The Minnesota Timberwolves won a game in unusual fashion Monday night in Cleveland. Of course any win is unusual for the Wolves lately — his 100-92 triumph over the Cavs was just their third in 18 games, and first on the road in six weeks — but rarer still is one accomplished by accurate outside shooting.
Led by Mickael Gelabale’s 3-for-3 from beyond the arc, the Wolves shot better than 50 percent from three-point territory for just the third time this season. As with the previous two — in Philadelphia and at home versus Atlanta — it propelled the team over an Eastern Conference opponent.
But the outside shooting wasn’t just limited to three-pointers. The Wolves excelled at the midrange game, that space outside the paint but inside the three-point arc, which normally produces sub-40 percent accuracy and is correctly regarded as the least efficient scoring area on the court.
On Monday, Minnesota sank half of its 28 attempts in this territory, which offset another mediocre shooting performance in the paint, where 60 percent is below normal. Here, Minnesota was just 17-of-33.
There are a variety of factors that played into this shooting dynamic, starting with the way opponents are defending center Nikola Pekovic, who with Kevin Love injured is the Wolves’ only genuine low-post threat. At halftime of a horrid loss to Memphis on Sunday night, coach Bill Bayno (by far the most interesting and erudite talker of the Wolves’ suited crew of assistants) lamented that the Grizzlies were packing down in the paint against Pek, denying both touches and good positioning for the big man. Sure enough, Pek managed to put up only two shots in the middle two quarters (he didn’t play the fourth) and five overall en route to a miserable 8-point, 6-rebound performance in 30 minutes.
The Cavs sought to do the same thing the very next night, with initially strong results. Pek had four of his shots blocked in the first quarter alone (he was 2-for-7 in the period), an embarrassing stat for any low-post behemoth. At the 8-minute mark of the second quarter, the Wolves’ announcers revealed that Minnesota had converted only 4-of-16 shots in the paint, a ridiculous 25 percent.
Ah, but unlike Memphis, Cleveland lacks stalwart backcourt defenders who are quick and tenacious enough to bother Pek down low and then scramble out to disrupt Minnesota’s perimeter game. Cleveland also lacks the skillful savvy but still brutish bulk that Memphis boasts in center Marc Gasol and power forward Zach Randolph, who forced Pek to wear himself out on defense, especially in the high post — where he is far more vulnerable defensively — guarding Gasol.
When Pek returned for his second stint of the night with 4:37 left in the first half on Monday, those Cavs deficiencies contributed to a 14-0 Wolves run that erased a six-point deficit and increased Minnesota’s confidence about grabbing their first road win without Love since November 12.
With Pek on the bench, the Wolves shot just 4-of-12 with no trips to the free throw line in the first 7:23 of the quarter. With Pek in the game, those numbers flipped to 4-of-6 from the field and 7-of-7 from the line in 4:37. On offense, Pek set picks on the perimeter and drew defenders down low. On defense, he forced two turnovers — blocking a shot for one (because he crushed the ball into Kyrie Irving’s hand it was ruled a steal) and causing a baseline driver to step out of bounds by rotating well for another.
It also helped during this stretch that the Wolves had length in the backcourt with the 6-4 Ricky Rubio and the 6-6 Alexey Shved. With Pek as their insurance in the paint, this pair helped to hound Cavs’ rookie shooting guard Dion Waiters into four turnovers in that 4:37 span, and the resulting points out of transition was a catalyst in their run.
In the third quarter, the Wolves played their starters and relied on their bread and butter for offense. They scored a dozen points in the paint on 6-of-8 shooting, led by Pek (3-of-4) and Derrick Williams (2-of-3). D-Will also nailed a three-pointer, got to the free throw line four times (making three), grabbed four rebounds, blocked a shot and doled out an assist without a turnover in his 11:24. This was after being dominated by fellow second-year man Tristan Thompson while racking up three fouls to limit his time to just 4:45 in the first half. More on Williams — because there is always more to be said about this enigmatic talent — in a future column.
Fourth-quarter resilience
The Wolves headed into the final stanza up by seven, 72-65, a small comfort to fans who are emotionally if not cognitively aware that the team has blown nine fourth-quarter leads this season, tops in the NBA. And after the Cavs scored six straight points in 95 seconds to open the period, it looked like collapse No. 10 was in the offing.
But coach Rick Adelman made an adjustment, and his counterpart for the Cavs, Byron Scott, didn’t respond in time. Adelman pulled a dinged-up and ineffective J.J. Barea and swingman Gelabale (who had one of his best games in a Wolves uniform) and went with his three-guard lineup, inserting his starting backcourt of Rubio and Luke Ridnour alongside Shved. Scott kept his starters, Irving and Waiters, on the bench in favor of Wayne Ellington and Shaun Livingston, with another bench player, C.J. Miles, as the swingman. Scott likewise kept his backup front court of Marreese Speights and Luke Walton in the game. Even without Irving, this was a fairly potent offensive quintet. Defensively? Not so much.
What followed was a succession of possessions emphasizing drive-and-kick plays out of dribble penetration mixed with rapid ball movement by Minnesota. It repeatedly resulted in power forward Dante Cunningham being left wide open for his patented midrange jumper. He nailed three straight and tossed in an assist over a stretch of 2:18 to keep the Wolves up, now by three, 84-81, with 6:36 to play.
At this point Scott inserted Irving, a budding superstar and premier fourth-quarter closer. But the dirty secret about Kyrie Irving is that he is a horrible defender. You want some people who can compensate for that flaw alongside him on the court, especially when the opponent is playing three guards, and especially when Irving had wrenched his ankle at the end of the first half and seemed a little compromised in his movements. Scott chose to keep Ellington on the court as Irving’s backcourt mate. Wolves fans know all too well that Ellington is slow-footed. Scott chose to stick Ellington on Rubio and put Irving on Ridnour, with the 6-4 Miles guarding the 6-6 Shved.
Ridnour promptly abused Irving for three midrange jumpers in 2:13, bumping the lead up to nine, 92-83, with 3:55 to play. The easy second-guess is to have the taller, rangier Livingston, or even Ellington, on Ridnour, daring the less accurate shot of Rubio to beat Irving’s defense. Also, when Rubio sat briefly with his fifth foul, Scott could have countered the insertion of Gelabale with his starting small forward Alonzo Gee, a far better option than the overrated Miles.
The charitable counter-argument is that Scott has no good options for perimeter stoppers. The Cavs are last in the NBA in opponents’ field goal percentage — they are collectively shooting 47.7 percent on Cleveland. Ridnour and Cunningham happen to be Minnesota’s best midrange shooters and they spearheaded an amazing 9-for-11 performance by the Wolves from that distance in the fourth quarter and 12-for-16 overall in that final period.
When you shoot that well, you can overcome 20 turnovers and your opponent shooting 50.6 percent on the evening. You can forget about how the Knicks casually turned it on in the final three minutes of the game to seal your defeat in your last home game, or how the Grizzlies thumped you with superior talent and energy. You can feel good about yourself and your silver linings — currently limited to the heightened minutes and better rhythm of Rubio and the smooth groove of Ridnour’s current shooting stroke — at least until Wednesday’s home game against Utah gives you time off for the All Star Weekend break.