Golden State tape provides painful sort of instruction

By JERRY ZGODA, Star Tribune

Last update: November 12, 2009 - 5:38 AM

The Timberwolves' gameday morning film session and shootaround expanded Wednesday from its usual 75 minutes or so into a two-hour-plus tutorial that included more than an hour of watching Monday's 146-105 loss at Golden State again.

"Oh, man, it was a lot of people with hands on their faces, towels on their heads," Wolves rookie point guard Jonny Flynn said. "But you need to see stuff like that. You need to be embarrassed. You need coach to call you out to really switch things around. I think we saw a lot of things we did wrong.

"Our defense was horrible. It was unbelievable."

Somebody asked Wolves coach Kurt Rambis if he had raised his voice to his team since the loss that tied franchise records for most points allowed and largest margin of defeat.

"No, do you want me to?" he asked. "When you're working with players on the floor, when you're teaching them and watching videotape, it's about education. I don't know about you guys, but I didn't have too many teachers who were screaming at me all the time to learn something."

He did rip into his team loudly and angrily during a third-quarter timeout against Portland on Wednesday, when he exhorted them to get back on defense.

Shuffling

Rambis moved center Ryan Hollins into the starting lineup for the first time this season. He placed him at power forward next to center Al Jefferson and small forward Ryan Gomes because he wanted to "bring some energy and length" against Blazers forward LaMarcus Aldridge, who has been a notoriously tough matchup for the Wolves to handle.

In doing so, he kept Oleksiy Pecherov out of the starting five. Pecherov scored eight points in the next three games after delivering a career-high 24 points against Kevin Garnett and Boston a week ago.

"One game is not a breakthrough," Rambis said. "I think any player in this league is capable of playing a good game once in a while. It's very difficult to be consistent in this league."

Teaching moment

Rambis might not be a screamer, but he continues to try to get his message across -- particularly, it seems, to Flynn. He pulled Flynn from the game and sent in Ramon Sessions three minutes before halftime after Flynn hoisted a quick shot when the Blazers were in the midst of an 11-2 burst.

Flynn got up two more shots before Sessions replaced him during a timeout. Rambis again pulled Flynn from the game early in the third quarter for another forced shot.

His druthers

Flynn entered Wednesday's game second on the team in scoring with a 15.0 points per game average and is first in assists with 3.5 a game.

"I'd like to see his assist total go up," Rambis said. "But I'd like to see his turnovers [also 3.5 a game] go down. That's what I'd really like to see."

Reaching out

Former Los Angeles Lakers great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's announcement Monday that he is being treated for a rare form of leukemia that was diagnosed last December caught Rambis, his former teammate, completely by surprise.

"I just found this out yesterday on the bus getting ready to come back from Golden State," said Rambis, who said he plans to contact Abdul- Jabbar to express his support.

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