“It’s been a tough day, no question,” Wittman said by telephone Monday night. “Ultimately, the responsibility falls on me. From the standpoint of where we are today, I take responsibility for that. My job is to get us where we can still go.”
Wittman took consolatory calls from friends and colleagues most of Monday believing that things should have turned out differently.
“After 10 games, we legitimately should have been 5-5,” Wittman said, referring to a number of games when the Wolves held double-digit leads and still lost eight of their first 10 games. “But that’s not the reality of it. We weren’t, and from there it snowballed and we just couldn’t get it back.”
Wittman said he was not surprised to get the news from Taylor…
Long-time Timberwolf Mark Madsen said the players had three meetings Monday — one with owner Glen Taylor and the rest of the team’s management, one with just Taylor and one with only the players. Madsen said the players-only meeting lasted about 45 minutes and gave the team a chance to talk to each other candidly about the season so far.
“I feel bad personally because I feel like coach Wittman worked extremely hard, he has a great knowledge of the game, and ultimately it’s on us as players, we didn’t get it done,” Madsen said. “When there is a coaching change, that is one of the biggest issues, that we were not getting it done on the court. We had plenty of time to talk about that today as a team, players only. Guys got things off their chests, guys communicated very openly with each other. Now we have to move forward and try to turn this around.”
It was after practice but before McHale, the new Wolves’ coach, met the press. McHale had his arm around Jefferson. McHale smiled, talked, then gave Jefferson a hug before the Wolves’ big man headed into the locker room. McHale sat down in a chair, leaned back, sighed deeply, then rose and headed to the interview room…
“He was talking to me … letting me know how it was going to be,” Jefferson said. “He was telling me how excited he was, making sure I was on the same page with him. I was.”