Wolves record: 9-35
This old saying was applicable to the heartbreaking 96-94 loss to the Hornets on Friday night. In an eerily similar finish to the December 9 contest at the Target Center, New Orleans executed a final play at the buzzer to defeat the Wolves for the third time this season.
“Definitely a tough loss. Losing to them twice, on the exact same play. We have been playing well, but it definitely hurts to lose this way,” Jonny Flynn said.
From Jim Beilby/NBA.com:
In their last trip to the Target Center on December 9th, New Orleans was trailing by one with 5.9 seconds to play. Chris Paul took the ball out of bounds and ran the give-and-go with David West. Minnesota’s rookie point guard, Jonny Flynn, got caught moving toward West and Paul scored a layup on a nice back-cut and a precise pass from West, giving New Orleans a 97-96 victory.
“We knew we had run that (play) last time,” New Orleans coach, Jeff Bower said. “But we liked the alignment and thought it was time to go back to it.”
This time, with David West in the locker room with a sprained ankle, it was Chris Paul and James Posey. With 3.5 seconds and the score tied, Posey faked a hand-off to Paul, and found himself with a clear path to the rim. His lay-up was contested by Al Jefferson and reviewed by the officials, but the end result was the same as December 9th.
“It was pretty ironic, we were in the same situation last time,” Chris Paul said. “Me and ‘Pos’ talked about it before we went out there. He said, ‘If they jump [the handoff], I’m going to keep [the ball].’ They did, he faked it, and boom, game over.”
The shame of it for the Timberwolves, of course, is that the repetitive error obscured their repetitive effort — another winnable game given away. Paul scored 23 points with nine assists, but when David West sprained his ankle late in the second quarter, the Wolves’ advantage up front became apparent. Al Jefferson dominated inside, scoring 25 points with 13 rebounds, and Kevin Love added 13 points and nine boards in his first game back from a two-game strep-throat layoff.
Minnesota put up 54 points in the paint to New Orleans’ 34, outrebounded the Hornets 50-41 and shut down Peja Stojakovic, who went 1-for-8.
The Hornets are a small team anyway, and when David West went down with a sprained ankle after landing on Love’s foot in the second quarter, they decided to play even smaller. So Chris Paul, Darren Collison — each of whom barely reaches six feet tall — and Devin Brown were on the floor together on a few occasions. Rambis took the opportunity to play Flynn, Ramon Sessions (who had a strong game, scoring 11 points) and Wayne Ellington together. Rambis, incidentally, was clearly annoyed at Flynn in the fourth quarter, pulling him just 90 seconds after putting him back in the game. Flynn, who played just 1:11 of the final period despite his 20-point night, didn’t return until Minnesota’s final possession.
