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Timberwolves Have To Show Love Some Love

While Minnesota hasn’t been a bad team to bet on when it comes to the point spread, they’ve been absolutely atrocious in the standings. For some reason, All-Star forward Kevin Love has said that he wants to sign a long-term deal to stay with the Timberwolves, but they need to improve the team to keep him in that frame of mind. Here is how they can do that.

Defense

The Timberwolves are dreadful defensively, and that may be giving them too much credit. Minnesota is last in the league in points allowed (106.9), opponents are shooting 46.5% against them, and 36.9% from three-point land. They traded away their best perimeter defender in Corey Brewer, who bounced from New York to Dallas. Darko Milicic has proven to be a serviceable big man, but he’s not a starter, and even Love himself isn’t a great on-the-ball defender.

The Point-Guard Situation

We have no clue if or when Ricky Rubio is coming, if ever. Jonny Flynn isn’t working out. That leaves the Timberwolves with Luke Ridnour, who is a great backup, but not a player who should be playing 30 minutes a game. The Timberwolves may be looking at Duke’s Kyrie Irving if he decides to come out, and that would be a good idea, because Love needs someone who can penetrate and dish.

Anyone Who Can Shoot

Minnesota is 27^th in the league in shooting percentage (43.9%), although strangely, they’re sixth in three-point shooting (37.6%). Young players Flynn, Wayne Ellington and Wes Johnson all shoot below 41%, and Michael Beasley still takes some ill-advised shots.

These are just three of the things that the Timberwolves need to do, but this could be a 10-page dissertation. If they want to keep Love in town, Minnesota has to make a lot of progress to get out of the NBA doldrums.

The Minnesota Timberwolves are a young team that hasn’t been doing much winning this season. Without a doubt, those following the NBA odds are wondering whether or not this might affect the psyche of a team that is still trying to piece together the foundation of the future.

Prior to Sunday, the Timberwolves had lost seven straight and only had 14 wins in their first 60 games this season. So the team decided to have a team meeting to clear the air, figure things out and get back on track.

The meeting seemed to help as the team as they were clearly distraught after a 95-81 home loss to New Orleans on Friday night but were in much better spirits on Sunday.

The Timberwolves had every reason to quit as they found themselves down 13 points in the first half and while they battled back and took a 17-point lead in the second half, they actually nearly blew it and needed a couple of late defensive stops to earn the win.

Forward Michael Beasley said after the win that he was surprised at how good the team chemistry was through the seven-game losing streak as the Timberwolves were not pointing any fingers and they were not using scapegoats. They still hung together, which is why they managed to end the streak on Sunday.

Maybe this will just be a blip on the radar months from now but maybe it is in fact a turning point for a young team. The Timberwolves appear to have bonded over the adversity and maybe that’s just what they need for a strong finish to the 2010-11 campaign.

This Timberwolves team isn’t going to the playoffs; that much is clear. But if they can finish strong, they might be able to springboard themselves to a good start for next year.

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