Advanced Scouting: Minnesota Timberwolves at San Antonio Spurs

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Minnesota Timberwolves at San Antonio Spurs 7:30 CST December 3, 2010

With the Spurs taking on the Wolves for the second time in a couple weeks, I figured I would link to my old entry and provide a brief summary of the previous meeting with updated statistics.

In the prior matchup, the Spurs came from 20 down to win a thriller in overtime by the score of 113-109. The Spurs overcame shooting under 40% from the field while allowing the Timberwolves to shoot over 47%.

In 11 transition plays, the Spurs scored five baskets and drew four fouls. The Timberwolves only had five transition plays (down from their season average of 13) resulting in two made baskets and no fouls drawn.

Darko Milicic doubled his season average with 14 post plays, resulting in five made baskets and two trips to the line. (He also had five blocks, seven turnovers and fouled out.) The Spurs used Tony Parker on 10 isolation plays and he responded by scoring four buckets and getting to the line twice.

SRS ranks:

Minnesota: -8.99 (30th)
San Antonio: 7.82 (1st)

Key Player Statistics (courtesy of 82games.com (effective November 29, 2010) and basketballvalue.com (effective December 1, 2010):

PlayerFraction of teams minutesPER minus Counterpart PER2 Year Net PEROn court +/-per 48 minutesOff court +/-per 48 minutes2 Year Adjusted +/-
Love0.699.95.5-12.6-1.3-0.57
Beasley0.64-4.5-0.2-6.4-13.8-2.59
Johnson0.59-7.5NA-3.8-16.7N/A
Milicic0.56-5.7-5-13.2-3.8-5.87
Telfair0.51-4.8-5.5-7.1-11.1-4
Brewer0.49-1.8-4.3-4.4-13.41.6
Tolliver0.413.6-2.32.7-17.20.03
Ridnour0.39-2.41.6-12.3-7-2.97
Ellington0.25-19.6-5.2-22-4.8-3.02

Most valuable/utilized lineups:

Telfair,Johnson,Beasley,Love,Milicic -24 in 125 minutes
Telfair,Brewer,Johnson,Beasley,Love +19 in 25 minutes

The Wolves top four lineups in minutes played have been outscored by 102 points in 265 minutes (nearly 20 points per game in 5.5 games)

Conclusion

The Spurs look to bounce back from a tough loss to the Clippers and playing the Timberwolves is a good way to do it. Unless they are outshot by over 7% from the field again, the Spurs should have an easier time with Minnesota tonight.

  • BlaseE

    We only were able to win the first game because the Wolves never slowed the pace to minimize our possessions.

  • ITGuy

    Go Spurs Go!!

  • Flavor

    You’d think that with our record and the start we had last year, we’d be happy with where our Spurs are at. I guess there is always room for improvement, but at the same time, we still have the best record in the NBA and these Spurs look A LOT better than last years…

  • Tyler 2

    We’ve been playing down to our competition lately, looking a LOT like the tired Spurs of last year against the Clips/T’Wolves before. I’m not worried yet, but it was a little disheartening to see us play tired already. But it was a Back-2-back, so I guess I can’t judge much.

    Jefferson needs to get back to his aggressive self, and Tony needs to start looking for his own shot. He’s in a slump, no doubting it at this point. TD has looked pretty good, and Tiago is getting some good burn. I hope he gets some time to spell Milicic tonight. We’ll see.

    Go Spurs Go!

  • TD = Best EVER

    Yes I am happy that the SPURS are off to such a great start - but as we have all seen - we are just one injury away from playing .500 ball for a stretch off games. We need to win the games we are suppose to and only loose to GOOD TEAMS or when WE ARE RESTING OUR GUYS - No excuse to play Tim for 31 min and only give him 8 shots - no wonder why we couldn’t score - SHAQ is getting more looks at 38 YEARS OLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and really - I don’t care how much you like Bonner or Splitter…………….. SHAQ > Booner + Splitter!!!!!!
    Proven Force you must deal with at all times on the offensive end……… AND NEVER GETS BEASTED in the paint like Blair, Bonner, and Splitter do…………

  • Jacques

    I can forsee DeJuan playing 10 minutes tonight. No way he can guard Love and Darko. I hope Bonner finds his shooting form again. Wish the best for Tony too, who has been struggling and benched recently.

  • Hicksman

    Yep Splitter HAS to play more minutes, the SPURS have diffucult systems (both on O and D) and he’s not going to get familiar by riding the pine. He’s also not going to get used to the BIG 3 (the original and still the BEST) riding the pine either. Come on POP we waited 3 yrs to get him now lets see him!!!
    GO SPURS GO!!!

  • Tyler

    Re: Tiago

    He’s played a ton of basketball without rest. I think the staff and Pop saw his preseason injury as a result of too much wear and tear. For that reason, he should be brought along slowly. This early in the year, let him get comfortable with the system, the NBA rules, and then after the All-Star break, increase his minutes to 20-25 per game.

    Tiago will be alright. Just give him time. No need to rush him out there for 25+ minutes a night this early and risk another setback.

  • B Burke

    Tyler knows what’s up. Could not have said it better myself.

    Wouldn’t mind seeing Splitter come in and try a few more running hooks from the free throw line, though. That move is comedy gold.

    Looking forward to tonight’s game. I hope we don’t get Loved again, though!

  • B Burke

    PS Go Spurs! Don’t wanna come off like a punk here…

  • Dingo

    Doesn’t look good. If spurs lose you can look at the last two mins of the first and third quarter..

  • B Burke

    Bad teams leave the door wide open!

  • J

    Both the game today and yesterday illustrated that we are still far from excellent.

    Look at the number of rebounds in these game, we can easily discovered that when we are facing rebounding machine, like d. howard, k. love, b. griffin etc., our interior defence collasped.

    Take today’s game as an example, timberwolves took 19 more shots than us despite they had 5 more TOs (The differnce may drop to 13 considering the difference in free throw attemps).
    That represents we are losing 11 points (13x2x41.5%) due to the offensive rebound.

    However, our choice is limited. We can only rely on Splitter and Duncan to grab rebounds but it seems that Pop will only play Splitter more after the allstar weekend. Therefore, I am expecting Nene, Gasol, Chandler, Horford and Josh Smith will be taking off. rebound in December, just like what Love did tonight

  • B Burke

    I feel like this was a game where the team sort of realized late that they’re still going to have to depend on Tim Duncan from time to time. He’s made meaningful contributions and certainly helped us win to this point, but I haven’t really seen a game where it came down to TD imposing his will upon the game until tonight. To be sure I’d rather the Spurs build 20 point leads with minimal effort from Tim, but I think this is the first time he’s really had to answer to the call, and it’s good to know he can help the team win close, ugly games like this.

    Big ups to RJ, Manu, and George Hill in the 4th also. Blair, Bonner and Neal helped cut the T’wolves lead earlier on, of course. True team effort.

    I’ve really liked some of the things Gary Neal has been doing all season, but tonight’s game highlighted his contributions. To explain - I think that our success hitting outside shots has slowed down the offense a bit in the past few games. You see a lot of guys with open looks at the perimeter making fakes and trying to draw the defender before deciding what to do with the ball. I think this has screwed up the team’s rhythm and made it harder for individual players to either hit their shots, or move the offense along.

    On the other hand, when Gary Neal gets the ball he shoots immediately if he’s open, or puts the ball on the floor. He might make a quick fake, but he has no hesitation whatsoever about what he wants to do. For a rookie playing against NBA defenses for the first time, particularly a rookie with such a prescribed role, that confidence is pretty surprising to me.

    And that’s the way all Spurs’ guards and perimeter dudes were playing on a lot of possessions before the past two games. It looked like George Hill got back to that aggressive attitude tonight as well, and I hope it catches. This team can score, they just need to buy into that assassin’s mentality (leaving the total, unknowing fearlessness to Manu). No doubt their trouble hitting shots in LA hurt a bit, but I don’t want to see this team forgetting the kind of game they’ve already proven themselves of being capable!

  • TD = Best EVER

    What we saw here tonight is that Timmy can still cover up for alot of problems (namely poor D by Blair, Bonner). Is it just me or is Blair only a BEAST on the offensive boards but on D, he gets pushed around way to easily……… but as long as the Spurs make an effort to get Timmy off EARLY - he will be ready late to score/defend at his best. The Spurs have 5 people who can hit 15-20 points a night without taking shots away from each other - And thats what this team need to do to be successful and to challenge the Lakers……… now to beat them - We have to pray that Bonner is ON FIRE, Blair learns how to be a BIG BODY on both ends of the floor, or Splitter starts to get more minutes and actually becomes Anderson Verajao clone.

  • td4life

    Not to dismiss the Lakers, but I think a lot of you guys are sleeping on the Mavericks who are playing like a different team than they were last year. While we are gunning and (on our better nights) running, they are playing very, very good zone D… with Chandler on board, they present some of the same matchup problems that LA and Boston do.

    Oh, and by the way, Matt Bonner is our #2 big 20 games into the season… anybody happy about that?

  • rob

    td4life

    I haven’t seen much of the Mavericks play this year. But Chandler definately (in theory) gives them a better front court duo than they’ve had in past years.

    Whether it’s the coaching staff holding him back…not adapting to the nba…or both…Splitter will have to be ready to contribute more than he’s been contributing so far in order to play competively against Dallas (or LA or Boston, etc).

    Whether I’m happy with Bonner being our #2 big man is not the point….He’s producing the most consistently out of the rest. It’ll be up to Blair, McDyess and Splitter to become worthy enough to subplant the rotational minutes. And that will only happen with them bringing more consistent, dependable play.

    And not that this is a direct response to you…but I don’t know why people think Pop is stubbornly playing Bonner over anyone else.

    Again…if Blair or Splitter were to become better…I don’t think Bonner logs the minutes he plays now.