Keeping track of things

So I completely lost the Wolves game in the shuffle. I feel bad, because they deserve better. Ok maybe they don't deserve better. Since I failed to record the game, and there's zero chance of a re-run, I'm going to introduce a new, spur of the moment feature here at Funkify Minnesota. It's called "In the Box," and in it I will read the box score of the game. It'll most likely happen for the Wolves more than the Wild or heaven forbid the Vikings or Twins. So let's do it up.

Inside the Box, the Timberwolves on 11/1/09:

Ryan Gomes showed some of last year's promise, leading the Wolves in scoring while shooting the lights out of it. 100% from downtown. It's a shame that he only took two three's. That was the greatest disparity in the overall team performances.

The Suns like to run, and apparently the Wolves do too now. 120 points in one game is a lot, but so is 112. The team assists were consistent, the Wolves turned the ball over less, and they outrebounded the Suns.

The real difference in this game was in strategy. The Suns run-and-gunning involves a lot three point shots. Kurt Rambis knows that his team can't make three point shots, and must be emphasizing that point in practice, because the Wolves took the same amount of total shots as the Suns... but the Orange Balls of Fire made more from long-range than the Wolves attempted.

It's pretty easy to lose when one guy on the other team makes more threes than your entire squad. These canines don't have much bite when it comes to defense, especially when the other team is making three point shots. The Wolves scored more than enough to win this game, they just needed to close out enough to stop three more three point attempts.

The good news though is that Al Jefferson had a much better game than his first two. Against Amare Stoudemire, a.k.a. The Human Sieve, you have to tamper your expectations of Big Al based on this one game. Yet even against a completely indifferent and soft defender, it's good to see Al making some shots, instead of missing almost all of them.

This team is still growing, and it's going to improve. Jonny Flynn inexplicably played less than Ramon Sessions, and still managed to outperform him. At least numerically. But of course, the numbers are all we have to go on in the inaugural and future editions of Inside the Box. Thanks for reading.