Basically, it opens the door for McHale to say at the end of the year, “You know what, I just don’t have it in me anymore to do this.”
Then it can appear as if he’s walking away more on his own terms and also save Taylor from having to fire a person he considers a close friend. In the process, the real truth may be hidden — that Taylor finally pushed him out the door.
It’s a hallmark moment in the franchise’s history.
If there was a bright spot to the Wolves’ latest loss, it was the performance of rookie forward Kevin Love, who missed four late free throws in Tuesday’s 99-96 loss to Utah.
In addition to scoring 14 points and grabbing 14 rebounds, Love went 6 for 6 from the free-throw line and said it felt good to put his 2-for-9 night against the Jazz behind him.
“It definitely did just because (Tuesday) night was more than uncharacteristic of what I’m used to,” he said. “I’ve never had a night from the line like that. That game was on me, but it felt good to knock those down tonight.”
“Kevin’s a tough kid,” McHale said. “He’s a tiger. He’ll be fine. That kid can play basketball.”
Love was waving his arms begging for the ball, and he can hit a three-point jump shot. He is also an excellent passer, and if he had inbounded the ball, it would have gone to someone in scoring position. That’s just what Love does. And he had 15 rebounds in the game, so if he had been standing under the basket, an offensive rebound putback wouldn’t have been impossible.
Instead, McCants’ inbounds pass was stolen, and Love threw his arms up over his head and crossed them. It is an action familiar to UCLA fans. Love can’t keep his emotions secret.
About two weeks ago, when I asked Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor if coach Randy Wittman’s job was in danger, Taylor made it clear Witt-man was not in any danger at all. Well, contrary to what Taylor assured me, Wittman was fired Monday.
“Well, I don’t know if it’s ever fair,” Taylor said. “I don’t know that life is fair. It isn’t even something that I enjoy or wanted to do. But in looking at the season, I thought I had to do it early so that we could try to save the season. I just had this feeling that it was slipping away. As you say, that’s not fair to Randy. I’m trying to be fair to our players and give them the best opportunity to have a good year.
“I feel good about it,” point guard Randy Foye said of the coaching change. “Mac’s a good guy. From practice (Monday) to the walk-thru (Tuesday), it’s been a lot of fun. He’s just brought a lot of excitement and fun to the team.”
“Something just wasn’t in us anymore,” added Al Jefferson. “I’m not saying it was Randy’s fault that it wasn’t, but it was just something that was going down hill. Anytime you have a change you always feel different. You feel new energy come back into you.”
When told about Carter’s comments, McHale admitted he coaches “much more by feel and much more by matchups and who’s going and stuff like that.”
McHale said most of what he knows about coaching he learned from playing for those championship Celtics teams.
“You get to the point where as opposed to running a play, if you want to run two guys in the screen-and-roll, you just say, ‘Hey, I want to go at this guy on the defensive end and whoever that guy is guarding, I want the ball in his hands and I want you to attack him,'” McHale said. “I never understood putting their two top defenders in the screen-and-roll. You put them somewhere on the weak side and tuck them as far away from everything as you can possibly get.
“You go at their two worst defenders. I learned a couple of things from Red Auerbach: Go at their bad defenders and go where they ain’t on offense. And those two things seem to work.”
