Houston drops Wolves 119-113 (OT) Steve Aschburner, Star Tribune February 5, 2005 WOLF0205 The way the Timberwolves have been playing in the third quarter lately, you'd swear that coach Flip Saunders was getting his halftime material from Rockne, Lombardi and Parcells. Fred Rockne, Gus Lombardi and Buddy Parcells, that is. Whatever the Wolves have done recently to prep themselves for another half of basketball, it hasn't worked, based on a 118-64 third-quarter scoring disparity in their past four games. That's greater than the overall deficit of 46 points in losing all four in a week's time. Another lethal third quarter spoiled a solid first half from the Wolves and had them playing catch-up the rest of the night in a 119-113 overtime loss to the Houston Rockets on Friday night at Target Center. Tracy McGrady scored 40 points, including nine in the extra five minutes. Still, after missing only four free throws in 25 tries in regulation, the Rockets missed three of their first four in overtime. That enabled the Wolves to close to 115-113 with 13.5 seconds left. But McGrady canned two at 12.2 seconds, and a three-pointer by Cassell bounced off with 3.9 to go. Despite their 53.3 percent shooting through three quarters, the Wolves were behind 83-79, due primarily to poor rebounding again and another low-wattage third quarter. They also got outscored from the foul line 9-0 in that period. After leading most of the first half, by as much as eight points, the Wolves finally pulled even in the fourth quarter on two free throws by Trenton Hassell with 3:37 left. Their defense bottled up McGrady and Yao Ming on Houston's subsequent posses ion, but after Cassell and Latrell Sprewell missed at the other end, Bob Sura's spin move around Sprewell made it 102-100 at 2:39. Six seconds later, Hassell again tied it from the line. Houston had three chances to regain the lead but let Sura hoist a couple of 22-footers rather than putting the ball in McGrady's hands. That gave the Wolves time to regroup, and Cassell's jumper from the left wing gave his team its first lead of the quarter, 104-102 with 27 seconds left. Sure enough, this time the Rockets looked to McGrady, whose catch-and-shoot from 21 feet tied it again at 12.8 seconds. The Wolves didn't get into their play quickly enough and Cassell lofted a 21-footer that fell short, with 0.4 on the clock. The Wolves (24-23) have lost four in a row, matching their longest skid of the season, and fell 10 games off their pace from last season (34-13 after 47 games). Cassell led the Wolves with 24 points; Kevin Garnett had 22. The Rockets (27-21) reached six games over .500 for the first time this season and got a third consecutive road victory, another season best. Yao had 23 points and 14 rebounds, and Sura scored 20 for the Rockets. The unusually late tipoff (about 8:45 p.m.) was orchestrated by ESPN's coverage and an Indiana-Dallas early game that ran long. Given the average ages of the two squads -- the Rockets are the league's oldest team (29.16 years), the Wolves second (29.15) -- the danger was pushing past the point when some of the oldsters might start nodding off. Or not. Actually, the Wolves were livelier from the start than in their recent outings, grabbing an 11-6 lead and, after some churning midway through that first quarter, leading wire-to-wire in the second. What Minnesota lacked inside -- Houston built edges of 26-18 scoring in the paint and 23-19 on the boards -- it made up for with 53.7 percent shooting, only two turnovers and an 8-2 advantage off fast breaks. "Every game, the most important part, you want to get off to a good start," Saunders had said before tipoff. "It gets you feeling good about yourself. But you really don't know anything until you actually get out and play." The Wolves were making conscious efforts to play the right way, as in not hoisting three-pointers when easier two-point shots were available and running plays through to completion. As a result, they got to the foul line 14 times McGrady led all scorers at the break with 15 points. David Wesley had 11 for the Rockets, but their thin and aging bench (think Rod Strickland, Jon Barry, Dikembe Mutombo) was outscored 22-8 by the Wolves' subs. Steve Aschburner is at saschburner@startribune.com.
if you listen to some of the trade threads we've had, we might be able to get him for mo, spoon, our pick, and the TE.
I agree. When your superstar, especially superstar Bigs dive on the ground to get loose balls, that's when you know your team is playing for keeps. I thought that Yao dive for the ball was indicitive of the type of game Yao was having last night. His activity level was through the roof. Between that loose ball grab and that AWESOME one handed rebound and slam, man was Yao playing well!
Our bench did suck last night, they can do better. Just seemed that everyone was tight off the bench. LOL Oh yeah, loved the hustle of Yao.
Yao played a great game last night. He was agressive on the boards and was actually looking for his own shot lastnight. His energy level was great and it really seemed to rub off to the other players lastnight. Great win for this team.
I guess some of us on this board are so used to seeing Boki not play that they thought he was on the IL or just at the end of the bench on the team lol... I mean he is still on the billboard with JJ over on 45 North near downtown.... Cracks me up everytime i see it.
lol, looks like the All-Star party the night before with a few too many drinks. They look pretty happy and can't get up...
