At Least I Got A Hat

Some quick notes about tonights game, while the details are still fresh in my head.

1) The Wolves assist to turnover ratio was healthier than I thought it would be (1.92), and 12 of the Nugget's 18 turnover's were steals. That's some good defensive pressure by the Wolves.

2) Sebastian Telfair had 3 steals and 5 assists for the night. That's good. He also had 4 personal fouls and 3 turnovers. That's bad. He shot 1-2 from beyond the arc. That's good, if limited. He shot 4-13 from the floor, with no free throws. That's horrendous.

3) Antoine Walker is going to be trouble. At 9:34 left in the fourth, he rebounds a missed shot, walks it up court, shoots from the free throw line, and misses (Denver rebound). At 9:11 he fouls Antony. At 8:41 there is a full timeout called by Denver; Walker stays in the game. At 7:11 he rebounds the ball, walks up, and misses a three. During Denver's possession Corey Brewer fouls Carmelo Antony; Brewer, Jaric, and Walker are all subbed out at that point. Hopefully Wittman pulled Walker as punishment for his terrible shot selection in those two and half minutes, but considering the three player switch I thing the message (if there was one) got lost in the shuffle.

4) The Wolves final shot at coming back in the fourth quarter was a play where Sebastian Telfair took the inbound pass and drove to the basket where he was promptly descended upon by half the Nuggets (bench players included). Either Telfair made an awful, awful decision to try make that play on his own, or Wittman really screwed up the call.

5) The Wolves 19 free throws puts them 26th in the league.

6) As predicted, Rashad McCants is coming back strong. He shot 50%, including 3-7 on three pointers. He also had some nice defensive work, though he needs to cut down on the turnovers.

7) The Nuggets had 0.52 free throw attempts per shot. The Wolves had 0.21.

8) No Gerald Green tonight. Hopefully this isn't a trend, as his scoring could have been the difference tonight. There was a 8:42 stretch tonight (10:49 to 2:07 in the fourth) when the Wolves scored four points. In this same stretch the Nuggets scored 16.

9) The Wolves had some ticky-tack fouls. Calling Jaric's hit a flagrant 1 was being kind to Jaric, I thought. Similarly, there was a point I thought Telfair would get a flagrant for pushing off Iverson to create space (from where I was sitting it looked like he pushed him in the face). Finally, there was a point when McCants was beat by Antony on a break, and McCants pushed him from behind as he went for the layup.

10) The Wolves simply cannot expect Ratliff to give 14 points a night. He account for 9 of the 19 free throws, however. Hopefully he will impart the secret of drawing the foul to Jefferson before he departs.

11) Jefferson's performance wasn't too bad, considering that the Nuggets had men on top of him all night. In Camby, Nene, and Martin the Nuggets have above average post defense. However, he's probably due for a rough start until opponents learn to respect McCants' play and Foye returns.

12) I am pleased by the number of threes that the Wolves took last night (they should be in the top ten in three point attempts by the end of the night). I'm planning a post on the importance of three pointers to this group of Wolves, but suffice to say the more they take, the better. If they had taken all their shots from the three line and converted the same percentage, they would have scored 98 points tonight (including free throws). Not that taking 88 three pointers is a viable strategy, but this fact amuses me for some reason.