Yes it was a heart breaking loss...

the plusses

1. Ratty played good n didnt get hurt
2. Walker looked alot healthier n didnt do bad
3. McCants played decently (yes im shocked)
4. Big Al-Looked big and played nicely
5. Jaric--Did a nice job.
I think those are some very good points....Also they played a good game, the ball passing was solid, they shot decently, over all not bad at all...

Wow! What a game. After all the bad publicity it was rewarding to see a team that can play basketball. At no time was there anyone bad on the floor. Maybe Brewer looked a bit intimidated but thats it. McCants is going to shut everyone up. We got Buckener for Hassel. Who looks dumb now. Telfair has great presence. Jaric has his own strengths. Ratty is a young man. Foye is a god and will join us in a few weeks. What can I say. This year will be bearable. Next year will be wolfable.

That loss felt better than a number of wins we had last year. This team played together, something we haven't seen since the year we made it to the conference finals. I really dig McCants, Ratliff looked like the Theo of old, Jefferson started paying off his contract extension immediately and seeing players come off the bench and actually contribute is something that I'm not used to. Everybody says we're going to be the worst team in the association and that we'll only end up with 25 wins, but I could see us hitting 35 pretty easy if games continue to look like this.

Hmmmmm...Oh CW how you shall eat game one crow and kiss the ground McCants walks on...lol. J/k. It's one game fellas - the first game. Let's give it five to ten games to get a feel. We know Jefferson will keep putting up those numbers (hopefully better if he can get more touches). The breakdown shall come in the morning...Bellanote is calling.

McCants played awesome!

The game was a lot of fun to watch, and I can't get mad about the loss. I'm upset, because we outplayed them much of the way, but a lot os positivies. When Foye returns, this will be a pretty nice team.

Big Al got double teamed the whole game, and I'd imagine it might take some time to adjust to. Nonetheless, he played a nice game. Theo and McCants comtinued their nice preseason rolls. Walker was okay, but I think he forced to many shots, and tried to do to much. Gomes did look great, but the fouls hurt him, and no Green surprised me a little.

The refs sucked by the way...

Even though we lost..it was nice to see that the Wolves played pretty well together. We know Al's going to get his so hopefully McCants can play like he did tonight all year.
Tonight showed how much we miss Randy Foye. He was Mr. Fourth Quarter for us last year. We needed his scoring in the fourth quarter tonight. Can't wait till he gets back.

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Walker did try to do too much. It always seems to be his achilles heel. He needs to remember that his teammates can Ball with the best of them as they demonstrated tonight.

Hopefully he'll have more trust to at least start setting teammates up with his passing(which I believe is his STRONGEST ability).

All in all, a very encouraging game....even though we came up short, it wasn't by much.


This is going to be a fun season to watch no matter what happens.

There is one question, though :

Why didn't Gerald Green get any PT today??

nbafan#8 wrote:

The wolves played 10 guys last night. You aren't going to see an NBA team play more than that unless it there is a blow out.

I loved watching that game. There wasn't one time when I said \"What the @#$# is ______ doing out there?\"

McCants looked more athletic that I expected. The offense was moving the ball around like I haven't seen in 2 years. When the Wolves were getting the ball to Big Albus on almost every possession through the 2nd and 3rd quarters they looked great.

I'd say Wittman had a career game roaming the sideline (for atleast 3+ quarters). He seemed to have a very solid rotation going. I really liked what Telfair was doing. He couldn't finish around the hoop consistently (like we saw in the preseason), but he was playing smart. If he keeps playing like that he'll log some real minutes this season and really start to improve.

One last question. Did we just watch a team that legitimately seemed to like each other?

I'm really surprised by all of the fawning over McCants on this thread. Did I watch a different game? While it's nice that he scored all those points, he also killed them in the 4th quarter, when they still had a chance to win the game, by making some absolutely terrible decisions with the ball. The entire game, I don't think he passed the ball more than 3 times. If he got the ball, it was almost a guarantee that a shot was going up, whether he was open or not, defense be damned. Not to mention some of the terrible plays on defense (that little slap on Camby on a fastbreak dunk, when he had absolutely no chance to stop the play?). He had 5 TOs, took 18 shots in 30 minutes, meanwhile Big Al, who looked like he could dominate, couldn't get anyone to pass him the ball in the 4th quarter and ended up taking only 14 shots in 38 minutes. I'm sorry, but I think Al should be taking more shots per game than McCants every night.

McCants clearly has talent, and perhaps I'm being too hard on him since he is still young, but unless he learns that basketball is a game played 5 on 5 and not 1 on 5, I'm not going to be a big fan of his. For now, I guess I'll just hope that he does learn and improve, because there were a lot of other positives from last night's game and I think the team really does have some potential.

Go Wolves.

Wolves definitely have a nice group of young guys. They're talented and play as a team. Foye is going to make a huge difference. He's not only Mr. 4th Qtr in his production, but he'll also push Marko to DNP status. Which should be good.

I thought Jaric and Walker lost the game in the early 4th by blowing the small cushion they had and killing the momentum. The youngsters couldn't overcome that hole when they came back in, although they tried.

Camby was pretty huge.

The Wolves are definitely worth following this year.

glad to see the enthusiasm for this young wolves club. it was a big night for us out here in new england, with the arrival of the ticket the c's looked dominant. but i was just as interested in seeing how our old friends did on opening night in 'sota.

big al is with out a doubt my favorite player to watch. the league hasn't seen anything like him since mchale hung up the converse. i know ya'll lakelanders will be proud to watch him carry the wolves banner for years to come. (that is untill his contact is up abd we can sign him back... )

A lot of us had fun following the Celts game, too. KG is going to be a monster with 2 good players around him. Best of luck to Boston this year.

Too bad this isn't baseball and the playing field is level. So, you can dream about getting OUR Big Al, but he won't be a Celtic again!

There's a lot of new posters who are debuting in this thread, so I just wanted to welcome all of you to the site! I look forward to talking Wolves with you on the board.

I've already posted my thoughts on the game on the front page, so I won't double-up here. But again, welcome.

Tod Murphy wrote:
They had a 3pt lead at the start of the 4th quarter....are you kidding me?

A 3pt lead no matter what team you have(good or bad) always has a 90% chance of being blown no matter how you look at it. Blaming Walker and Jaric for such a small lead(3pts) being blown at the start of the 4th quarter is the sign of someone looking for a scapegoat for our team's loss. Did you forget that the Wolves were in it until the final buzzer sounded?

You can say you don't like Walker and/Or Jaric which is fine. But be realistic when you blame them for a loss that could've easily been a win had certain other factors went the T-Wolves way(lack of Free Throws, bad transition 'D', etc.).