But mostly, yeah, it just sort of sucked.

I actually dozed off on the couch pretty early in the second half of the Timberwolves game on Saturday (perhaps subconsciously forcing unconsciousness so I didn’t have to watch the inevitable Minnesota comeback?), so the first game of the weekend seemed to be, to me, a giant success.

Those first 24 minutes were by far the best I’ve seen the Pacers play so far this year.

But no matter how well you play in the first two quarters of a game, if you let a 28-point half-time lead turn into a 4-point lead with a minute to play, your performance doesn’t deserve too much praise. Sure, any win that breaks an 8-game losing streak is an overwhelming success, but it would have been nice to see the team be able to step on the collective throat of such a bad team when they had them lying on the ground so battered and ready to die.

(On average, Minnesota scores 10.3 fewer points per game than their opponents, a number only worsted by New Jersey’s 10.7 points fewer. By comparison, the Pacers are also atrocious at 28th in the league in margin of victory, but still “only” score 6.3 ppg less than their opponents. In short, the T-Wolves are really, really, really bad.)

I can’t add any perspective to the dismal second half, but the team played about as well as it possibly could in the first half. Everyone scored a ton and the ball movement was blissful. The jumpers were flowing like wine and everyone from Roy Hibbert to Dahntay Jones was scoring around the hoop.

So even if the game turned back into normal stand-around slog ball on offense and the defense started to allow all kinds of easy buckets, the first half at least gives the team some good film to watch and build off. They at least have some tangible evidence to look at and say “Hey, maybe we can actually score points if we pass well, move around and take good shots.”

Because that first half was great. It was a joyous occasion.

Something that was decidedly not a joyous occasion, however? Last night’s game with the Knicks.

I actually went to Madison Square Garden for that giant waste of time and had there not been a special $9 Beer Night going, I probably would have left even earlier than I did. The line of the night came in the late third quarter (right around the time Pacers were falling down by 40) when I overheard a fan who was clearly upset he paid money to attend this game say “I know Reggie Miller left, but still.”

That pretty much sums it up.

And, unfortunately, much like the first half of the Minnesota game, there really isn’t a lot else to analyze, so I’m not going to waste your time pretending there is. The Knicks drove into the paint with such ease that, five minutes into the game, the whole New York lineup was so comfortable and empowered on offense that every jumper started to go down. The Pacers defense rotated so poorly that almost none of these shots were contested, which was particularly negligent since the team also closed out so poorly that they were beat off the dribble countless times by a simple pump fake or hesitation. Neither one is acceptable, but if you’re giving up wide-open jumpers you should at least not get beat off the dribble, too.

Good teams protect the perimeter and the paint. Bad teams should be able to at least protect one or the other. If you can’t protect either, you’re just not trying.

One thing I do need to note, however, is that Roy Hibbert in particular was an embarrassment. Al Harrington penetrated from the perimeter several times only to be met by Hibbert. And it appeared that all it took to make Roy completely lose all sense of balance or proper defensive positioning was an eyebrow fake from Al. David Lee also walked right by Roy on several occasions, which were eerily similar to the many times he was smoked by Brad Miller the other day.

Of course, the most egregious embarrassment came when Danilo Gallinari drove the lane and victimized Hibbert with an insane facial. That play pretty much summed up Hibbert’s night defensively.

To be fair, of course, that play wasn’t something we can put on Roy individually since Mike Dunleavy and Josh McRoberts should both be just as embarrassed about the “defense” they played on Danilo out on the perimeter. Obviously that play was simply a collective failure to defend in the half court.

And ultimately, that’s all this game was: a collective failure to compete.

So I’ll spare you any more reading on a game that didn’t even deserve watching let along reading (or writing) about, and just leave you with this highlight of The Rooster going cock-a-doodle-doo all over Hibbert’s dome.

———–

I’ve only seen about four Minnesota games all season, so rather than pretend I know what I’m talking about when it comes to the Wolves, I’ve contracted Zach Harper to answer a few questions on Indy’s opponent tonight. Zack writes about the Sacramento Kings at Cowbell Kingdom and writes about the NBA generally at Talk Hoops and Hardwood Paroxysm. But his real fan passion lies with the Wolves, so he knows them just about as well as anyone. Enjoy.

Jared: The Wolves are only 2-5 in their last 7 games, but if you look at the opponents that doesn’t sound quite as bad. They beat both of the two teams that they “should have” beat (Wizards, Nets) and they lost to four teams they really have no chance to beat (Magic, Spurs, Atlanta and Boston). How have they looked overall during this stretch?

Zach: Isn’t it pathetic that a 2-5 stretch is cause for hope? Sadly, it IS cause for hope, mainly because we’re seeing Al Jefferson start to get some of his dominance back. When you have Kevin Love and Al Jefferson as your best frontcourt combination, you’re going to assume that there will be a lot of points in the paint given up by your team. But with the way Kevin Love is rebounding this season (he’s arguably the best rebounder in the league as a second-year player) and the way Al Jefferson contained Dwight Howard during this stretch, you start to think that you can live with hoping they’ll be decent defenders.

They also took the Jazz down to the wire in one of those games, which would have meant 3-0 against them so far this season. Jonny Flynn is still playing well enough to trick you into thinking you don’t need Ricky Rubio right now. Corey Brewer is pretending to have a jumper right now, which is really nice. There are a lot of nice-enough building pieces, and seeing them play a more spirited brand of basketball is nice to see. Especially after how they started the first 20 games of this season.

Jared: Kevin Love has now played in 16 games since missing all of November with a broken hand. And in those 16, he has 15 double-doubles. Looking at his game log makes him look like one of the most dependable-to-produce guys in the league. 15.1 ppg, 12.6 rpg and 2.6 apg. That’s beyond legit. How happy are you to see all this, and is he really this good?

Zach: I’m very excited to see this. Much like with Randy Foye, we’re always going to compare Kevin Love to the rookie we traded to get him. So when O.J. Mayo looks like the second coming of Joe Johnson most nights, you put added pressure onto Love and hope he can perform.

I know I just stated it, but I do think he’s the best rebounder in the NBA. My proof of this is looking at the type of athlete Dwight Howard is and looking at the body and type of athlete Kevin Love is. Should they be matching each other rebound for rebound on a nightly basis? He’s just so intelligent that it gives you serenity knowing that the ball is in his hands. He’s a decent enough scorer from the perimeter and he’s a good passer, which a greater understanding of the triangle offense will prove. I think he really is this good — and probably better. He’s a better version of David Lee. He’s not going to stop much inside but you can trust the ball in his hands for 94 feet.

Jared: What’s the best commercial featuring a T-Wolf? KG has a lot of good ones (“Tastefully Done” with Steph, the foosball one with Brandi Chastain, the Styles P one where he’s playing in the rain, “Ayo, give me some help“), and my favorite indeed features him — but it’s really more about Cherokee Parks and, ultimately, how cool Googs was/is. You really can’t beat The Fun Police’s classic “And your facial expressions when you dunk are VEERRRRY limited.” Discuss.

Zach: Here’s my ranking of the ones you mention here:

#1. Fun Police
For many reasons. But most importantly, it symbolized how fun the emergence of the KG era was. There was fun and excitement buzzing around the fans. Googs had a barbed wire tattoo before it was fashionable with douche bags and bad Baywatch spin-offs. Plus, look at the acting chops of Cherokee Parks. Hell, look at the fact that Cherokee Parks was in a NATIONAL commercial. This embodied Kevin Garnett. The ultimate teammate. You think Kobe Bryant was putting Cherokee in a national Nike spot? Jordan? I didn’t see Grant Hill getting a pass from Cherokee between drinking Sprite and dunking on at a park.

#2. Foosball.
It was dry wit. It was topical. It was Kevin Garnett playing foosball. I had a foosball table at the time. I would have LOVED for KG to play foosball at my house and then try to get girls to take off their shirts.

#3. Ayo, give me some help.
This was pretty much the equivalent of the Wolves from 1998 to 2003. No help for KG. Duncan and the world trying to stop him. The only thing missing is Wally Szczerbiak trying to steal the ball from his own teammates.

#4. Styles P.
I downloaded this mp3, had it as my ringtone and listened to it as much as any song before I played basketball. To say there was a Kevin Garnett obsession with me is to define the word understatement. Plus, I only wore And 1′s at the time. So this was like ice cream mixed with porn but not in the gross fetish sense of the combination.

#5. Tastefully Done.
If Stephon Marbury hadn’t been selfish and ruined the 2K version of Stockton/Malone, this would probably be number one for me. But I don’t like to talk about Steph any more. Sore subject.

Jared: Even though Al Jefferson has only missed 2 games this year, he is still only in the “post ACL surgery” stretch of his recovery. Before he went down with that knee injury last year, he was looking like a guy who really could (sorta) validate trading KG and rebuilding from scratch. Has he gotten back to the point where he is fully dominating the block again or is he still pretty far below how good he was last year?

Zach: He’s definitely not dominating the lower block again but after seeing his performance against Dwight Howard, I think he’s getting back there. The Wolves are being smart by not forcing the ball into him and relying on Al to carry the team while still working out the kinks of his surgically repaired knee. There are nights in which he’s a step or two slow. And the Wolves recognize that early. I’d expect by March he should be back to validating the trade as much as he possibly can. Then when next season comes, he’s going to make post players wish it was 2009 again.

Jared: Jonny Flynn looks pretty good so far and is known to drop 20-25 points every once in a while. Are Wolves fans enjoying that pick and does the kid looks like someone they’ll want around four years from now? Is he a guy who might light up TJ Ford and Earl Watson tonight, I guess is what I’m really asking here? And for clarification’s sake, I — of course — mean “will he light them up more so than everyone else does?”

Zach: I’m probably the wrong person to ask about Jonny Flynn. Much like the Kurt Rambis hiring, I feel that it’s a nice pickup but I don’t see it being the building block to a title contender. Flynn is everything you could want in a point guard when you’re a fledgling franchise with no real hope in the near future. He’s quick. He can jump. He can score like crazy. But he’s a shooting guard trapped in a point guard’s frame. And with the rights to Ricky Rubio in our safe deposit box that we can’t find the key to, it’s even more frustrating trying to talk yourself into him.

As for tonight, he’ll probably destroy Ford and Watson and keep tricking us into thinking we can make the playoffs with this guy running the show. I’d feel a lot better about him if he was backing up a Spanish kid rather than trying to figure out the next motion in the triangle.

Indy vs. ‘Sota: By the Numbers

[TABLE=39]

Off Rating: pts / 100 possessions Def Rating: pts allowed / 100 possessions
eFG%: FG% accounting for 3PA being worth more Pace: avg possessions per game