Minnesota Timberwolves NBA Team Season Preview 2013-14

MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES

Season Review 2012/13:

Advanced Stats
	Numbers	Rank
Pace	92.8	11
Offense	102.9	25
Defense	105.4	13
Rebound	50.8	10

4 Factors
Offense	Numbers	Rank	Defense	Numbers	Rank
eFG%	47.3	26	eFG%	51.1	24
TO%	13.8	14	TO%	15.0	3
Reb%	27.4	12	Reb%	26.0	11
FT%	22.6	5	FT%	18.7	5

Monthly Performance
	Record	OffRtg	DefRtg
November	7-8	102.5	102.9
December	7-5	106.2	104.3
January	3-12	103.2	113.0
February	3-10	105.1	108.6
March	6-11	103.9	107.9
April	5-5	106.5	107.2

Last season was supposed to be the year where the Timberwolves would finally fight for a playoff spot for the first time since the Kevin Garnett Era ended. They were able to get a respected coach in Rick Adelman, while their projected starting lineup was a pretty one on paper, with Nikola Pekovic, Kevin Love, Andrei Kirilenko, Brandon Roy/Chase Budinger and Ricky Rubio.

But everything that could have possibly gone wrong with the Wolves last season really went wrong. Everything started with Kevin Love breaking his hand in a pre-practice workout with his personal trainer at his home on October 17. Here is the injury report of the Wolves throughout the season: Kevin Love broke his hand twice and only played in 18 games, Ricky Rubio missed the first 25 games of the season after his brutal ACL knee injury, Nikola Pekovic missed 20 games, Brandon Roy missed 77 games, Chase Budinger missed 59 games and even Andre Kirilenko missed 18 games.

The Wolves were still able to be competitive early on the season and at the end of December, they had a respectable 14-13 record and this good performance was anchored by a terrific Wolves defense that was #6 in the league in defensive efficiency at the time. But as soon as their defense regressed, Minnesota couldn’t remain being competitive and they ended the month with an awful 113.0 defensive rating and its correspondent poor 3-12 record.

Offensively, the Wolves were a subpar team all season long, as they just couldn’t shoot behind the arc to save their lives! They ended the regular season dead last in 3pts% with 30.5% and so, their opponents focused in limiting their inside game due to their inability to shoot from long range.

At one point in March, Rick Adelman was “forced” to use a starting lineup with the following players for eight straight games: Greg Stiemsma, Derrick Williams, Mickael Gelabale, Luke Ridnour and Ricky Rubio. You can’t be competitive with such little talent on court and the Wolves lost six of those eight games with their losses coming by an average of 15.8 points.

After their 14-13 start of the season, Minnesota won just 17 of their remaining 55 games, but I just can’t blame Rick Adelman for any of this. He had to deal with some terrible personal problems of his own and with so many injuries, nobody could have done much better than Adelman did. It was another lost season for the Wolves, but this time their expectations were legit.

Offseason Report:

Possibly the best move that the Timberwolves made on this offseason wasn’t related with any player, but with the fact that they replaced David Kahn with former coach Flip Saunders, who takes over on constructing the roster! More than praising Flip Saunders, I’m calling out the horrible job that former GM David Kahn did on the organization over the last few years with terrible draft picks and poor trades as well.

The Wolves had the resigning of both Nikola Pekovic and Andrei Kirilenko on their minds, but they were only able to lock up Pekovic. They reportedly offered Kirilenko the mid-level exception in a three-year deal, but he declined after opting out and ended up in Brooklyn on a 3M per season contract. On the other hand, the Wolves were smart in the process of Pekovic and resigned him on a 60M 5-year deal.

The SG position was very problematic for the Wolves last season and so, they decided to sign free-agent Kevin Martin on the off-season. To replace Andrei Kirilenko, Minnesota expect Chase Budinger to be healthy this season, while they were also able to get Corey Brewer on free agency, besides drafting the problematic Shabazz Muhammad as well.

For the frontcourt, Nikola Pekovic was their main target on the offseason and they got him, while they also added Ronny Turiaf and drafted Gorgui Dieng to give them some depth at the center position.

Season Preview:

The Wolves have potential to surprise and to make a run to the last playoffs spots in the West, but if everything goes wrong with injuries once again, then the team won’t be able to be competitive.

New York Knicks NBA Team Season Preview 2013-14

NEW YORK KNICKS

Season Review 2012/13:

Advanced Stats
	Numbers	Rank
Pace	89.8	26
Offense	111.1	3
Defense	106.3	18
Rebound	50.3	14

4 Factors
Offense	Numbers	Rank	Defense	Numbers	Rank
eFG%	51.5	8	eFG%	50.8	23
TO%	11.7	1	TO%	14.8	5
Reb%	25.6	19	Reb%	25.3	4
FT%	19.6	21	FT%	21.6	24

Monthly Performance
	Record	OffRtg	DefRtg
November	11-4	115.6	104.2
December	10-5	112.8	109.5
January	7-6	111.4	108.9
February	6-5	112.3	108.7
March	12-6	111.7	106.3
April	8-2	117.1	110.1

The Knicks had a brilliant regular season, way ahead of the best expectations around them. I remember that the oddsmakers had the Knicks as the #6 best team in the East with a line of 45/46 wins at the start of the season, but the Knicks ended the regular season with the East’s #2 best record, only the Heat was better than them.

Coach Mike Woodson did a tremendous job not just in managing the players’ egos throughout the season, as he also created an offensive system that was able to get the best out of his players. On his tenure in Atlanta, the Hawks were known by the “ISO Joe” due to the absurd number of isolation plays that Atlanta’s offense used. Mike Woodson brought that number of ISO plays to New York and applied them on Carmelo Anthony, when he had favorable matchups to explore. The decision of putting Melo at the PF position was a success, with him ending in the #3 position at the MVP race.

The Knicks were a veteran team and Woodson turned them into the best team in the league when it came to taking care of the ball (11.7 TO/rate%), so his players wouldn’t need to waste energy in running back into defense to avoid the opposing transition plays. Finally, the Knicks (as usual) shot a lot of treys during the season:

Knicks' 3pts Machine
Month	3FGM	3pts%
November	11.7	41.6
December	11.0	37.1
January	10.2	36.0
February	10.3	33.5
March	10.2	37.0
April	12.2	40.0

Despite winning 54 games during the regular season, we can’t say that the Knicks were a consistent team throughout the season. They had three different runs during the regular season: a 18-5 start, then a mediocre 20-21 stretch on the following 41 games and finally, a 16-2 run on the final 18 games of the regular season:

	Offense					Defense
Runs	OffRtg	eFG%	TO%	Reb%	FT%	DefRtg	eFG%	TO%	Reb%	FT%
18-5	115.9	52	10.3	23.0	19.9	106.5	50	15.3	25.6	21.4
20-21	109.1	49	12.6	26.7	20.5	108.1	51	14.2	24.0	21.2
16-2	119.5	56	11.7	25.2	18.5	108.6	51	15.4	26.8	23.8

If we look at the team’s evolution during the season, it was clear that the “main culprit” for the Knicks’ mediocre run was the fact that the Knicks weren’t able to shoot as well behind the line as they did at the start and at the end of the season. It’s like they always say: “you live by the 3, you die by the 3”…

Nevertheless, the Knicks got hot at the right moment: right before the playoffs and as they were the #2 seed in the East, they had a favorable matchup on the first round against the Celtics. They had some issues in scoring against an underrated Boston defense, but when you hold your opponent to 78, 71 and 76 points, you are in a good place to win games and so, the Knicks won the first three games of the series. Then the “JR Smith story” happened, he got suspended for one goal and since then, he heavily struggled with a 34-117 (29%) FG mark!

On the second round against Indiana, the Knicks got in trouble because they would not only face the best defensive team in the league, as the whole matchup was terrible for them. The Pacers had clearly the best 3pts defense in the league with just 32.7% 3pts allowed and so, this would be terrible for the Knicks’ offense. On the other side, Indiana had a PF in David West who would punish Carmelo Anthony down low and that would force the NY team into a lot of defensive adjustments. At the end, Indiana won the series in six games and they were clearly the better team in that series.