17 - 17, 2nd place in the Northwest

On the heels on an unsightly stretch that saw them lose game after game in which they held a 4th quarter lead, the Timberwolves have now won 2 games in a row. The last game against Denver was really interesting. It began with Garnett being unstoppable. He made his first 5 shots, and wound up 8 for 10 for the first half. He made athletic and difficult shots as well as a few open jumpers. At halftime the Wolves led by 1. Garnett stayed hot making his first 3 shots of the 3rd quarter. The Denver announcers even began quoting his season and career highs. But then a funny thing happened. (More on this later) He went into pass-first mode. He was very aggressively looking to get Wally Szczerbiak some open looks. He succeeded and Wally went on to have a huge third quarter, after he was ice cold in the first half. The Wolves ended the third with a 13 point lead. Commentators often talk negatively about the star player dominating the ball (ok, usually it's Kobe but I've heard it about Marbury and Wade as well -- although I only named guards, I think they say it about forwards sometimes, too...) while the others stand around and watch. In general, when you see it happen, you expect it to fail -- the star will miss eventually and then nobody else will have any rhythm to make shots. But superstars always seem to think that they can make it work and never never stop shooting voluntarily. They generally change after a timeout when, presumably, the coach brings it up. When they stop shooting they generally stop playing as hard too -- I ascribe that to simple human nature. But this superstar could feel the stagnation around him and of his own volition started passing up shots and working just as hard to get his teammates going (just to recap, KG was on fire, shooting 11 for 13 -- he finished 14 for 17 with 31 points). This game was a great counterexample for those who think that KG is "too unselfish".

The other notable thing that happened in this game was the timing of KG's rests. He didn't go out in the first half until 5 minutes or so left in the second quarter. He came back in with around 2 minutes left. That's a lot later than he generally gets his first rest. The second half was the same -- he left with about 5 minutes left in the game. I think he was supposed to be done at that point since the Wolves were up by double digits. But the offense ground to a halt without him and he came back in for a minute with 2 minutes to play. I wonder if this rest pattern was beneficial or whether the game would've been in hand either way. It seems like something interesting to watch out for as the season progresses.

Now back to pass first mode. I often feel like I can tell when a good offensive player is going from pass-first mode into shoot-first mode. I guess it must be an illusion; you'd think if an outside watcher could tell, then an opposing player could tell and would adjust accordingly. But nobody ever does seem to notice. Anybody else ever see this?