(The closest the score of the game will be all night long.)

Last night was CW Jr.'s first Timberwolves game at Target Center.  He just turned 3 a little over a week ago.  I know, I know... poor kid.  But we live in Minnesota, not somewhere with a good team, like 10-15 or so other cities in the United States.  Anyways, so we were heading into downtown Minneapolis from 35W:

Mrs. CW: Look Graham, that's Minneapolis. See all those big buildings up there. Whoa, that's Minneapolis!
CW JR: Yeah, there's lotsa-apolis.
Mrs. CW: Graham, it's "Minn-e-apolis."
CW JR:  No... it's LOTS OF APOLISES!!!

Logical.  He's got a point there.

(CW Jr. is naive to the score of the game, which still makes this fun!)

I don't know if this was the worst game of the season; probably not since we were facing such a great team, but that didn't make the loss any more palatable.  We are a bad, and very sad, sad, sad team.  The best part of the game/night was that CW Jr. had fun, and really, that's all the matters anyway.

 Is there even any point in listing off the ineptitude that occurred last night?  Our starters were sat the entire 4th quarter; maybe it will teach them a lesson, but probably not.

Kevin Love came back and played 27 minutes, but we were blown out again.  Anthony Randolph put up better stats in only 19 minutes.  Side note: Someone please tell me WHY Darrell Rhombus* refuses to play Kevin Love and AR together on the court?!?  Literally the only shred of optimism left for this season is to play Love and AR together huge minutes (at the same time, you dolt) and see how it works out.  We need to find out if it's A) even possible and B) if we've got something with these two guys on the court together. I am so sad.

*If you are new to this blog and/or don't know who "Darrell Rhombus" is... Kurt Rambis' real first name is actually "Darrell."  No lie, look it up.  His middle name is "Kurt."  As for "Rhombus" rather than "Rambis", a rhombus is a geometric shape that looks like a normal square, but is quite clearly not.  Much like Kurt Rambis' bi-angle offense.  Err... I mean triangle offense.

We had 12 assists on 35 makes, compared to 31 assists on 45 field goals for the Bulls. They also shot over 50%, compared to 41% for the Wolves (yay, over 40% this game!)  That's probably why da Bulls have the best record in the Eastern Conference, and we have the second worst record in the entire league.

I believe we are something like the best rebounding team in the league, (by some metric.)  Too lazy to look it up, and yes its semi-mind blowing, yet we were STILL outrebounded by 16.  The Bulls are also missing their best defender, and one of the top rebounders in the league (Joakim Noah), while the Wolves had the league leading rebounder back in action. Someone please explain this to me!?!  Maybe I need to just move on...

(Look!  Darko almost got a rebound!)

 Please click "Read More" to continue on with the Game Recrap and pictures...

Wolves versus Suns

Wednesday, April 6th on NBA League Pass (i.e. not on TV)

What is at stake for the Wolves?

Wolves are 2 games back of Cleveland for the number 1 spot. Clearly they are not going to give them any quarter. The Cavs have the Wizards still on the schedule which means there is still hope to be inverse champs. Presumably Love is still out tonight which means we'll get 20 and 15 from Anthony Randolph instead. 

What is at stake for the Suns?

Nothing. They are now under .500 and are certainly deflated. They've lost 6 of their last 7 against mostly very difficult competition (last two against Chicago and the Spurs). 

Result

This is the last Wolves win of the season.  I don't think they'll lose out the last month of the year. They have to win sometime. The ex-factor to me is Gortat pummeling us for fun. Peko needs to take an early double ejection for the team here.  Sun come out hot but look like they are waiting for the team flight during the 3rd quarter.  

Enjoy it tonight if the you have the LP. Hopefully I can squeeze in the double header of last nights game and tonights via LP Broadband.  

Lineups

Ridnour, Wes, Beas, Tolliver, Darko

Nash, Hill, Dudley,  Frye, Gortat

Egads! Another Eastern Conference powerhouse to deal with tonight! And an angry one, as well, coming off a loss against the Sixers. Former Wolves assistant and non-Wolves head coach hiree Tom Thibodeau is probably ready for vengeance. maybe not. Some brief thoughts, per usual:

1. Is Derrick Rose not shockingly underrated? The guy has lead his team to the 2nd best record in the NBA! Very quietly as well, amidst the Heat and Melo drama. This guy deserves the MVP award, and I think he will get it, along with the recognition he deserves.

LeBron does not. Speaking of LeBron, this guy just keeps getting worse and worse, skipping player-intros in Cleveland for alleged urinary reasons (BS), and just continuing to be an all-out clown. I'm happy for Cleveland after last night.

2. Don't expect the Wolves to win tonight or Friday, they are in full-out tank mode now resting Kevin Love for penile reasons. He may play tonight it seems.

3. A spirited forum discussion generated the other day on why Duke, such a college powerhouse, has only really produced 1 superstar player (Grant Hill early on). Surely guys like Boozer, Brand and others have made impacts, but 1 star. As the draft approaches, does this concern you with Kyrie Irving as a potential Wolves draft pick? Furthermore, how odd is it the # of former Dukie NBA careers that have been cut short by injury? Hurley, J Williams, Hill, Boozer to an extent, Brand, Maggette. There are others. Is a curse afoot?

One would expect a Love apologist such as myself to say "haha I told you so! (re: Anthony Randolph)" but I wont:

1. Foul trouble killed his momentum in the 1st half.
2. With a quick thought-through of the NBA landscape, I cannot think of a more difficult matchup for him than KG. Especially since the crowd was blatantly cheering for Garnett and the Celtics on a pathetic level throughout the game. Kind of a lot of pressure. He was probably shocked at what was going on.

I'm not concerned about his future.

Beasley had a relatively nice game. He got a lot of key rebounds/tip outs and hit some great shots...amidst some questionable ones. Nice to see him step it up a bit.. Took him 28 shots, but he was the only one producing on offense outside of Tolliver.

More on point #2 above. Look, I get the diehard KG fans, forum posters here, ya know, people who follow the team, who would go to the game and cheer for Garnett... die hards. NBA fans. But never in attending all of the marquee games over the past 3 years have I been more ashamed of the Target Center crowd tonight. it was absolutely pathetic. Look, again, I get some want Garnett to do well. I get the Wolves suck. I get it if a small faction of fans want to do it in a raise-the-middle-finger gesture to Kahn, Rambis, Taylor and the rest of the 600 First Avenue boobs. But, just wow. It was absolutely insane. The crowd went nuts when Boston regained the lead...on our home floor. There were Ray Allen jerseys, Rondo jerseys all over. I couldn't believe it.

Has this EVER happened in any other sports situation? That the GENERAL, CASUAL, and NON-DIEHARD fan would go to a game and root for the other team in such pathetic fashion that they had to run a skit on the jumbotron on how idiotic bandwagon fans are? Minnesotans truly are bandwagon fans. We don't deserve another Garnett after that display of poor form.

Just a shame.....inexcusable really, that the general fan who doesn't know what is going on wears a Celtics jersey to a home Timberwolves game. Those people aren't die hards. Those people exemplify the fair-weathered nature that is parasitic to our sports franchises. Why is this the case? Is there no pride here? Even with 17 wins you can't want and hope a shorthanded squad will take the cake? 

Ugh. And with LeBron coming on Friday I can't imagine things getting any better. 

Kind of different, but what if Packer fans cheered for Favre in a Vikings jersey, and the whole team to boot? Wouldn't anyone from Green Bay doing that be ridiculed? Sure, they won the bowl, but not last year. Of course, this is different, but not all that much when it boils down to the general principle.

Just a thought....

TWolves fall to OKC in the second night of a back-to-back, 111 - 103

Wow, a second really good game against two really top teams.  And they were back-to-back with traveling involved, as well.  Gotta say I enjoyed it again. Who would have thought we would ever played OKC and Dallas that close without K-Lav? What does that say about not having him out there? It's definitely not good for K-Lav apologists, no offense. We were in both games very late, only down 2 points at times (with 1 minute left in Dallas, and in the end of the 3rd against OKC.) The Wolves, dare I say it, actually looked like a much better team, and more of what (I think) Rhombus envisioned) without K-Lav in the mix.

Ok everyone, Randolph is legit.  A question was posited in the TWolves Blog forums, and I explained it my response in detail here, in response to forum user "9Deuce."  Here's how I responded:

Sure looks like he is [legit.] AR can do it all, and you can tell that he has tons and tons of natural talent. I don't know if I have seen anyone that tall with soooooo much talent since a young KG. And I'm not even kidding here, his skills are unreal. It's just a question of if he will get the minutes on the court, and if he has the right attitude to maximize his potential, and play within a team game.

So far, the past two games he has done all that and more. Creates his own shot, hitting jumpers, rebounding, playing D, scoring baskets in all kinds of ways, making better passes than anyone else on our team, and dribbling like a PG. He can pretty much do it all.

Yes, I think he's pretty legit. Too bad it took Rhombus until now to figure out he should get minutes. Fool.

Can we trade Love to OKC for Ibaka and Harden? That's probably one of the better deals we would get at this point? K-Lav's sky-high trade value can't get any higher in my opinion, and will only go down from here on out. Especially with him being hurt, his double-double streak and subsequent national media slobbering of attention being over, and the fact that I don't think he wants to be here and will be wanting a max contract extension. Love fits in great on OKC, and we'd get nice value in return with Ibaka (huge STUD!), Harden (a baller), and perhaps draft picks or something? Ibaka is great; he plays D, rebounds, blocks shots, hits jumpers, is tough inside... what a solid defensive-minded big man, especially as it currently stands with him on OKC next to Durant and Perkins.

For the record, Randolph had 45 & 15 in Love’s place and '+/-' of +6 in an 8 point loss with Randolph playing 37 minutes.  Of course, our bench gave away the game, which wouldn’t have played with Love.  Our starters actually outscored OKC, but were decimated whenever AR went to the bench.  Two games in a row now in which we performed much better than expected without K-Lav, AND the starting unit performed better with AR than the aforementioned Love in the game.

Our starters played well overall, and had much better stats this game than against Dallas. Well, except Beasley and his 3 month long (and running) slump.  He missed 10 shots out of 18, had 7 turnovers, and 4 fouls.  But his issues are another story for another day.  And again, we were in this one. In the third, after being down 16 points and 10 at half-time, Rhombus went with a crazy lineup of:

PG: Ridnour
PF/SF: Beasley
PF: Tolliver
PF/C: Randolph
C: Darko

... and it worked! With Love out, it's the hugest, longest, most athletic, and awesome the TWolves could possibly field.  These guys rolled off a 15-4 run,  and we came back to within 2 points.  Really, they were just playing some great and frenetic basketball.  The defense was on point, and OKC couldn't really answer.   Beasley was the SG! Tolliver was playing superb D against Durant.  In fairness, Durant did hit two huge threes towards the end of the quarter and at the buzzer. Still, I was loving it. To Rhombus' credit, he went back to this lineup again in the fourth quarter after giving our backup backups some minutes. That lineup was fun to see.  What was not fun to see was our super backups coming in and squandering all the goodwill.  Flynn, Ellington, Pekovic, and Hayward gave all that away, and the Wolves were back down 10 before you knew it.

Man, I really love OKC. If I could only watch all the games of 1 team in the NBA, it would be really hard to pick between OKC and Boston. I like all their players, and they are pretty much the perfect team. They've got a prototypical stud young PG in Westbrook.  Durant is of course, the man and the unquestioned alpha leader.  They've got a lockdown defender in Thabo.  They've got 3 point specialist in Cook, and a super sub 6th man in James Harden.  They have size to bang with any team in the league (Ibaka, Perkins, Nazr Mohammed, Nick Collison, and Cole Aldrich.)  And of course, all these guys compliment each other PERFECTLY.  On top of all this, they will still (most likely) have cap room to spare next summer, depending on the new CBA/salary cap rules.  Sam Presti is a genius.  He's the best at what he does. 

I don't know what there is to not like about these guys. I hope they can make some noise in the playoffs, although the Lakers seem to be back and are playing crazy awesome since the AS break. The Lakers and Celtics have to be the favorites right now to make the Finals again. Perhaps Chicago, but their offense is only average, and tends to sputter at times.  Good defensive teams like Boston can stop them by packing the paint and daring them to shoot from the outside.  That really negates a lot of Rose's greatness.

Anyways, a solid game all around.  We better bring K-Lav back soon, or else we might blow our second worst pick draft position by winning games if he stays out of the rest of the season...

Only one day after the Wolves took the Mav's to the wire, we are back at it again against another elite team in OKC. Good times.

1. How about Anthony Randolph last night? What a performance. Now let's not get too out of whack here, but a very small part of me saw the team Kahnbis perhaps originally envisioned, and why they felt Love didn't fit in it. Of course, it is only a single game and what not, and teams sometimes play better with their stars out of the lineup, but it was still interesting. His post moves were magical. To deny his NBA ability would be a crime.... and this certainly isn't the only big game AR has had in his career. Let's see how he deals with Serge Ibaka tonight.

2. Last night following the Mavs game Michael Beasley retweeted an interesting message about his coach. His Twitter account has since been deleted. I don't blame Mike one bit. One of Rambis' myriad of epic fails is putting players in uncomfortable positions despite their strenghts, perhaps one of the biggest potential flops of a leader. It could be that Mike not having the freedom he needs is a reason for his decline of late. Maybe it's the losing. Either way, he needs to step it up in OKC tonight.

3. it was rumored during the all-star break that the OKC crew recuited Love to join the squad. This is a reasonable concern. Hypothetically, if it came to that, what would you accept in sign and trade as an ideal package?

Well, the Wolves have had 4 days of rest since that one game where the Kings built a 30 point lead in about 3 minutes of game time. The one where Pekovic and DeMarcus cousins got into a fabulous shoving match. The one where Jonny Flynn turned it over three times in the first three minutes of the fourth quarter. 

Well, the going is not pretty the rest of the way. With tonight's game being followed up by OKC and Boston, the Wolves are going to have a tough time sneaking out a win these last few weeks. First up on the list in what may be Rambis' farewell tour: Brian Cardinal, Corey Brewer and the Dallas Mavericks. The last time these two teams met, Brian Cardinal hit four three pointers. It was the first time he had scored in double figures since April of 2009 and it was his highest point total since January 2007 (he tied it once since). His highest point total in four years.

Oh, and Kevin Love is going to miss the next two games at least. Beasley is also a gametime decision tonight. On to some thought points:

1. With Cousins getting tossed in the 3rd quarter on Sunday, team Wes Johnson received a merit or two. What I found most odd about this was that Luke Ridnour, who blatantly instigated the shoving match, did not receive a technical foul, but other players receive techs for smiling at the ref or some other odd type of serious infraction on a daily basis. Late last year I wrote this. Now, I am all for calling technicals for whining, a la Kobe and crew, but I am not supportive of calling techs for having a basic human reaction to a foul call. While this Cousins situation was more than that, certain things develop from competitive situations, and forcing grown men to bottle emotions like teenagers takes a lot of intensity out of games. Furthermore, when certain players can display emotion ( Kobe), while others cannot (Beasley), it makes for an even more frustrating situation from the player POV. Thoughts on how the strict technical rules have changed the game?

2. Back to Dallas, how will this team fare without Kevin Love? I am predicting we get outrebounded by at least 15. Some fans clamor on our forums that they would rather have a defensive presence or wouldn't mind trading Love. He isn't the problem and I think we will see this immediately tonight. On a plus side these two games are a great opportunity for Beasley to step in and gain some momentum to close out the season. We need it from him.

 3. Since many will be watching March Madness instead of  a Dallas-infused beating, how fares the brackets? I might as well burn mine at this point.

The battle for King Crap of Turd Island commences on this gloomy, rainy day in Minneapolis. Why anyone in their right minds would choose to watch this game over some epic NCAA games is beyond me. With that said, I will probably watch. Some people are just addicted to destruction after all, I guess. Some brief bullets of thought, per usual:

1. After Andrew Bynum's thuggish behavior resulted in a Michael Beasley injury, Kurt Rambis found it prudent to defend his former team (surprise, surprise). I mean, what is he thinking, doing this? Are we overreacting? Is it reasonable to assume he didn't see the video? Even if he did, is this acceptable? Oi....

Phil Jackson also recently offered this interesting tidbit.

"The purpose seemed to be right, the words were said that we're going to build a championship," Jackson said. "I remember the commercials during the game last year. Wasn't it about how to build a championship with the general manager [David Kahn] and the whole bit? Then there's nothing spent. They still have a payroll that doesn't reflect the idea of going after a championship."

To think this isn't on behalf of his friend and former assistant is pretty naive. Jackson certainly has a point, though.

UPDATE: Rambis on the Wolves/Kings preegame confirmed he had not seen the Bynum foul video at the time he made the initial comments.  He has changed his stance on it, or so he says, and added Bynum got in touch with Beasley to apologize.  Hanneman also mentioned something about a technical foul conspiracy on Ron Artest? This is news to me....

2. Again, this may be the 4th consecutive game preview I mention this, but what in the world is this team going to do with Anthony Randolph? Ironically, Kahn states he got him to deal with the Bynums and Gasols of the world, and he nets a DNP-CD against the Lake-show. What gives in this situation?

3. How are people feeling about the DMC vs. Wes argument at this point? I still belong to the camp that until Cousins starts kidnapping kids and smoking copious amounts of marijuana, his issues are fixable. The base intention is nothing more than competitiveness and a desire to win games. This is a far cry from criminal behavior. I like Wes as a player, especially when he is not in the middle of one of his 5-game vanishing acts, but Cousins is the better and more impactful basketball player and it is not even close. I have a feeling it will stay that way.

4. As the Wolves fight for that elusive 20-win total, facing a poor draft, a lockout, another year of no Rubio, and many other dire implications, what does this team need to do moving forward to get back into the mix? Think realistic, because cleaning house might not be what happens. In fact, when reading Phil Jacksons quote above, it is difficult for me to not feel for Rhombus a little bit here. Then he goes out and defends his former team and all sympathy is lost.

5. Lastly, if rumors of the Kings moving to Anaheim are true, what does this do for Los Angeles basketball? 3 teams in one metro area? Pretty hefty 

I was thinking about K-Love and his impending free agency the other day while his Double-Double streak was going down in flames against the Warriors, and I came to the personal decision that I don't think he's worth a maximum contract extension.  Whether it's under the parameters of the current CBA, or the yet-to-be-determined financial structure of the inevitable new CBA. Clearly our team would be worse without him, but I'm not sure paying him as much as possible is good for the long-term future of the franchise.  And here's why:

The reason I've been thinking so hard about this, is because of how easy it appeared for an average (at best!) David Lee, and absolutely terrible Warriors team defense, to shut down Love and render him almost completely useless Sunday night. Yes, he had a bad game. But it can, and will, happen more often if teams actually care about trying to stop him. They know the rest of our subpar team can't beat them, so it usually doesn't matter if K-Love gets his stats. Remember his last game against the Lakers before he started the DD streak? 0 points and 7 rebounds in 34 minutes.

If teams care enough, they can shut him down, rendering him mostly ineffective. What I mean is, it's relatively easy to keep Love from helping a team win games. Yeah, he might still get some stats, but big deal as long as the other team wins the game. Who cares if he gets a double-double if you still win the game, ya know? Frankly, our team stinks like a rotten corpse, so you can let K-Love do his thing and still beat the TWolves pretty easily. (At least, most teams can. Some teams suck just as much as us.)

As "Wolfenstein" said in a similar discussion in the TWolves Blog Forums, Love creates opportunities for the team without greatly improving his teammates' opportunities.  That is great and all, and valuable, but doesn't exactly lead to a lot of winning games. He also rebounds rebounds and throws outlet passes (sometimes.) He can also hit threes, which is valuable (don't get me wrong here.) He scores points with a low usage, mostly because of his hustling and energy (that's seriously not just a white guy comment.)  While this is all valuable, it clearly isn't helping us win games this season. We have 17 wins. Someone has to score points every game.

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You may be wondering about the "K-Lav" nickname, but as you can clearly see in the picture above, that's how he's referred to over in Sarajevo, Bosnia.  Yeah, you heard me right.  Our very valued TWB Forum poster "Flash" posted the above picture from his local newspaper in the forums, which shows how much of a global icon K-Lav has become.  (Although, apparently his name "Love" is too confusing or weird to print in it's entirety.)  Obviously the article is in reference to Lav breaking the "modern record" for double-doubles, when he notched his 52nd straigth DD last week.  Thanks Flash, and thank you Sarajevo, Bosnia for the new K-Lav nickname!

On a sadder/more pathetic/disgusting note, the Wolves somehow fell to the Golden State Warriors tonight, 100 - 77.  You can check out game discussion here in the TWB Forum Game Thread, if you want to torture yourself.  Although, I will add that there are a ton of very "useful" posts.  Check it out and you might learn a thing or two (or ten.)  And stick around and join us in the discussion if you don't already.

Of all the teams in the NBA, I don't think any of us Wolves fans would have ever guessed that "the streak" would have ended against the Warriors. I mean, they are the worst rebounding team in the NBA, and the second worst defensive team in the NBA (if you go by points allowed per game, which the TWolves are #30. Ugh.)  Hell, when we beat the Warriors at Target Center two weeks ago, K-Lav dropped 37 points and 23 rebounds against them.  I thought the Warriors would be happy to hold him to less than one of his patented "Optometrist Games", and yet he can't even go for 10/10.  What happened there tonight in Sacramento?

Even worse than the ballyhooed streak ending, the Wolves only scored 77 points against the Warriors! Again... How does that happen?  The Wolves beat them by scoring 126 points just two short 2 weeks ago. I guess shooting 37% from the field with TWENTY-SIX turnovers doesn't help the cause. And we missed 12 free-throws and had 9 shots blocked on top of that putridness.

Stephen Curry should would look good on our squad.  And Jonny Flynn not on our squad sure would look great as well.

It was pretty sad listening to Wolves announcer Jim Peterson complaining and making up excuses for K-Lav not continuing his streak, for the entire 4th quarter of the game tonight. I really thought he was going to start crying on the air.  I guess the Warriors deserve a little credit for playing Lav very tough on defense tonight, but he was (admittedly) hacked to crap a few times.  The officials certainly didn't help the cause.  Our next game is Wednesday night at Utah.  Will K-Lav start a new DD streak?  Or will he start a nefarious two game non-DD streak?  I guess that's as good a reason as any to tune in.

Beasley is regressing horribly, and Darko is poop. Puke Ridnour is a career backup playing too many minutes as our starter (because Flynn is so atrocious), and Wesley Johnson is a very highly drafted spot-up jump-shooter.  I think we should make Anthony Randolph our point-foward backup PG, but that's another story for another day.  We basically have a team of backups. It's gonna be tough to win games with what we've got, which makes the past two blowout wins all that much more surprising.  I guess maybe give Kahn one last off-season to do SOMETHING, but after that, seriously just fire everyone except Ronzone if drastic improvements are not being shown.  We're basically the same crappy team we had last year, despite a complete roster overhaul and a squad that was supposed to "start contending for the playoffs" according to fearless GM Mr. Kahn.

Coming off those two great blowouts, and losing by 23 to an average-at-best Warriors team, makes this probably the worst loss of the entire season.

How are the TWolves going to market this team the rest of the season without K-Lav's streak? There are pretty much no reasons for non-diehard fans to have a reason to go out and buy tickets. At least, not buy tickets at face value. I almost feel bad for the scalpers, considering how cheap you can get tickets from them. I'm not trying to be overly cynical here, but the Wolves PR have been pushing this streak like crazy to sell tickets the past month.

I don't think it's a question of "if" Kahn fires Rhombus, but more like "when" he fires him. And then hopefully Kahn is gone shortly thereafter as well.  Good riddance.