Rick Adelman Told the Timberwolves They’re Not a Playoff Team

Minnesota Timberwolves head coach Rick Adelman isn’t one to beat around the bush — he tells it like it is. His team (18-20) isn’t very good, and he let the know about it. Per the Star Tribune:

Wolves coach Rick Adelman, not surprisingly, was still annoyed Thursday after putting his team through a lengthy film session. But that made for some fairly insightful and direct comments about the Wolves, who have lost two straight and three of four games.

On his team’s current situation: “We’ve got to face fact that we’re a .500 team,” he said. “Right now we’re below .500. I told them today that if you think you’re a playoff team why don’t you just forget it, because you haven’t proven that you are. You haven’t gone out and really established yourself yet. You make some changes, and it looks good on paper, but it means nothing.’’

On responding to physical play: “Well we’ve been talking about it forever. It’s been pretty evident in some games where teams get into us. The league has changed. For whatever reason, I don’t know why, the last couple of years there hasn’t been any post defense. It’s more of a wrestling match. It’s just the way it is. You’ve got to respond to that. Players usually always respond to the way the game goes, because in our league in 82 games every game is different. You have a different officiating crew, everything is different. You’ve got to respond to it, but if you’re not going to go into the game ready to respond, if you’re going to back off you’re in trouble. You’ve got to take it on. You’ve got to be more aggressive.’’