with injuries. A rash of others, including rejuvenated Andrei Kirilenko and Bond villain Nikola Pekovic lost time as well. Even Adelman had to miss games while attending to his wife’s health issues. Rubio, after an inconsistent couple months back, has regained his don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it form. But from Love’s opt-out in two years to Adelman’s commitment to Pekovic’s market value this summer and more, the clock be ticking in Minny.

Fran Blinebury: Philadelphia due to the guy in that other question. I didn’t think Bynum would miss the entire season and be on the verge of a career washout. The Sixers’ grand plan to step up into contender’s class has blown up in their faces. Now they have no Iguodala, no Nikola Vucevic, no Maurice Harkless … nothing to show for the gamble. It seems the franchise has been set back for years.

Jeff Caplan: This is as equally disappointing as it easy to pick: The Minnesota Timberwolves. Injuries ruined this team since Day 1 with Ricky Rubio still rehabbing and Kevin Love breaking his hand doing knuckle push-ups. No need to get into the rest of the injury list here, it’s just too long, but before the season I picked the Wolves to finish sixth in the West. I’d have said that they’re 23-42 record would have been reversed had health prevailed.

Scott Howard-Cooper: Removing the injury considerations (Timberwolves, Bynum, others), it’s still the Lakers in what has to be an open-ended question until the end of the playoffs. If L.A. finishes as badly as it started, then we have an answer. If your favorite dysfunctional family reaches the postseason and has a nice run, though, a respectable showing gets the Lakers off the hook. That means reaching the conference finals or a good playoffs before losing in a competitive series to the Spurs or Thunder.

John Schuhmann: The Lakers are still just 36-33 and still very much in danger of not making the playoffs, so they’re obviously at the top of the list. It’s great to see Dwight Howard finally looking more mobile and I understand that injuries have been an issue all season, but this team still isn’t playing the defense it needs to play if the Lakers want to win more than a game against one of the top five teams in the West. In fact, they rank just 15th in defensive efficiency since the All-Star break. This team was supposed to be a title contender, and they’ve never looked anything like it.

Sekou Smith: Nothing but sunshine around here as usual, huh? There are plenty of candidates in each category, as we all love to nitpick the performances of specific players, coaches and teams. Even with a few good weeks since the All-Star break, the Los Angeles Lakers remain one of the most disappointing teams in recent memory. And you could go with the Lakers across the board here, Dwight Howard or Steve Nash in the player spot, Mike D’Antoni at coach and the Lakers as the team. Barring a miraculous playoff run, they’re going to occupy the entire page in the Hang Time yearbook for the biggest flop of the season. The best part, though, is they still have a chance to rewrite the ending to this story. They have the potential to provide the most drama in a first round playoff series, just by showing up in either San Antonio or Oklahoma City.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Blogtable / Comments (19) /

Defense Grew Rockets’ 22-Game Streak

March 15, 2013  ·  9:48AM

 

HOUSTON — As far as seismic shifts in the landscape go, there was no tremor, no low rumble of an earthquake’s warning and it never hit with the fiery blast of a volcanic eruption.

When the Rockets went 49 days — seven full weeks — without a single loss in 2008, it grew quietly for the longest time like an oak tree’s roots growing up through the cracks in a sidewalk until one day it was busting apart the concrete.

The 22-game win streak, second-longest in NBA history, is the outlier in the record book, the one that nobody, even themselves, saw coming, and many, even in hindsight, can still not comprehend.

Before the defending champion Heat, led by the three-headed juggernaut of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, joined the club, only three teams in history had won 20 in a row. The 1971-72 Lakers with their record of 33 consecutive wins and a star-studded roster of Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain and Gail Goodrich went on to win the NBA title. The 1970-71 Bucks, led by Hall of Famers Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson, ran off 20 straight on their way to win it all.

In fact, of the top eight win streaks ever in the NBA before the Heat, five of those teams won championships. Only the Rockets did not get out of the first round of the playoffs.

“Our names will be mentioned with Hall of Fame people,” said point guard Rafer Alston. “We have something to tell our kids.”

Shane Battier, now with Miami, has called the Rockets’ streak “organic,” part of a process that evolved over time.

It wasn’t often flashy or pretty, but it was effective, like seeing a boa constrictor slowly squeeze the life out of its prey.

The Rockets were led by Tracy McGrady’s bundle of offensive skills, but they survived the loss of Yao Ming and they won and won with a growing confidence and surging defense. During the 22-game streak, they held 19 of their opponents under 100 points and 13 under 90. They won 14 games by double figures, an average margin of 12.36, and had only three games decided by fewer than six points. They won 15 games at home and seven on the road.

The Rockets even won the last 10 without their All-Star center Yao, whose season was ended by a stress fracture in his left foot on Feb. 26.

“Every time a team gets a chance to come close, the streak comes up,” said forward Luis Scola, now with the Suns. “It was a great stretch. It was a good team. If we lose any of those games it wouldn’t change that fact. But maybe that team wouldn’t be as remembered.

“You know we were playing well. It was a fun team to play with. The momentum that we had going. We were playing very well. We were beating teams just because we were good…That month and a half was great. I remember it was a lot of fun.”

The Rockets were 15-17 on Jan. 2 and 24-20 when they beat Golden State 111-107 on a night when Yao was dominant with 39 points and 19 rebounds. They were fighting for their playoffs lives, sitting precariously as the seventh seed in the Western Conference. Two nights later, they went on the road to win at Indiana 106-103 and ran off seven straight wins where they never gave up 90 points.

“What we’re developing is a great team like the Pistons,” said McGrady. “A great defensive team going out there and playing together and not relying on one or two people to score the rock.”

No. 8 was their narrowest escape, needing Steve Novak to come off the bench to hit a 3-pointer — his only field goal of the game — with two seconds left to rescue an 89-87 win over the Kings.

The streak continued through trades. On the afternoon of No. 10, they sent Bonzi Wells to New Orleans and Kirk Snyder to Minnesota, yet didn’t miss a beat in thumping Miami. They attracted real notice around the league when they whipped the No. 1-seeded Hornets in New Orleans.

When the Rockets took the floor on Feb. 26, the word was out that Yao was lost for the season and the fears inside Toyota Center were palpable. But with 41-year-old Dikembe Mutombo blocking shots, waving his finger and filling the middle, the streak rolled on.

“You could probably check this, but I’m thinking all the way to the 17th or 18th game of the winning streak we still were in the eighth spot or the ninth spot or something like that,” Scola said. “It was a really tough year for the West. The playoffs were in jeopardy.” (more…)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in HT News / Comments (11) /

Rubio’s Rise Will Again Raise Hope

March 13, 2013  ·  1:36PM

.

HANG TIME SOUTHWEST – Nothing can change this lost season for Ricky Rubio and the Minnesota Timberwolves. His first career triple-double Tuesday night reminded what might have been, but more importantly, what’s still to come.

Look no further than Chicago and the ongoing road to full recovery for Derrick Rose to understand the complications and fears associated with a return from reconstructive knee surgery. While Rose still has yet to make his season debut, Rubio is three months into his return from a torn ACL in his left knee that short-circuited the end of his 2011-12 season and the start of this one.

It’s been just the last four to six weeks that the 22-year-old Spaniard, who acknowledged early on the mental strain of coming back, has started to resemble the tantalizing floor magician who awes fans and inspires teammates.

He pulled a rabbit out of his hat and more Tuesday in a blowout win against the San Antonio Spurs, producing season-highs with 21 points and 13 rebounds, plus 12 assists. He was playing with full confidence, dribbling behind his back to beat defenders into the paint, dropping no-look passes, firing baseball passes, lobs and spotting cutters with lightning-quick bounce passes that somehow skip into the hands of his target.

“That’s the first one of many to come in his career,” teammate J.J. Barea said of Rubio’s triple-double.

The first was just a matter of time. Over the last 15 games, Rubio has eight double-doubles. He twice missed a triple-double by two rebounds and once each by three rebounds and one rebound.

“Yeah of course,” Rubio said afterward when asked if it feels good to notch the triple-double. “It’s good to have a triple-double, but especially a win against [the Spurs]. I know they got Tim Duncan, [Kawhi] Leonard and Tony Parker out, so a lot of players, but they are a great team and we played great.”

Before anybody discounts Rubio’s performance and the Wolves’ 107-83 win against the shorthanded Spurs, let’s just remember that this was a Minnesota team playing without Kevin Love, Nikola Pekovic, Andrei Kirilenko, Chase Budinger as part of an injured list that keeps on going. It’s been a carousel of devastating injuries since the start of the season and the result is a 22-39 record when a return to the playoffs was the predominant offseason forecast.

On Tuesday night, starting along with Rubio was Luke Ridnour, Mickael Gelabale, Derrick Williams and Greg Stiemsma, mostly a decent lineup of backups on any other team, in fact, on this team with a full roster.

That won’t happen until next season when playoff hopes will again rise. Rubio’s gradual improvement and more recently his sudden leaps are the greatest hope of all. In the last 15 games he’s averaging 13.6 ppg and 9.0 apg to lift his season averages to 9.2 and 7.3.

The most gratifying number, however, just might be 34.9. That’s his average minutes in that span, raising his season average to 28.9 mpg. Since Feb. 1, Rubio has logged at least 30 minutes in 14 of 19 games and at least 35 minutes nine times. Prior to Feb. 1, when he was often limited by a minutes restriction, Rubio hit the 30-minute mark twice (30 and 31 minutes) in 17 games while averaging 23.9 mpg, much of it coming off the bench.

“He is playing with such resolve trying to get us over the hump,” Timberwolves coach Rick Adelman said. “He has had that effort but we had so many people step up [against the Spurs]. It really made a big difference. I thought he was going to expire in the third quarter when I took him out. He just played so hard in those first six minutes.”

With this disappointing season winding down, nothing can be more meaningful to the Wolves than Rubio’s rise.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in HT News / Comments (9) /

Carlisle Seeks Win No. 500 Tonight At OKC

February 4, 2013  ·  11:09AM

HANG TIME SOUTHWEST – Dallas Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle probably never imagined it would take 47 games this season for his team to get 20 wins.

So, naturally, it’s taken a little longer for him to join the exclusive 500-win club. It’s been that type of a hard-coaching season for Carlisle, who will become just the fifth active coach to reach 500 career wins with the Mavs’ next victory. It could happen tonight, although it won’t be easy as Dallas is in Oklahoma City (8 p.m. ET, League Pass) to take on a Thunder team in a bit of a lull after finishing up seven of eight games on the road.

Carlisle has amassed a 499-352 (.586) record in 11 seasons with Detroit, Indiana and Dallas, where he has won 218 games in now his fifth season, the longest tenure of his career. The only active coaches with 500 wins are Gregg Popovich (1,295), George Karl (1,104), Rick Adelman (989) and Doc Rivers (570). Carlisle is one of just four active coaches, along with Popovich, Miami’s Erik Spoelstra and Rivers, to win a championship.

Carlisle will become the 28th coach in NBA history to achieve 500 wins. Only seven coaches have reached 1,000. One is Larry Brown (No. 6 all-time with 1,098 wins), the man who replaced Carlisle a decade ago in Detroit after he led the Pistons to the Eastern Conference finals in just his second season. Brown and the Pistons won the title the next season. Brown now coaches just up the road at SMU.

“I think it’s the only team I ever took over with a winning record and I said immediately when I got the job that the values that he has are no different than the values that I have,” Brown said. “It was an easy transition for me because they were taught the right way. He knows that, we talk about it all the time. I inherited a team that was fundamentally sound, that knew how to play, they cared about their teammates, they guarded every single night, played hard every single night. I coined the phrase, ‘Played the right way,’ and he started that.”

Carlisle emerged as one of the game’s truly gifted coaches with his deft handling of a veteran Mavs team that rolled up the Trail Blazers, Lakers, Thunder and finally the Heat in winning the 2010-11 championship, the franchise’s first.

And who knows how much more quickly Carlisle might have reached 500 if late Pistons owner Bill Davidson had not jumped at the chance to hire the legendary Brown; and then later at Indiana if the “Malice in the Palace” brawl in Detroit had not thrown the franchise into chaos. Still, Carlisle managed to guide that injury- and suspension-riddled 2004-05 Pacers team to the playoffs and a first-round upset of Boston.

He spent one more season at Indiana before taking a year off working as an analyst at ESPN. Then, Donnie Nelson and Mark Cuban brought him to Dallas to coach Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Kidd.

So far this season Dallas is 0-2 against the Thunder. Yet, who would have figured both games would go to overtime?

Perhaps Carlisle has something special up his sleeve to nail down No. 500.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in HT News / Comments (3) /

Adelman Back, Hopes To Brake Wolves’ Slide

January 28, 2013  ·  8:54PM

Kevin Love‘s return was premature; his injured right hand due for more trauma and more repair before long. Ricky Rubio‘s return proved anticlimactic; that burst-of-adrenaline game in mid-December followed by a series of fits and starts, cockeyed shooting and meager assists totals.

The Minnesota Timberwolves thus are hoping that the return of coach Rick Adelman can be one of those third-time-is-a-charm things.

Adelman returned to the practice court Monday after three weeks away, his absence triggered by his wife Mary Kay’s hospitalization and treatment for an undisclosed illness. She is home now in the Twin Cities, her condition believed stable enough to allow Adelman to work the six-game homestand that begins Wednesday against the Los Angeles Clippers at Target Center.

“I think everybody has their own situation in all walks of life – the difference between mine is it’s more public,” Adelman told reporters after Monday’s workout. “But I think the important thing is we’re going to move forward in a positive manner and, hopefully, I can come back and get our team going in the right direction. This group has played very hard. I felt bad for them, felt bad for the coaches, everybody. It’s a tough situation.”

With assistant Terry Porter taking over while Adelman was out, the Wolves went 2-9. That’s worse than their record without Love this season (8-15), worse than their mark without Rubio (13-12).

There has been a cumulative effect, for sure, accompanying the Wolves’ sag to 12th in the West and to the bottom of the Northwest Division. Love’s re-injury and hand surgery, Rubio’s halting progress and injuries to Chase Budinger, Brandon Roy, Josh Howard, Malcolm Lee and, most recently, Nikola Pekovic and Alexey Shved have taken their tolls mentally as well as physically.

Still, the Wolves have missed Adelman’s stable hand, his swift decisions, his ability to diagnose and fix problems on the fly and his court-of-last-resort status in terms of disagreements. It’s inconceivable, for instance, that Rubio would have griped at Adelman the way he did at Porter last week when he was yanked from a loss to Brooklyn.

Porter and Adelman go way back to their Portland days, so the former NBA point guard had his boss’ full support. Adelman attributed the flare-up to the frustration of losing and Rubio’s tortuous comeback. He kept in daily communication with Porter and son, David Adelman, another Wolves assistant, but didn’t try to steer the team via remote control.

“I’ve learned, if you’re not there, you have to let the guys just do it,” he said. “The coaching staff is a good coaching staff, and it had to be their decision. That’s why, if I was coming back, it had to be, I was coming back. I wasn’t coming back for one day or two days and leaving again. That wouldn’t be fair to anybody.”

Eventually, more Wolves will return to the pack. Pekovic and Shved reportedly practiced Monday. Love is eyeing a March return. Budinger hopes to be back sometime that month, too, and so on.

The organization, in the meantime, has to determine what it realistically can accomplish in 2012-13: Chase a playoff spot, a goal that seemed a no-brainer when Rubio returned against Dallas Dec. 15 and helped the Wolves reach 12-9? Or regroup for yet another lottery finish – it would be Minnesota’s ninth straight – and approach the league’s Feb. 21 trade deadline accordingly?

Said Adelman: “We’ve got half the season left and … even though it’s been a lot of things thrown our way, life moves on and you’ve got to find way to get yourself energized and focus on what you can do right now.”

The six teams coming into Target Center were a combined 152-115 heading into Monday’s action. Mary Kay Adelman already has an important home stand underway but her husband Rick is facing a pretty vital one too.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized / Comments (5) /

Rubio Staying Positive On Rough Road Back

January 15, 2013  ·  12:12AM

a


a

DALLAS – For a kid who knows only how to play the game with pure joy, this is pure hell.

The two ugly scars that mar his left knee each measure five inches long, one starting in the middle of his knee cap and jagging down. The other curves around the left side of the knee like a misshapen crescent moon.

As Ricky Rubio pulled up the black, padded knee sleeve that made the permanent markings of reconstructive surgery disappear, he wished the trials that still come with his ongoing recovery, one that wiped out the Olympics and all but 10 games now of this season, could just disappear, too. He softly shook his floppy mane of dark hair and flashed a small, if only brief, smile.

“It’s hard because I still have a little pain and it’s something you have to fight through and get through,” said the 22-year-old Spaniard before the Minnesota Timberwolves lost 113-98 to the Dallas Mavericks, a fourth consecutive defeat for Minnesota and yet another game that Rubio would come off the bench and be limited by a minutes restriction.

“I talk with the guys who had the same injury and they say about a year, a year-and-a-half [after surgery] they started feeling, like, normal,” Rubio continued. “It’s tough when you’re playing with something in your mind; you don’t want to think about it, but it’s in your mind that you’re going slower and you are not who you used to be.

“That’s going to come, but you have to be patient.”

Rubio made his season debut on Dec. 15 against Dallas and played 18 minutes. He dazzled the home crowd with eight points and nine assists, including the highlight of the night, a no-look, behind-the-back bounce pass into the lane to Greg Stiemsma for a layup. It’s about as good as it’s gotten.

Back spasms, likely caused by overcompensation for his knee, took him out of the lineup after just five games. He returned on Jan. 8 and in the four games prior to Monday, Rubio, averaging 3.8 points and 4.6 assists, had made one of 12 shots. His assists dwindled from eight to seven to three to two, all while playing no more than 22 minutes.

“You see flashes, but you can see he is nowhere near like he was last season. He was moving,” teammate J.J. Barea said. “The way he plays he needs to move like he used to move, where he’s faster and he’ll be able to get to pick his spots, get wherever he wants so he can make those passes.”

Flashes came and went Monday night against the Mavs. By the time acting coach Terry Porter subbed Rubio in with 3:20 to go in the first quarter, listless Minnesota trailed 22-11. Rubio and benchmate Barea got the Wolves clicking. Rubio directed an alley-oop pass to Dante Cunningham, drained a jumper and kept a possession alive with a swooping rebound in the lane as the Wolves closed to 39-36 and then 45-41.

But Rubio also couldn’t finish a drive after getting around O.J. Mayo, with little lift leaving his attempt short of the rim. In the final moments of Rubio’s nearly 13 minutes in the first half, Dallas went up 48-41, and then, with Rubio on the bench, 55-45 at the half.

He never got a fair shot to make a dent in the second half. Porter — serving for Rick Adelman while he tends to his wife in the hospital — kept Rubio tethered to the bench for the first 10 1/2 minutes of the third quarter as the Wolves’ first unit mirrored its awful first quarter and allowed the game to slip away. Rubio checked in with Minnesota, reeling from injuries and a rotation in tatters, trailing 87-68.

He finished with six points, six assists and five rebounds, and was a plus-7 — the highest rating among the eight Wolves that played at least 21 minutes.

Rubio’s 2-for-3 shooting night tied his season high for made buckets and figured as his best shooting percentage among the 10 games he’s played, an indication of how brutal it’s been after he averaged 10.6 points and 8.2 assists in a tantalizing rookie campaign before a torn ACL ended it after 41 games.

“It’s hard because you work hard for eight or nine months to get back and it doesn’t stop here,” Rubio said. “You have to work even harder now to get back in shape, to get back to the point you want to be feeling the game again, and that doesn’t come easy.”

Yet, add logging a season-high 27 minutes Monday and a desperate Wolves team slipping down the standings at 16-18, can at least glean some positives as they head back to frigid Minneapolis.

“I tell him to be patient, to keep working on his legs, keep working on his body. It’s going to turn around sooner or later, but he’s got to be patient and stay positive,” Barea said. “And I tell him he’s young. He’s 22, he has nothing to worry about.”

Maybe so. But right now, it’s hell.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in HT News / Comments (5) /

Love’s Latest Injury Testing Wolves’ Mettle

January 9, 2013  ·  6:27PM

a

HANG TIME SOUTHWEST – So this is just how it’s going to be for the Minnesota Timberwolves, a season so marred by constant injury that it stands to test their collective sanity as much as their ambitious playoff aspirations.

The Wolves already knew they’re moving ahead without star forward Kevin Love for a second stretch of games after he re-fractured his right hand last week, but Wednesday’s news that he’ll miss more time than expected, the next eight to 10 weeks, severely worsened that blow just one day after the sigh-of-relief return of point guard Ricky Rubio from his second injury stint.

Love initially broke his hand before the start of the season doing knuckle pushups at home. He missed the first nine games of the season and the Wolves, without their two young stars, were pleased to be 5-4 when Love surprised everyone with an early return.

A stunning spat of injuries followed. Brandon Roy, Chase Budinger and Malcolm Lee remain out with knee injuries. Rubio played in just his sixth game in Tuesday’s hard-fought home win over the Atlanta Hawks to push their record to 16-15, just 1 1/2 games out of the West’s final playoff spot. The Wolves played that one without resolute coach Rick Adelman – out for personal reasons — as they will again tonight trying to stay above .500 in a tough road test at Oklahoma City.

Coaches impress on their players all the time that the 82-game NBA grind is about survival. Expected to be without Love, their leading scorer (18.3 ppg) and by far most productive rebounder (14. 0 rpg), until mid-to-late March, the Wolves are truly in the fox hole now.

They’ll carry through the high hopes of its long-suffering fan base and secure the franchise’s first postseason berth since their lone Western Conference finals run in 2003-04 only by sticking together and pushing harder.

Rubio’s return is a good start. He played 19 minutes on Tuesday and finished with four points and eight assists. He missed the previous four games with back spasms, an issue believed to be caused by overcompensation as he learns to trust the surgically repaired left knee. He’s dealt with the groin and back problems since making his debut on Dec. 15 from last season’s ACL tear.

Adelman and the team’s training staff will have to closely monitor his minutes and progress, but the belief is he’s ready to ramp up and burden a bigger load.

To keep within arm’s length of a playoff spot to this point, the Wolves have heavily relied upon stat-stuffing forward Andrei Kirilenko, center Nikola Pekovic, who has eight double-doubles in last 13 games, emerging Russian rookie Alexey Shved and the diminutive backcourt duo of Luke Ridnour and J.J. Barea.

But how long can they keep up the fight in a competitive Western Conference that could take 45 wins to get in?

And which team or teams drop off? The top four, barring catastrophic injury — something the Wolves know never to discount — seem like locks. Golden State is playing well enough and for long enough to not expect a collapse in the second half of the season.

Of the next three teams — Houston, Portland and Denver — none are sure bets, yet the trio is currently on a collective 10-game winning streak.

And lost among the crowd currently on the outside looking in is the Los Angeles Lakers. A glorious run back into contention doesn’t appear imminent, but can’t be eliminated as a possibility either simply because of their proven talent.

The Wolves have expended tremendous energy to stay afloat. How much longer can they grind away? Long enough for Love’s eventual return to be meaningful?

We’re about to find out.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in HT News / Comments (4) /

Adelman Steers Injury-Plagued Wolves

January 6, 2013  ·  11:48AM

a

HANGTIME SOUTHWEST — If Minnesota Timberwolves coach Rick Adelman can somehow steer his dejected club through these latest injury setbacks to his two injury-marred stars, please reward him with long overdue recognition as coach of the year.

Before Saturday night’s game against Portland, and after learning that star forward Kevin Love would again be sidelined by a re-break to that darned right hand he originally fractured before the season by doing knuckle push-ups, Adelman marveled how, through one injury after another, his team had managed to pull off a 15-14 record.

With Love joining point guard Ricky Rubio, saddled with his second injury after a brief return from a torn ACL, on the bench once again, the Wolves dropped to 15-15 after a furious late comeback failed against the surging Trail Blazers.

A once-promising season, so filled with hope and excitement and adventure, is becoming one to forget, robbed by uncontrollable injury that now threatens to nosedive off the cliff as the Wolves sit in ninth place.

Rubio, the flashy, dynamic point guard destined for stardom, managed to play in just five games starting Dec. 15, but was unable to join the starting lineup before back spasms, perhaps caused by overcompensation for his knee, took him out after a Dec. 26 loss to Houston.

Rubio and Love, who had never really rounded into All-Star form, saddled with wilting shooting percentages, have played in just three games together.

“I’ve never been through anything like this,” Adelman told reporters before Saturday’s 102-97 loss, Minnesota’s sixth in the last nine games. “You start out with Ricky from the very beginning, hoping to get him back and then it’s just been one thing after the other.”

Dante Cunningham, Luke Ridnour and Alexey Shved are the only Wolves to have played in all 30 games. The injury list is mesmerizing. Obviously Rubio didn’t play for the first month-and-a-half and Love missed the first three weeks. Brandon Roy lasted just five games before more knee problems have forced him to consider re-retirement. Chase Budinger made it into a sixth game before sustaining a season-ending knee injury. Malcolm Lee played in 16 games before a knee injury took him out.

Josh Howard, brought in as an emergency replacement, was waived after he suffered an ACL injury.

J.J. Barea has missed five games, Andrei Kirilenko has missed four and Nikola Pekovic must feel fortunate to have only missed two when he sprained an ankle in November.

If the Wolves have any luck at all they’ll soon get Rubio back. They’ll need him. The remaining January schedule is a bear and could ultimately determine whether the Wolves will be a playoff contender and how active they might be come the trade deadeline.

Among 12 games left this month, Minnesota faces Atlanta twice, the Los Angeles Clippers twice, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Houston and Brooklyn. The Wolves play seven of the 12 on the road, where they’re just 6-10. Games at Washington and Charlotte at the end of the month will serve as must-wins.

In the hotly contested West, if the Wolves somehow head into February with a top-eight spot or anywhere close, be ready finally to give Adelman that long overdue coach of the year award. No questions asked.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in HT News / Comments (24) /

History: Fear The Streaking Clippers

January 1, 2013  ·  9:51AM

a

HANG TIME, Texas — It might be time to change the name of Lob City to Titletown or Bannerburgh.

Either way the streaking Clippers are on the verge of moving into a rather exclusive neighborhood that merits quite serious attention. It’s a ritzy place that comes with lots of shiny gold hardware.

When Chris Paul and his pals won back-to-back games over the Jazz to run it up to 17 consecutive wins, they squeezed into a tie for the ninth-longest single-season streak in NBA history.

With one more win tonight at Denver — No. 18 — the Clippers would take another step toward forcing themselves into the conversation as honest-to-goodness contenders.

Of course, the 1971-72 Lakers top the list with their all-time record 33-game win streak that many consider to be unbreakable. But of the eight teams currently ahead of the Clippers, five of them went on that same season to win the NBA championship and two others advanced to the conference finals. Only the 2007-08 Rockets failed to get out of the first round of the playoffs.

1971-72 L.A. Lakers
Streak: 33

Coach: Bill Sharman
Stars: Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, Gail Goodrich

Start: Nov. 5, 1971 (110-106 over Bullets)

End: Jan. 7, 1972 (120-104 to Bucks)

Record: 69-13

Playoff result: Won NBA championship

2007-08 Houston Rockets

Streak: 22 games
Coach: Rick Adelman
Stars: Tracy McGrady, Yao Ming

Start: Jan. 29, 2008 (111-107 over Warriors)

End: March 18, 2008 (94-74 to Boston Celtics)

Record: 55-27

Playoff result: Lost in first round

1970-71 Milwaukee Bucks

Streak: 20
Coach: Larry Costello
Stars: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Oscar Robertson

Start: Feb. 6, 1971 (111-105 over Warriors)

End: March 8, 1971 (110-103 in OT to Bulls)

Record: 66-16

Playoff result: Won NBA championship

1999-2000 L.A. Lakers

Streak: 19
Coach: Phil Jackson
Stars: Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal

Start: Feb. 4, 2000 (113-67 over Jazz)

End: March 13, 2000 (109-102 to Wizards)

Record: 67-15

Playoff result: Won NBA championship

2008-09 Boston Celtics
Streak: 19

Coach: Doc Rivers
Stars: Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen

Start: Nov. 15, 2008 (102-97 over Bucks)

End: Dec. 25, 2008 (92-83 to Lakers)

Record: 62-20

Playoff result: Lost in conference semifinals

1969-70 N.Y. Knicks
Streak: 18

Coach: Red Holzman
Stars: Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Dave DeBusschere, Bill Bradley

Start: Oct. 24, 1969 (116-92 over Pistons)

End: Nov. 29, 1969 (110-98 to Pistons)

Record: 60-22

Playoff result: Won NBA championship

1981-82 Boston Celtics

Streak: 18
Coach: Bill Fitch
Stars: Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish

Start: Feb. 24, 1982 (132-90 over Jazz)

End: March 28, 1982 (116-98 to 76ers)

Record: 63-19

Playoff result: Lost in conference finals

1995-96 Chicago Bulls

Streak 18
Coach: Phil Jackson
Stars: Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman

Start: Dec. 29, 1995 (120-93 over Pacers)

End: Feb. 4, 1996 (105-99 to Nuggets)

Record: 72-10

Playoff result: Won title

2012-13 L.A. Clippers
Streak: 17
Coach: Vinny Del Negro
Stars: Chris Paul, Blake Griffin
Start: Nov. 28, 2012 (101-95 over Timberwolves)
End: ???

* 20 consecutive wins by 2011-12 San Antonio Spurs was split between 10 regular season and 10 playoffs and thereby does not qualify officially.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in 2012, HT News / Comments (34) /

Blogtable: All Worked Up Over Ricky

December 19, 2012  ·  10:26AM




Each week, we’ll ask our stable of scribes to weigh in on the three most important NBA topics of the day — and then give you a chance to step on the scale, too, in the comments below.

Week 8: Hyperventilating about Ricky | Celtics’ Last Gasp? | Missing Pieces

Are we in danger of hyperventilating over Ricky Rubio?

Steve Aschburner: Look, I was in the building for Rubio’s return game. There was a playoff type of buzz — or a facsimile of what Minnesota fans remember as a playoff buzz, since it’s been a while –  and Rubio seized the moment. He looked to be the same clever, charismatic playmaker as before his nasty knee injury, and he made the other Timberwolves better. Sure, he’s on a minutes leash early in this comeback. Sure, he’ll have ups and downs directly related to his layoff. And sure, there will be a learning curve as both he and Kevin Love blend back into what Rick Adelman‘s coaching. But Minnesota is far better off with Rubio than without him, and there’s nothing breathless about that.

Fran Blinebury: You’re a bit late with that question. The hype has been been in overdrive since the Timberwolves made Rubio the fifth pick in the 2009 draft.  Of course, the kid delivered last season and, yes, he’s worth all of the heavy breathing.

Jeff Caplan: Yes we are and for good reason. His debut against the Mavs was fabulous, complete with a no-look, behind-the-back (and through the legs?) pass into the lane for a layup. He instantly makes the Wolves a must-watch and will land them in the playoffs.

Scott Howard-Cooper: Not even close. His story is unique — European sensation at a young age, lottery pick, the wait to get him to the NBA, the wait to get him back to the NBA after the knee injury, a key role on a rising team –- and so it gets a lot of attention. But this is light years from Rubiosanity. This is far from the daily drama, for years, of the Lakers.

John Schuhmann: Rubio can certainly provide a nightly highlight or two and help the Wolves with their offense, which ranks 20th through Tuesday. And if they can climb a couple of notches on that end, they can be a dangerous team, because they’ve been excellent defensively. But I think expectations should be tempered. According to one athletic trainer I’ve spoken to, a torn ACL is a two-year injury. So we can’t really expect Rubio to be at 100 percent until early 2014.

Sekou Smith: Yes. And we have been since he was about 15. But that’s what the sports world does with phenoms. Rubio has otherworldly talents that a knee injury won’t diminish. His vision and ability to facilitate for those around him makes him more than just an intriguing prospect. It gives him the ability to lift a team, when healthy and fully matured, in ways that only a select few players can. I’m not suggesting to you that his presence alone makes the Timberwolves a contender or anything like that, but for a team trying to take the step from the background into the light, he can be the difference. How’s that for hyperventilating?

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Blogtable / Comments (11) /

< Older Entries
Newer Entries >