Consistently Inconsistent

It's never a good sign when you get excited that your team managed to pull within fifteen. The Wolves are a bad team, and no matter how hard they work, their lack of talent will eventually bring them down.

The Blazers' much slower pace helped the Wolves on defense, as they seem much more comfortable defending in the half-court as opposed to transition. Their defensive energy was especially impressive at the beginning of the game, as they got the stops they needed to compensate for their still inconsistent offense. Some of those stops came from the gift of wide-open misses by the Blazers, but the rotations seemed quick, and the guards stayed busy on the ball. It was encouraging to see the Wolves try and cleanse the stink from their very unwarrior-like performance against the Warriors. As per usual though, the Wolves did not maintain the effort that gave them a lead after the first quarter.

The Blazers started making those shots that they missed, and the Wolves compounded the problem by rotating too slowly on the Blazers' big men. Al Jefferson in particular seems to leave his man unguarded in order to help on dribble-penetration by guards. An extra pass leads to all the dunks we're seeing on a nightly basis. Al just isn't that good of a defender, even if he didn't give up fifty pounds to most starting NBA centers.

Rambis tried to make for Al's defensive inefficiencies by giving Ryan Hollins his first start as a Wolf, but Ryan Hollins is not very good. He has length, athleticism, a fifteen-foot jumper, and six fouls per game that he insists on using. Maybe some day he'll guard the rim with some skill, but for now he's a project, just like Nathan Jawai and every other Wolf big besides Al Jefferson and Kevin Love. Neither of them will ever have the length or bulk to defend players like Greg Oden. Long-term, I don't see both of them remaining with the team. Lucky for the Wolves they're both young, talented, and tradeable. We'll have to wait and see which one can get the Wolves a real franchise center.

The Wolves can't keep up with small teams like Golden State, and they get pushed around by bigger teams like Portland. Talent is an issue, yes, but it just seems like the Wolves don't have the versatility in their roster to even pretend to match up with any but the worst teams. Another draft and a few more trades will fix that hopefully. Until that happens, the Wolves are not going to win a lot of games. I'll keep watching, but I don't blame you if you've stopped.