Archives For Zach Harper

Timberwolves 3-point shooting: Infinite Sorrow February Audit

Zach Harper —  March 9, 2013 — 1 Comment
This is the guy behind the guy behind the guy. And the model Wolves shooter. (Getty Images)

This is the guy behind the guy behind the guy. And the model Wolves shooter. (Getty Images)

It’s that time again.

There was a certain point in which I realized tracking all of the Wolves’ futile 3-point shooting was simply the “rubberneck effect.” You know the rubberneck effect, right? It’s when you’re driving on a freeway and traffic becomes unbearably slow. There’s a sick part of you that wants to know exactly how bad the carnage is. You want to know if it’s going to be like the Red Asphalt videos you had to watch when you went through driver’s training (or maybe that’s just in California; I’m not sure). Or maybe you’ll see an unharmed family looking at their wrecked car and wonder how everybody got out unscathed.

Regardless of what you’re looking for, it’s pretty much the same idea. You’re slowing down to see what the holdup was. Traffic is a mess because people have the same idea you will have when you come across whatever the issue was. You want to see just how bad the damage is that is causing everybody’s day to be delayed by 10-30 minutes. Frustratingly (but lucky) enough, it’s typically nothing. It ends up being a flat tire or someone pulled over on the side of the road because they crossed the carpool lane double lines in front of a highway officer or maybe it’s just ducks crossing the road. Whatever the cause of the delay is, it rarely satiates that sick part of you that thought the worst.

I realized I was going through the rubberneck effect when I was sitting between Britt Robson and Ben Polk the other night. I had my spreadsheet for February up on my laptop and turned to Ben to inform him of the unbelievably low open 3-point shooting numbers. He responded with something like, “Why? Why must you do this to me?” I don’t even know if you guys want to know how bad the shooting is anymore. Ben certainly doesn’t want to know. I think Britt had a sick fascination with knowing the numbers because of how bad they are.

If anything, I think it’s still a cathartic thing for me. I want to see the carnage. I want to see if we had a four-car pileup or if it’s just someone getting pulled over for expired tags. And maybe you suffering through the numbers with me is something you want to do. Everybody likes to feel crappy together, right? Isn’t that what the internet and message boards and comment sections and Twitter were invented for? So we can all revel in the crap-fest of certain aspects of life?

Well the Timberwolves’ 3-point shooting is still a crap-fest. After the month of February, the Wolves were back over 30% from 3-point range. In fact, they were 30.03% after February’s games. So let’s get into the rubbernecking, shall we?  Continue Reading…

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Talking hoops with Wolves’ broadcaster Jim Petersen

Zach Harper —  March 7, 2013 — 1 Comment

There are two reasons I’m posting this crudely pulled video of Wolves’ color commentator Jim Petersen mentioning my name on last night’s telecast:

1) It’s not even a humble brag; it’s a straight-up brag that the best team analyst in the NBA mentioned a conversation we had Wednesday morning for the CBSSports.com Eye on Basketball Podcast that I host five days a week.

2) It’s to let you know that the episode with Jim Pete exists and you should probably go listen to it if you want to get smarter about the NBA and its history. Through my fumbling of questions, Jim shared incredible insight about knee injuries, what it was like to play with Hakeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson, how players work hard, and how he became a broadcaster. He also shed some incredible insight on the role of advanced stats in his job and the NBA in general.

You can go here to check out the post with the podcast on the Eye on Basketball blog, you can subscribe in iTunes here and download the episode, or you can click on the player below that will hopefully continue to play the episode and not have coding problems. I will warn you the episode isn’t very Wolves-centric for most of the 34 minutes, but it’s Jim Petersen talking about basketball. You can’t get much better than that.

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Timberwolves 87, Wizards 82: I get to write about a win?

Zach Harper —  March 7, 2013 — 2 Comments

Rubio

Teams need wins.

Pretty obvious statement, right?

Obviously teams need wins. Wins produce success. Wins produce playoff chances. Wins produce playoff seeding and possible advantageous match-ups. Wins produce championships. Wins produce confidence and chemistry. Wins produce opportunities. For a team like the Timberwolves, who have struggled so much this season while battling injury after injury, wins produce a sense of relief.  Continue Reading…

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J.J. Barea’s Flagrant-2 is downgraded to a Flagrant-1

Zach Harper —  March 5, 2013 — 7 Comments

J.J. Barea was unhappy with Ray Allen pushing off near Barea’s throat, and decided to even it out by bumping Ray to the ground. Allen then lost his cool, got up to confront Barea and your typical NBA kerfuffle broke out.

Official Ed Malloy went to the monitor, probably watched a torture scene from the movie Hostel, and deemed that the action he saw on the monitor was not acceptable for an NBA game. He changed the Flagrant-1 foul to a Flagrant-2, which gives Barea the automatic boot from the game. After the game, Barea expressed his thoughts on Ray overreacting to a “soft foul,” said he’s been hit much harder than that every night, and said he expected the NBA to downgrade it to a Flagrant-1 foul.

The NBA has done just that, this afternoon:

The NBA has downgraded a Flagrant-2 foul on Minnesota Timberwolves guard J.J. Barea to a Flagrant-1 foul.

The Timberwolves announced the decision on Tuesday, one day after Barea was ejected in the fourth quarter against Miami after a foul on Heat guard Ray Allen. Barea knocked Allen to the court with a chest bump and Allen immediately took exception and confronted Barea. Officials initially ruled it a Flagrant-One, which gives the opponent two shots and the ball.

Upon reviewing the play, referee Ed Malloy changed it to a Flagrant-Two, which brings an automatic ejection. The Wolves were down six at the time, but Miami responded with a 17-5 run to put the game away.

Barea says he is pleased with the league’s decision.

A Flagrant-2 foul could result in a suspension for the next game if the league decides that it’s necessary to punish the player who committed the foul, but it’s not an automatic suspension. But by downgrading it to a Flagrant-1, it ensures Barea won’t miss any time, which he shouldn’t. Should it have been a Flagrant-1? That’s debatable. I, personally, don’t have a problem with it being a regular foul or a flagrant. But to watch that play and say it’s an ejectable offense just seems crazy to me.

If Ray Allen doesn’t react that way, Barea probably doesn’t get ejected. I don’t think it was a matter of this being a Wolves-Heat thing or anything like that; I think it was simply a matter of an overmatched crew chief for the officials losing control of the game and not knowing how to regain control by any way outside of tossing Barea.

Good to see the league changed it to the proper foul designation.

In 2012-13 Season, J.J. Barea , ,
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The Ricky Rubio project: An assessment of scoring

Zach Harper —  March 1, 2013 — 5 Comments

RubioSmile

Over the next few days on A Wolf Among Wolves, I’ll be breaking down the play of Ricky Rubio since he’s returned from his ACL surgery last March. When Rubio came back on December 12th against the Dallas Mavericks, we all wondered how long it would take him to regain his form. In an attempt to figure out the turning point for Rubio and how we can track his change, I’ve decided to chart various parts of his game. In some areas, I’ve found improvement and in some areas, the numbers don’t bear out a lot of change. But what I have found — and something everybody has noticed — is a change in his game recently that reminds us of his incredible play as a rookie. Today, I’ll be breaking down Ricky Rubio as a scorer:

We’re starting to see results.

The box scores of Ricky Rubio the past few games have been nomadic, moving all over the place. His aggressiveness on the basketball court has been something that we didn’t see in his shortened rookie season. It’s a new style of play in which he’s looking for his own shot because he knows he has to get the defense to respect the chance that he might try to score. If this threat isn’t there, even in the back of the defense’s mind, then it’s a lot easier for them to sit in his passing lanes and ruin the effect he has on a basketball court.

His aggression isn’t something we saw right away. The flashy passing was there the night of the return against the Dallas Mavericks back in December; however, he rarely looked for his own shot in an attempt to keep the defense honest. This could have been due to a lack of confidence, a lack of conditioning in his body, or a lack of strength in the leg he worked so hard to bring back to a professional athletic environment. But regardless, there had to be a turning point with Rubio that finally brought about the spark we’ve seen through him.  Continue Reading…

In 2012-13 Season, Highlights, Player Analysis, Statistical Analysis
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Nikola Pekovic, Zach Galifianakas, and a Mickey Mouse shirt

Zach Harper —  March 1, 2013 — 2 Comments

Pek and Zach

(Via Kevin Love’s Instagram)

 

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Lakers 116, Timberwolves 94: Change your face, be happy

Zach Harper —  March 1, 2013 — 4 Comments

KobeDunk

I’ve got a big three-part breakdown of Ricky Rubio starting Friday, and it’s a lot of writing so I don’t want to put too much thought into this blowout loss. Plus, how many ways can you state that the Wolves lost another key player to injury, tried to fight the best they could, Ricky Rubio played really well and encouraging basketball, and it wasn’t even close to enough to earn a victory.

Nikola Pekovic went down with an abdominal strain and found himself out the rest of the game with the ailment. He played nine minutes in the game and then for the remaining 39 minutes of action against a surging Western Conference team, Minnesota found themselves once again without four of their five ideal starters. Kevin Love was out, obviously. Chase Budinger is still out, although he’s running now and will be reevaluated in two to three weeks. Andrei Kirilenko missed the game with a calf injury.

The only player there in the starting lineup and getting regular minutes is Rubio. He was spectacular with his passing for much of the game, and he even made a few jumpers. He finished two rebounds shy of a triple-double, but he wasn’t good enough to lead second and third stringers to victory on the road. Kenny Smith talked about how Rubio has to learn how to score and dominate the game in other ways.   Continue Reading…

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Thunder 127, Wolves 111: Rolling Thunder

Zach Harper —  February 23, 2013 — 4 Comments

RubioBrook

It’s kind of the same old story this season, right?

The Wolves are talented enough to stay competitive with just about any team in the NBA, but they’re not healthy enough to overcome the wave of talent, execution, and production that a team like the Oklahoma City Thunder can throw at you. The Wolves need a special set of circumstances to overcome a team like the Thunder. They beat them earlier in the season, but had the luxury of a home environment at their disposal. They also had a balanced attack from a lot of the players, including J.J. Barea going nuts in the fourth quarter of that game.

This time, the bench carried the Wolves when the starters were largely ineffective. The Wolves got 59 points from four bench players, thanks to Barea, Alexey Shved, Dante Cunningham, and Greg Stiemsma stepping up to the challenge. And this was kind of a long time coming from a few of these bench guys. For Alexey, it was the first real good game he’s had since the loss to Memphis. For Stiemer, he hadn’t really produced much since the win over New Orleans. For Dante, it was the first real good game since the loss to Portland.

On a night in which Nikola Pekovic was completely neutralized by the duo of Kendrick Perkins and Serge Ibaka, the Wolves badly needed the bench to step up and keep things close until the starters could find a rhythm. The problem is the Wolves’ starters never found a rhythm. This often leads to the knee-jerk reaction of shuffling deck chairs on a sinking ship, but I like the balance of the Wolves’ rotation based on what is available to Rick Adelman.  Continue Reading…

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Timberwolves 94, 76ers 87: You are the brute squad

Zach Harper —  February 21, 2013 — 6 Comments

PekBruteSquad

Maybe the Wolves shouldn’t explore the Mozgov/Pek backup plan after all?

In a game that was incredibly fast in the first half because of a lack of calls and completely bogged down in the fourth quarter because of 23 foul calls and 38 free throw attempts, the Wolves had to power through their first game back from the All-Star break. Luckily for them, they have the most powerful guy in the NBA with Nikola Pekovic. It’s amazing how a guy with so much brute strength can have such a feathery touch when it comes to scoring with hooks and push-shots around the basket.

There was one shot in particular in the second half when he used about four or five bounces on the rim and backboard before the shot dropped in which I thought he was practicing for Plinko on The Price Is Right (Actually, how awesome would Pek be on The Price Is Right?). The thing with Pek is he’s a rare breed of center now. In the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s, the NBA was ruled by powerful guys on the low block who could move mountains with a drop-step. Because we have such a faster and more athletic game now, guys like Pek just don’t come around anymore.  Continue Reading…

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Wolves at the trade deadline: On the hunt?

Zach Harper —  February 20, 2013 — 21 Comments

RickAdelKahn

The trade deadline is schedule for 2pm CT on Thursday and the Wolves are said to be buyers right now by enticing prospective trade partners with Brandon Roy’s salary relief and a future first round pick. This makes sense for the team if it means they’re adding a piece they can take into next year that helps balance out the roster without taking on too much money. While I don’t believe Glen Taylor to be a cheap owner by any means (when the team is good and producing, he historically spends the money and even flirts with the luxury tax), the Wolves do need to be cognizant of cost right now (more on that in a bit).

So what could the Wolves be targeting?  Continue Reading…

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