The First Day is a Fiasco, but the Battle Between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Denver Nuggets has Only Just Begun

Is it The Quest for the Ring (QFTR) jinx or is it that the world in general sucks? Or it could be both. Anyway, on the opening day of the race between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Denver Nuggets, just about the worst possible thing happens: the Wolves lose and the Nuggets win. But wait, it’s worse: the Wolves outplayed their opponent, the Oklahoma Thunder, but still lost the game due to two exceptions to the rule that the better team wins in basketball, more on that later. But wait, it’s still worse: the Nuggets not only won; they won big, by 22 points (and QFTR thinks that 20 or more points is a rout). So overall, there were at least two insults added to the two injuries.

THE RACE BETWEEN THE NUGGETS AND THE TIMBERWOLVES
But wait, what is this “race between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Denver Nuggets” all about anyway? I’m glad you asked, or else I’m glad I asked if you didn’t ask. The race is between a team moving up (the Timberwolves) and a team moving down (the Nuggets). The question is, can the Wolves tie or beat the Nuggets this year? If so, it will make our year here at QFTR, because of the following….

In case you don’t know, since we started out as a Denver Nuggets fan site (yes, it’s really true, laugh out loud) and since we have to this day continued to be relatively obsessed with reporting on them (but don’t judge too harshly, because sometimes obsessions can be good, laugh out loud) QFTR has saturated the Earth with Reports detailing the doings of Denver Nuggets coach George Karl. And now, more than ever, the Nuggets are George Karl’s team.

In fact, the Nuggets this year are really Karl’s team, lock stock and barrel. The owners of the Nuggets legally own the Nuggets and the Nuggets do have a manager, but so much authority to run the team has been actually or at least indirectly and / or effectively given over to Karl that in the operational sense the Nuggets are much more Karl’s team than anyone else’s. Although many key decisions for 2011-12 have technically been made by the managers and owners of the Nuggets, Karl has been behind most of them. For further proof and details see this report here.

So whatever happens to the Nuggets in 2011-12, good or bad, will really be one hundred percent (or 97-99 percent, anyway) the doings of George Karl. The players on the roster, the players not on the roster, the playing times, the specific rotations, the strategies, and the tactics, George Karl is behind them all. So the Nuggets’ 2011-12 win-loss record is and will continue to be equal to George Karl’s 2011-12 win-loss record. The Nuggets of 2011-12 are George Karl 24/7, George Karl all the time as it were. True, the 2011-12 Nuggets’ win-loss record will not be an absolutely precise reflection of Karl, due to injuries, schedule factors, and random events, but it will be a close reflection anyway. When QFTR looks at the standings and sees the Denver Nuggets listed, we will see “George Karl” instead of “Denver Nuggets” in those standings on the page, laugh out loud.

QFTR has discovered, proved and reported over the years that Karl is a miserable NBA playoffs Coach. There are dozens of Reports that give you all the details on the hows and the whys for that fact. But his coaching and team management is much better if all you look at are regular seasons (while ignoring the playoffs). But this year, since Karl rather than either the managers or the owners are completely responsible, QFTR is expecting that the Nuggets will finally (we’ve waited several years for this, laugh out loud) be pretty lousy and worse than expected in the regular season. For once, we should not have to wait for the playoffs to once again confirm that George Karl is not really a great coach who should be worshiped, but merely a very lucky one who has been given (by managers and owners) way more than his share of above average players over the years.

MEASURING GEORGE KARL FOR 2011-12
First let's look at the "loose standard". The loose standard is based on the preseason expectations for the Nuggets of the general public. Those expectations are roughly that the Nuggets will finish with a record of 33-33. So the loose standard baseline is a final record of 33-33, and worse than expected will be any losing record. If you were using that standard, in order to confirm that when Karl is given total control, really bad things happen, the Nuggets would need to win fewer than 33 games, 32 games or fewer to be exact. The fewer the better, laugh out loud (and yes, laughing at the poor Nuggets too much may be becoming a bad habit of mine).

That's the loose standard, and is overly generous toward George Karl. This would be an example of how the rose colored wearing general public often falls into the trap of being too easy on coaches, managers, and owners. Because by setting the expectation at 33 wins, you are already failing to charge George Karl for losses that are really his responsibility. Because really, strictly speaking, the standard for the Nuggets for 2011-12, and the standard by which George Karl should be judged this year, is that the Nuggets match their 2010-11 record, which was 50-32. Since there are just 66 games this year instead of the usual 82, we need to use the winning percentage from last year and multiply by the 66. When you do this, you get 40 wins; so George Karl needs to finish with a record of at least 40-26 in 2011-12 to validate himself as a quality regular season coach. (And even if he succeeds at this, he will of course very likely lose out in the playoffs as usual.)

So we have two standards for evaluating George Karl this year on the table, the loose and the strict. the loose standard is that Karl needs to finish at least 33-33. The strict standard is that Karl needs to finish at least 40-26. The strict standard is much more defensible and by rights should be the one used. But QFTR will compromise a little and use a standard of 38-28 (which allows for a little bad luck). So bottom line, George Karl needs to finish at least 38-28 in 2011-12 or his reputation as a good regular season coach has just taken a really big hit.

MEANWHILE, WAY UP NORTH
Meanwhile, we have the Minnesota Timberwolves, coached by a far better playoffs coach, Rick Adelman, and featuring a new player who will most likely in the coming years be among the best three or four point guards in the NBA: Ricky Rubio. And the Timberwolves also have the second pick in the 2011 draft: Derrick Williams, SF(3) / PF(4). And they have Michael Beasley at the very same positions as Williams coming on strong this year (we hope). And they also feature historical superstar Kevin Love at center. For more details about the 2011-12 Timberwolves, look for more Reports about them in the next few months. This is the team that QFTR has adopted as our favorite formerly really bad team that is now on it’s way up.

So aside from the actual number of Nuggets wins, QFTR is also hoping that the Minnesota Timberwolves can finish at least one game ahead of the Denver Nuggets in the 2011-12 regular season.

We can not and do not officially “expect” things to happen because when you say “expect” you are really making a prediction and we don’t do official predictions due to all the wild card factors, first among them injuries. We sometimes unofficially expect things to happen and we sometimes unofficially do predictions. With respect to the Wolves versus the Nuggets this year, to be honest and clear, QFTR is not even unofficially predicting the Wolves will finish ahead of the Nuggets. But we are hoping they will. Hope is the next level down from unofficial predictions. If a hope comes true it makes you happy; it’s like when the weather is not as bad as was forecasted (or not as bad as it usually is by climate) or it’s like getting money you didn’t expect to get. A hope coming true is a really nice thing, and QFTR hopes the T-Wolves finish ahead of the Nuggets this year.

And that is an overview of what the race between the Denver Nuggets and the Minnesota Timberwolves is about.

But one final thing before we discuss what happened to the Timberwolves on opening day. The race between Denver and Minnesota may turn out to be something more than a thing which matters only at QFTR and nowhere else. There is a fairly good possibility that Denver and Minnesota will battle for the final 2012 playoff spot or two in the West Conference. Were the Minnesota Timberwolves to make the playoffs and the Denver Nuggets not make them, that would cause dancing in the streets here at QFTR headquarters. We would be very happy about that for years to come.

But for now it’s on to the first game of the season for the T-Wolves…

OPENING DAY: THE WOLVES CLEARLY OUTPLAY THE THUNDER BUT LOSE
The Timberwolves opened the 2011-12 season at home against the Oklahoma Thunder and outplayed them but still lost (damn it). In general the wrong team wins a game in basketball much less than in football, but it does happen, and this game is an excellent example.

The T-Wolves clearly had the better offense except for two unusual things (to be revealed later). On the things that matter the most in playoff series, the T-Wolves offense featuring rookie point guard Ricky Rubio was better than the Thunder offense featuring point guard Russell Westbrook and historical superstar Kevin Durant at small forward.

Let’s first check the basic offensive factors showing that the T-Wolves were better than the Thunder…

First, the T-Wolves had many fewer turnovers than the Thunder (17 versus 12, with 14 turnovers being the average number for a team in a game). The five turnover gap was outstanding. T-Wolves coach Rick Adelman has been stressing the necessity for the Wolves to keep turnovers down and they responded big time in the opener. Although the number of turnovers is often not a crucial thing in a regular season game, it can be crucial in razor close playoff games.

Second, the T-Wolves made more offensive rebounds and had more shots on goal than did the Thunder. The T-Wolves made 10 offensive rebounds and had 87 shots on goal versus just 8 offensive rebounds and just 76 shots on goal for the Thunder. The average or standard number of offensive rebounds made by teams in games is 11.

Third, the T-Wolves had a better, more efficient, more productive offense than the Thunder did as shown first by the all-important assist counts. The T-Wolves made 22 assists versus 18 for the Thunder with 21 assists being the average number for a team in a game. Although teams can sometimes get away with not so many assists in regular season games (for example, if they have shooters who were able to make a lot of shots more or less in isolation) teams generally lose playoff series unless they make more assists than their opponent.

There is a great calculation almost anyone can quickly do which reveals much more than does the number of assists…

BASIC QUALITY OF OFFENSE
A quick way to approximately but accurately evaluate the quality of an offense is to run the following quick and fairly easy calculation:

Basic Quality of Offense (B Q OFF) = 2 X # of assists made by point guards + 1 X the number of assists made by shooting guards.

For point guards, if two played you take their assists and multiply by two. If more than two point guards played, you take the two who made the most assists and then any assists made by the third point guard are counted at 1X instead of 2X. For forwards and centers, assists are ignored; in other words, you multiply assists by forwards and centers by zero. Assists by them are better than no assists at all, but it’s the assists by guards that matter for determining the quality of an offense and it’s ability to win playoff games.

This quick and relatively simple calculation that you can do in your head in less than one minute produces a number which approximately but accurately tells you how well organized and efficient the offense was.

So for example, in this game, the T-Wolves point guards were Ricky Rubio who made six assists and Luke Ridnour who made four. There was a third point guard, JJ Barea (who often in reality is more of a shooting or 2-guard). Barea made 2 assists, fewer than Rubio or Ridnour, so he is the third point guard and his assists count at 1 X.

For shooting guards, the T-Wolves do not really have a good one (JR Smith, please come to Minnesota). In this game, Wesley Johnson was the starting shooting guard and he made three assists. No other shooting guard played in the game (due to Minnesota Timberwolves Coach Rick Adelman realizing that Minnesota is very weak in the shooting guard department).

So given all of that, this is how you calculate the Basic Quality of Offense for Minnesota:

B Q OFF was 2 X (Rubio assists) plus 2 X (Ridnour assists) plus 1 X (Barea assists) plus (1 X Johnson assists).

Putting in the actual number of assists:

T-Wolves B Q OFF = (2 X 6) + (2 X 4) + (1 X 2) + (1 X 3) = 25

For Oklahoma, here were the guard assists:

Russell Westbrook, point guard, 6 assists
Eric Maynor, point guard, 2 assists
James Harden, shooting guard, 3 assists
Thabo Sefolosha, shooting guard, 0 assists
Daequan Cook, shooting guard, 0 assists

Therefore:

Thunder B Q OFF = (2 X 6) + (2 X 2) + (1 X 3) + (1 X 0) + (1 X 0) = 19

So the T-Wolves had a much better Basic Quality of Offense number, 25 versus 19 for the Thunder. This means that the T-Wolves offense was better run and much better designed for winning NBA playoff games. A six point gap in B Q OFF is often enough to insure a win, but obviously not always, because it did not insure a win for the T-Wolves in this case.

DEFENSIVELY
While the T-Wolves were clearly and substantially better offensively, defensively, the game was more mixed. The T-Wolves committed 24 personal fouls while the Thunder committed 26 of them, with 21 being the average number for a team in a game.

But the Thunder did have a few more steals and blocks than did the T-Wolves, 6 steals and 5 blocks versus 4 steals and 2 blocks, with 7.5 steals and 5 blocks being the average number of steals and blocks for teams in games. Reflected in those very weak T-Wolves steals and blocks numbers you can see right there two big problems for them: they have poor shooting guards and they probably will continue this year to have weak paint defending and also weak man to man defending in general.

Defensive rebounding was about equal.

Points in the paint surrendered is very important in the regular season and is one of the most important things of all in the playoffs. In this game the Timberwolves were far, far better defensively than the Thunder when you look at points in the paint. The normal or standard points in the paint for a team in a NBA game is about 40 (an easy to remember number). In this game the Thunder surrendered 60 points in the paint, which is about as bad as it ever gets. So the Timberwolves scored 60 points in the paint, which ordinarily is more than enough to insure winning either a regular season or a playoff game. About the only way you can lose a game where you score 60 points in the paint is where you miss almost every three you attempt, which, um, is unfortunately exactly what happened.

The Thunder scored just 36 in the paint, which is just low enough to be a little disturbing for them.

So obviously, when you look at points given up in the paint, Minnesota overwhelmingly dominated (60 versus 36) which is yet another reason why they really won (and should have actually won) this game.

SO HOW EXACTLY DID THE TIMBERWOLVES LOSE WHEN THEY SHOULD HAVE WON?
The Minnesota Timberwolves really defeated the Oklahoma Thunder in this opening night game, when you look at the things that matter most in the playoffs, when in other words you look at the game from a playoffs perspective. If your objective is to win NBA playoff games, you would be much better off playing like the Timberwolves did than like the Thunder did.

But the Timberwolves lost this particular regular season game because of two very unusual gaps. Had either one of these gaps not existed, the Timberwolves would have won instead of the Thunder.

First there was the free throw gap. The average or standard made free throw percentage is about 77% (but I usually use 80% so I can do extremely quick comparisons). Anyway, in this game, the Thunder had 31 free throws, and 80% of 31 rounded is 25. But the Thunder actually made 29 free throws, four more than the 25. The T-Wolves had 26 free throws, and 80% of 26 rounded is 21. But the Thunder made 19 free throws, two fewer than the 21 they should have made on average. So the total free throw gap in favor of the Thunder was 4 + 2 equals 6 points, which is more than the margin of victory for the Thunder. In other words, if the free throws had come out as they do on average, the Timberwolves would have won this game by 2 points.

Note that coaches have a right to be upset when free throws are not made, all the more so since they themselves often get the blame for close losses.

Incidentally, a free throw gap of six is not rare but it is uncommon. Most games have gaps of four or fewer. Had the gap been two (still in favor of the Thunder) this would have been an overtime game. Had the gap been less than two, the Timberwolves would have won.

THE HUGE GAP ON THREES IN THIS GAME
Did you know that many NBA games are decided by 3-point shooting? This game is a great example. The Thunder made 5 of 16 threes, which was a lackluster 31.3% of them. The average or standard percentage for threes is about 36%.

But always remember that just 33% of threes corresponds to 50% of twos which is a very solid shooting percentage for ordinary two-point shots. In other words, if a player or team is just making 33% of threes, contrary to the false beliefs of some less intelligent coaches, this is not really a bad thing.

But getting back to the Thunder-Timberwolves game, the Thunder made just 31.3% of their threes. They should have made at least one more of them (they should have made 6 of 16 if not more). The Timberwolves made just 3 of 22 threes, which was a horrendous, nightmare 13.6% of them. To match the NBA average for a team in a game, the Timberwolves should have made 8 threes. The Timberwolves were five made threes short, so they were 15 points short! We saw just above that the Thunder were one made three short, meaning they were 3 points short. Since 15-3 is 12, overall the Timberwolves lost 12 points on threes, and since the game margin was just 4 points, obviously the Timberwolves should have and would have easily won the game had they made their threes. In fact, if the Timberwolves had just made two more threes than they made, if they were 5 of 22 instead of the horrible, miserable 3 of 22, they would have won the game while still being well below average on threes. But they were really, really horrendous on threes and lost the game due to that.

When a team is that pathetic on threes, it can't be just due to the defending; it has to be more that the team missed some threes that should have been made.

Incidentally, this shows you that the quality of offense factors discussed earlier showing the Timberwolves offensively outplayed the Thunder by a lot do accurately show you who was supposed to win the game (when the defending was roughly equal). If a team loses a game it should have won based on basic quality of offense calculations, it will very often be because of some fluke(s) involving free throws and/or threes.

It could of course also be a gap with two-point shots but this would be less common than a gap on threes and no more common than a gap with free throws. For the record, in this game the Thunder made 30 of 62 twos, or 48.4% of them. The T-Wolves made 36 of 65 twos, or 55.4% of them. Aside from being more proof that the T-Wolves were the real winners of this game, this gap on twos in favor of the T-Wolves validates the quality of offense discussion above. Better quality of offense (including the right players making the right number of assists) leads automatically to a higher scoring percentage (on twos at least) with the 3-ball percentage being more of a wild card factor. So again, this game is a great example of how the 3-point shot wild card factor can sometimes turn a game won by a better offense into a loss.

But you can not react by rebelling against threes and telling your team to not try to make a good number of threes and by telling your team to obsessively run plays into the paint because if you do that you will no longer be playing smart basketball and you will not be able to win playoff series unless you play a very inferior team in a series.

So again, for emphasis and clarity, this particular game is a perfect example of the exception to the rule. Again, the rule is that if a team is almost as good defensively as their opponent (or defensively better than their opponent) and is clearly better offensively than their opponent (as shown for example by B Q OFF) then it will win the game. The exceptions to the rule generally and most often involve shooting discrepancies and flukes, as discussed right here in this Report.

So the Timberwolves were grossly short on threes and obviously lost the game right there. The thing about threes is, you can’t live without them (and they become more important and not less important in the playoffs) but sometimes you can’t live with them either! In this game, the Timberwolves were unable to live with threes; they lost a game they should have won due to the existence of and the need to make threes.

DON'T TAKE ANY DUMB SHORTCUTS THAT LEAD TO NOWHERE
So (Minnesota Coach) Rick Adelman, you need more threes from your squad. It’s time to have all of your three-point shooters practice shooting threes (while guarded) in practice. It’s time to bring the Ray Allen out in them. You are already doing an outstanding job of running the offense; specifically, so far this season, the passing, the spacing, the cutting, and the overall flow of the offense of the T-Wolves are outstanding and is exactly what wins regular season and especially playoff games. So don’t let your team get discouraged about missing threes in any particular game (or even in a bunch of games).

So Rick Adelman, please never do what George Karl does: don’t try to become a regular season only coach by discouraging the 3-point shot in favor of tactics and cheap tricks that squeeze out a few extra regular season wins but then leave the team unable to win playoff series. Please continue doing what you are doing, Coach Adelman; please continue to be smart, big minded, generous, and courageous. Continue to focus on the offense first because that’s where the greatest potential is for the Timberwolves this season. The defense can be optimized later in the season; for now, I would just preach defense generically.

And always remember, small minded basketball coaches who opt for cheap tricks never win basketball championships. That is also known as the “Why George Karl will never win a Championship Rule”, laugh out loud.