TMJF: Cavs 104, Wolves 87

From the opening tip on Friday night, Jonny Flynn was a totally different player than we saw Wednesday.

Minnesota's rookie point guard, tentative for the first three quarters of his NBA debut against New Jersey, wasted no time in making his mark against Cleveland. On his team's first possession, Flynn took a dribble hand-off from Al Jefferson and, moving to his right, froze Shaquille O'Neal with a hesitation dribble before scooting to the basket for a layup. Flynn had seven of the Wolves' first nine points, adding a pair of free throws after being fouled by O'Neal on a drive and a stationary three-pointer from the top of the key. All told, Flynn led the Wolves with 17 points on 6-of-10 shooting, including a couple of tough running bank shots and a very tricky fadeaway.

Flynn did have five turnovers, but two came with the game well out of reach. My biggest complaint with Flynn so far offensively is that he's holding the ball too long before making his move to the basket; when he does decide to create his own shot, he takes so long that there isn't time for a Plan B.

Henry Abbott over at TrueHoop had this to say about Flynn after Wednesday: "But something to keep an eye on as he develops ... he did little to dispel the notion that he loves to pound the air out of the ball, finishing with just two assists." Abbott was otherwise complimentary towards Flynn, but one can imagine that he was similarly unimpressed with Flynn's three assists against the Cavs.

I defended Flynn in the comments of that TrueHoop post (I'm "TheHighPlainsDrifter") by saying that the offense, so far, doesn't seem to be affording Flynn a lot of opportunities for assists. Or anyone, for that matter; Abbott pointed out that Flynn's two assists tied for a team-high against New Jersey, and the same is true of the three he handed out against Cleveland. Flynn pushed the ball a bit more tonight, but the wings he's playing with -- Damien Wilkins and Corey Brewer -- are not good spot-up shooters, and Jefferson doesn't run the floor as well as his backup, Ryan Hollins. Cleveland's a fine defensive team, too, which certainly makes assists hard to come by.

Defensively, Flynn has much farther to go. Cleveland doesn't run the screen and roll with Mo Williams as often as New Jersey runs it with Devin Harris and so Flynn wasn't exposed on that play, but he lost Williams a number of times on screens and rotations. Given, however, that the entire team was struggling to defend -- they made the previously offensively-inept Cavs look like the Harlem Globetrotters at times -- it's hard to say if Flynn was ultimately at fault for those defensive errors.

The program guide for my digital cable system listed this game as "meeting of former Celtics teammates" -- referring to Cleveland's Delonte West (out due to personal issues) and Jefferson. Lebron James is, apparently, an afterthought. I found this amusing, so I checked a few others: Bulls-Celtics was promoted as a meeting of former Kansas Jayhawks (Kirk Hinrich and Paul Pierce), while Knicks-Bobcats was billed as a "battle of Chandlers" (Wilson and Tyson, no relation). I wonder how much Time Warner pays its NBA content writer. I could use a job.