Summer League Game 1: Wolves vs. Rockets

The Minnesota Timberwolves took on the Houston Rockets last night to kick off their summer league schedule. Of course my unhealthy basketball addiction compelled me to shut myself away in my man-cave away from friends and family for a couple hours to watch a somewhat meaningless game and furiously scribble child-like notes about it in a dilapidated notebook. I present to you, for your reading enjoyment, the fruits of my Sunday evening’s labor:

Jonny Flynn: Flynn had a hot-and-cold game starting off sloppy by turning the ball over twice and leaving a transition mid-range jumper short off the rim but quickly turned around and hit a pair of triples and then drove the lane and found a cutting Corey Brewer for an easy deuce. Flynn showed very promising pick-and-pop instincts with Oleksiy Pecherov as he drove wide drawing his man and Pecherov’s man away as Oleksiy flared out for a wide open 3 and Flynn found him. The strange thing with Flynn’s hot-and-cold game is that it was his decision making that seemed hot-and-cold rather than just his shooting. As he showed some impressive skills hitting perimeter shots and finding the open man in drive-and-dish scenarios, then followed this up with a number of bad misses on isolation pull-up fadeaways with a hand in his face. When he did go back to his bread-and-butter of driving the lane, his efforts were again fruitful drawing fouls, scoring at the rim and finding the open man.
The skinny on Flynn: Looked good putting the ball on the floor with great quickness and ball-handling and very nice court vision, must limit bad shots and turnovers.

Wayne Ellington: In a word: scrappy. Ellington worked his tail off in his first game representing the Timberwolves. He came up with eight hard fought rebounds, had at least one nice steal cutting off the passing lane and showed much more than I was expecting. While I was expecting more of a 3-point specialist, Ellington showed very solid handles and athleticism as he got to the cup with ease once his aggressiveness picked up, especially in the second half. Offensively his transition scoring instincts looked solid. However he was not converting lay-ups, pull-ups or spot-ups at any rate. This could just be first game jitters or maybe he was just cold today, but you can count on a scorer like Ellington to improve significantly on his 2-12 performance from the field.
The skinny on Ellington: Surprisingly dynamic, better handles than expected, very scrappy player, must convert at a higher rate offensively which is almost guaranteed to happen.

Corey Brewer: Appears to have all the quickness and all of the skinniness that he had pre-injury. Summer League is a good opportunity to get his basketball legs under him before training camp. It seems apparent that he has been working on his handles and jump-shot in his down time, which were both pretty significant weaknesses before. However at times he seemed over-eager to show off his new-found skills forcing the issue on a number of occasions attacking the basket and pulling up for jumperd with a hand in his face. This is nothing new for Brewer in summer league play though, and he seems to settle down and know his role a bit better during the regular season, though at times he can get a bit out of control. Hopefully we are seeing Brewer test his limits as a player to get a feel for where he should be during the regular season.
The skinny on Brewer: While he has definitely made strides in addressing his ball-handling and jump shooting weaknesses, it is a bit difficult to project how he will play this season when he is clearly playing outside himself at the moment.

Bobby Brown: He does not seem to have made significant strides since we last saw him play. Still quick and still primarily a scorer, his perimeter jumper was pretty spotty as he hit one nice three-pointer and then followed-up with a bad brick and a three-point air ball.
The skinny on Brown: The Rodney Carney of point guards.

Paul Harris: In limited playing time Harris showed off his deceptive length and athleticism swatting one perimeter shot, throwing down a powerful dunk, plus he chipped in an open 3-pointer. This is a player that should get a bit more run next game.
The skinny on Harris: He’s only 6’4” but he’s made of steel and he could probably grab his ankles without bending at the waist.

Oleksiy Pecherov: The only seven footer with guaranteed money on our roster plays like a shooting guard. Clearly more comfortable beyond the arc than on the block, Pecherov managed to convert his perimeter shots nicely, but did not really post up and came up with a mixed bag when he put the ball on the floor, once coming up with a smooth looking turn-around hook shot that he sank and once tossing up and ugly scud of a lay-up after driving to the rim.
The skinny on Pecherov: Silky jump shot with decent handles for a seven footer, but did not show an ability (or necessarily an inability) to post up.

Rob Kurz: Terrible start to the game with three quick turnovers, but managed to hit a number of nice perimeter jumpers and even looked relatively natural taking his man off the dribble once in the second half.
The skinny on Kurz: Very similar to Oleksiy Pecherov.

Garrett Siler: BIG. Siler went wherever he pleased and he stayed there. He’s very, very big and very, very strong. This combined with pretty soft hands gave him some decent opportunities offensively, mostly off of offensive rebounds. Siler also showed a soft touch around the rim finishing at a good rate on the opportunities that he did get. He only made 3-5 from the field, though that could have been 4-6, but he was called for an offensive foul on a post-up in which he used his size and touch nicely, but suffered from Shaq syndrome in getting an offensive foul off his pure huge-ness. However, despite showing some positives, Siler was clearly the slowest and least explosive player on the floor, rarely getting more than a few inches off the ground. He was also relatively unaware of his surroundings and because of that packaged with his slow feet, he wasn’t able to corral a few dump-off passes from Flynn and Brewer, just compounding the team’s turnover issues.
The skinny on Siler: Huge kid with a nice touch, but slow as balls and an average court awareness.

Adam Parada: Missed open jumpers, duffed shots at the rim, regularly beat on defense or lost his man entirely, bit on pump fakes and just generally messed up in any way he could to hurt the team’s cause. Just awful. Probably the worst player in Vegas, and I don’t mean Vegas Summer League.
The skinny on Parada: The skill level of Mark Madsen with the basketball IQ of Sloth.

Gerald Henderson: Honestly, he’s got a guaranteed contract with the Bobcats so I didn’t take notes on him.

Pat Carroll: Played negligible minutes and had a negligible effect on the game.

Ben Woodside: DNP. I was bummed that Woodside did not play. I know it’s hard with two point guards with guaranteed contracts already on the summer league roster, but we mostly know what we are getting with Bobby Brown, I’d like to give Woodside a real shot. He has the quickness, shooting ability and scoring instincts to make a difference.

Devin Green: DNP

As a team, it was a pretty ragged effort turning the ball over too much, often as a result of forcing the issue too often. Also everybody seemed to want to get in on the pull-up contested jump shots which rarely gave a positive result and ended up costing the game by 14 points. However the 3-point shooting was effective as the Wolves shot 8-17 as a team from deep including two by Flynn, two by Kurz and a pair by Pecherov. This was also the first game of the summer for the Wolves, while the Rockets had two games previous to work out preliminary kinks (both games were wins). While this scouting report is a bit offense-heavy, I’ll do my best to scrawl more of my chicken scratch notes on defense-related subjects for game 2.