a painful win

The Wolves stumbled their way to 90 - 85 win over the Jermaine O'Neal-less Pacers tonight. They led by as many as 13 in the game, but let the Pacers hang around up to the very end. The last minute was far more exciting than it should have been. Down by 8, the Pacers hit a 3. The Wolves inbounded to Marko who hit 2 free throws, putting them up 7 with 22 seconds remaining. Then the Pacers hit another 3, trimming the lead to 4. The Wolves inbounded to Wally who hit 2 free throws -- back up 6 with 11 seconds left. The Pacers were out of timeouts, so they inbounded to a guard on the run who passed to the wing. But instead of the 3, the wing player, Jasikevicius, found Austin Croshere cutting to the basket for a dunk. And he was fouled. And he made the free throw. So the Wolves are up 3 with 8 seconds left. They take a timeout to setup the inbounds pass. I'm sure they drew it up for Wally or Marko with KG as a bailout option. Instead the ball was thrown in to Eddie Griffin. He was wide open all alone, so it was a good decision. But he was thinking about passing before he caught it. He bobbled the ball, and the Pacers stole it and shot the 3 for the tie. But they missed and the Wolves won.

Of all of the disappointing 4th quarters I've seen the Wolves play, this was probably the worst. They took the idea of blowing a late lead, which they've been reinventing all season, to an extreme and almost lost an 8-point lead with 33 seconds to play. And Tracy McGrady (I've heard him called T-Mac so often that my instinct is to spell his name MacGrady) doesn't play for the Pacers.

I honestly believe that moral victories are hollow and that the final score tells you whether you deserved to win. But this game makes me feel worse about the team than a blowout loss would have. Worse, it seemed like the team did have a lot of faith in getting the ball to Garnett to close out the game. There were shots by Anthony Carter, Ronald Dupree, and Eddie Griffin in the last 5 minutes when I just knew they were going to only let Wally or Kevin shoot. I understood Trenton Hassel taking shots -- they'd been using him in the post all game and are trying to develop him into their third scorer. But the other shots just confused me. When they did go to Garnett inside of 3 minutes, he went 0 for 2. He did miss the shots, and he could have made them. But I'd like to see them get him the ball earlier in the period next time and also in a dangerous spot -- like in his office on the left block -- early in the shot clock. There's too much passing and movement before he gets the touch -- once he does with 7ish seconds on the clock, he doesn't have time to setup his defender. He just picks a move and goes. I'd like to see him get the ball intending to hold it or pass for an immediate shot starting with about 15 seconds on the clock. Seems thhat if there's ever a time for him to catch and hold the ball, it's crunch time. Let him wind the clock down and set up his defender.

I'm confused about the team after this game in a way that I haven't been for a while. I hope this was just a bad game that they happened to win anyway, and that next time out they'll be more composed down the stretch and look to KG earlier. Hopefully Coach Casey is just working things out for the stretch run. But I know that if the team stops looking to Garnett in the clutch they are taking the ball away from their best everything -- playmaker, decision-maker, shot-creator, et al. If they think Garnett needs to do something different with the ball for the team to be more successful, then I'm all for that. But the ball needs to be in his hands in crunch time. If it's not, you're not giving the team the best chance to win.

CORRECTION FROM LAST POST -- Garnett was 0 for 5 in the 4th quarter of the Wolves' last game, not 0 for 8. He did, however miss his last 8 shots spanning the 3rd and 4th quarters.