Love Developing as USA Chases Gold
Jonah BallowWolves Editor/Writer
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Jonah Ballow with Tony Ronzone
DOWNLOAD MP3 Wolves editor/writer Jonah Ballow caught up with assistant general manager and director of player personnel for the Minnesota Timberwolves and director of international player personnel for USA Basketball Tony Ronzone for the latest on Team USA's bid to win a gold medal in Turkey and the development from Wolves forward Kevin Love.
Jonah Ballow: Your travels have now landed you in Istanbul, Turkey where the team is participating in the preliminary round of the World Championships. Now you are in one location, so is that helping the team gel as they stay undefeated?
Tony Ronzone: You know, we had a tough game last night against Brazil. It just kind of shows you in this age in basketball these days the world has become smaller and these teams and the rest of the world can play. These national teams take a lot of pride in their teams and it showed last night that if you are not ready every game and teams have no fear when the play USA, so it's one of those games where if they lose, we are the favorite and they just relax and play and Brazil made a lot of shots last night. They came to play and our guys had some competition but I was happy that we had that opportunity to go against that competition because once we get to the Sweet 16; it's a 1-game deal.
Jonah Ballow: Brazil seemed to play really solid transition defense, holding USA in those fast break opportunities. Did you see that as well?
Tony Ronzone: No question. In fact, after the game Coach K and our staff went to the film room and we were up till four in the morning watching tape and reviewing it. We slipped on some of the stuff that we did earlier in games. One of the things with Brazil, they are different than Croatia, Slovenia, Greece, and Spain, teams that we played earlier because Brazil is a more soccer orientated country. They are constantly attacking, they move well without the ball and it's a different type of basketball. One of the things they do is they are quicker and chase you down, so before we were getting transition baskets with good effort but we were beating Croatia and Slovenia down the floor. With Brazil, they matched our quickness at spots with Leandro Barbosa and Marcelo Huertas and those types of players. They chased us down and got back, so it was an adjustment for us in comparison to the games we played before.
Jonah Ballow: Now, looking at the schedule ahead and you have Iran and Tunisia, two teams you figure that shouldn't be too much of a problem. In your group, Spain lost to France, where you surprised by that result?
Tony Ronzone: Yeah, we were surprised by that. Again, it shows you in the game of basketball, any team can get you on a certain night if they are making shots. The thing about Spain is they missed a lot of 3-point shots and it just didn't fall for them and it was too late for them to catch up. Some of these teams do not mind if they lose in the early groups. I think the difference with USA Basketball is that everyone freaks out if we lose a game and it's OK in these early tournament bids because it's all about going to the Sweet 16 and making it to the next round and getting your matchups and pursuing your goal to get to that gold medal game.
Jonah Ballow: Yeah, it could possibly set up a championship game against Spain and USA, now that Spain lost that contest. Right?
Tony Ronzone: Correct, no question. Basically, they go No. 2 in their group, they will be in the other bracket and I think at the end of the day, they are probably fine with that and we are probably fine with that. No matter what, you have to play somebody to get to that final game and every game will be tough.
Jonah Ballow: Tony, let's focus on Kevin Love and talk about some productivity on the glass. This guy played about 13 minutes on Sunday and Saturday and reaching double-digit rebounds for this team, really without a center except for Tyson Chandler. What have you thought about Kevin Love and really his return after a couple injuries in the early going of the USA Basketball run?
Tony Ronzone: It's a credit to him for staying positive, staying focused, and understanding. He has really accepted his role and accepted the fact that he may play a lot of minutes and he may not play many minutes at all. Just like last night, he didn't get a lot of minutes. Again, it's part of USA, it's not about "I". He's done a really good job and this experience for Kevin has been fantastic, it's been great for our organization and Minnesota to have him here to play against this high level competition and to learn to play different type of roles. It's going to make him a better player as a young player himself, so we're excited about his production. It's amazing for his minutes, going into last night's game, he was the third leading rebounder in this tournament after two games. The other two rebounders are playing 30-plus minutes, so it's pretty amazing what he has done on the floor. He just takes every rebound. Chauncey Billups was telling me the other day, "He doesn't let anybody get any rebounds." I said, exactly, that's what we plan on him doing in Minnesota. I'm excited about his progress, it's been great being around him and it's all beneficial for the Timberwolves.
Jonah Ballow: How have you seen him grow? He will be entering his third season in the league and we all know about the rebounding, that is his calling card and it's been talked about a lot. What have you seen out of his full game that has grown that maybe we are not seeing in the games but you get a chance to see in the practice facility?
Tony Ronzone:
We'll first of all, his defensive ability. He has really made an emphasis on playing defense and he is doing a great job of putting pressure on the ball and he is the only guy taking charges on our team. We got to do some more dirty work for our team to get to that gold medal game. Kevin has done that. He didn't take a charge last game but every game up to last night, he has taken a charge for us. His defense and he is aware of it and that is expanding his game, that's something I know Kurt Rambis and our coaching staff wanted him to do and he is really adapted to making that change. That is going to make him a better all-around player. We know he can rebound, we know he can score, and he has actually come out and made a couple of threes for us, which is nice as a trail four. This has been great for him to learn a different style of game, being around top players in our NBA, so this is huge for us and huge for him most importantly. Jonah Ballow: Do you believe in that theory that a player needs to get a taste of that winning mentality? I know it's been a couple of years removed from his UCLA days where he made the Final Four but the fact that he is playing with these guys, he is winning, he is with Coach K, a winner in the college ranks, that's going to rub off on him and will only make him better when gets back to Minneapolis.
Tony Ronzone: No question because it's addicting. What happens, he brings it and other guys pick up on it and the whole organization believes it. Once you start winning, it becomes contagious. Losing is contagious too, we are going to change that in Minnesota with the direction of David Kahn and our staff and we're going to start winning. It doesn't happen overnight but it's going to happen. Kevin Love is getting a taste of it and he is going to bring that winning mentality when he comes back for training camp.
Jonah Ballow: Tony, you have traveled all around the world in these past couple of months, from Las Vegas to Madrid and now in Turkey. What is the atmosphere like there in comparison to these other cities?
Tony Ronzone: In Greece, it's a very hostile crowd, very pro-Greece and we're not getting much love there. We had about 20 people trying to yell as loud as they can for us. In Spain, the whole place was against us. It's a whole different atmosphere than when we went to the Olympics in 2008 with our team with LeBron and those guys because the Chinese were cheering for us. Like last night, during the end of that game, the 10,000 people in the stands were chanting for Brazil. For our guys to hang on with all that pressure and get a win even in a tough atmosphere was great for us.
Jonah Ballow: Are they embracing it? We see Kevin Durant and the numbers he is putting up and Derrick Rose has had some fabulous games as well. It seems like this team is gelling and coming together and really embracing that USA cross their chest.
Tony Ronzone: They want this. This is huge for them. There legacy goes down, I mean we haven't won this since 1994 and these young guys can be part of history that starts a tradition of winning these tournaments. They are excited about it, they are great guys, we have a great bunch of guys. They listen, they want it, this is new for them, a lot of these guys have never been outside of the country, so it's a whole different world.
Jonah Ballow: Alright, two more games on the preliminary docket. Wednesday against Iran, that game is going to be on ESPN at 11 AM central and Thursday against Tunisia, that game on ESPN 2 at 8:30 AM central for Minnesota fans checking-in on Kevin Love. That is the assistant general manager and director of player personnel for the Minnesota Timberwolves, also serving as the international director of player personnel for USA Basketball Tony Ronzone. Hopefully, we can catch up with you next week when the team is facing single elimination, chasing down that gold medal in Turkey.
Tony Ronzone: Great, thank a lot and I will stay in touch.
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