Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages: the NBA proudly brings to you tonight’s heavyweight championship live on pay per view.  Kevin Garnett/Carmela Anthony. Mike James/Earl Boykins.  Randy Foye/and um… Yakhouba Diawara???  It’s the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Denver Nuggets squaring off in their first meeting of the 2006-2007 NBA Season!

Sometimes a game is more than just a game.  Sometimes a game is personal. 

The Wolves 112-109 victory over the Denver Nuggest last night was just that.  In all of professional sports, there is no team that I detest as much as the Nuggets.  And since they happen to be the division rivals with the Timberwolves, that just makes every one of their four regular season match-up that much more important and intense.  While the NBA’s new zero-tolerance policy went a long way towards making this particular match-up less violent than usual, last night’s game was one of the best between these two enemies.  (The fact that the Wolves won probably has a lot to do with that, but it was still a good game regardless.)

The Bad:

It was the tail end of back-to-back road games, one night after an extremely hard-fought and emotional battle in Denver. So the fact that the obvioiusly fatigued Timberwolves squandered a large lead and fell to the Blazers on a three-pointer in the games final seconds, should be somewhat excusable.

Except that this season, there are no excuses.

Note: This article appears on The Minnesota Timberwolves Den at DeROK.Net

As incredibly pumped as I was about the Minnesota Timberwolves’ first two victories, I couldn’t shake one thought that kept rattling around in my head:  We were a Craig Smith away from being 0-2.

Five games into the Timberwolves season, things aren’t quite as good as we’d all hoped.  Sure, the first two game were amazing, but who gets in trouble on the first day of school?  The Wolves behavior has been less than stellar over their three-game skid.  And that means it’s time for every kid’s worst fear: The note home…

I made it a personal point to keep this blog professional.  I didn’t want this site to turn into a Timberwolves-bashing fest like most other Wolves sites.  But after the performance the Wolves put on last night against the Magic, I’m temporarily lifting the rule.  They don’t deserve the protection - not when you get completely outclassed at home in a deadly important game.  They earned whatever verbal licks they’re going to take, and I have absolutely no qualms about treating this team like a pinata. 

Note:  This article appears on www.derok.net/wolves/

As a medical student, I’m well versed in “The Five Stages of Grief”.  It’s an important concept to understand when you’re dealing with people who are coping with extremely difficult circumstances on a daily basis.  And while the current circumstances that Timberwolves fans are facing are nowhere near as serious as cancer or some other debilitating illness, we are still struggling to come to grips with the fact we may be losing someone we love very soon.