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2012-2013 Season Wrap-up

Wolves 114, Suns 152

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Wolves record: 14-54



Click here for video of Corey Brewer's dunk on Robin Lopez



Howlin' T-Wolf game recap



The season is fast running out -- well, not nearly fast enough -- but school sure was in Tuesday night during the Timberwolves' astounding 152-114 loss at Phoenix.

Two-time league MVP Steve Nash and his locomotive Suns provided the painful instruction on a night when Nash had 11 of his 14 assists by halftime ... and the Suns already had scored 79 points by then.

That's right:

79 points in a half.

And 152 in a game.

That's the most ever in a first half and in a game against a Timberwolves team, and we're talking about those Isaiah Rider-Tellis Frank-Bob McCann Wolves teams.



Corey Brewer scored 21 for the Timberwolves, who set a franchise record for most points allowed in a game.

"Well, that's certainly what happens when you don't play any defense," Timberwolves coach Kurt Rambis said.



From the opening moments, the Suns played at a dizzying pace that brought back memories of the early days of the Steve Nash era.

They also hit shots, including 15-for-31 from 3-point range.

The result: Their 152 points is an NBA season high for a team.

The Suns' 79-point first half was the NBA's highest scoring first half this season.


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Wolves Updates 3/16

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Click here for the forum's thread for tonight's game at Phoenix

Game previews:



So the team's president of basketball operations decided to take the unorthodox approach in his first season on the job. While most front-office types attend only a handful of road games during the course of the season, he has been a road regular.

The motive, Kahn said, was to join forces with first-year coach Kurt Rambis and his players for a season that all involved knew would test their wills.

"It would have been especially hard on (Rambis), coming from the Lakers (where he was previously an assistant), for me to say to him, 'Now it's time for you to hit the road Kurt. I hope you can deal with it,' and not be there in those difficult moments as well," Kahn said as he sat courtside at Arco Arena before Sunday night's game. "That felt a little selfish to me. I felt that yes, it's not only helpful in terms of being able to build a relationship, but it also demonstrates to him and the whole staff that they're not in this alone."



From Benjamin Polk/City Pages: Ricky Rubio: Looking at a Spanish tapestry



Afterward, Rambis mentioned Damien Wilkins, Ramon Sessions, Ryan Gomes and Wayne Ellington as players who fought and swung all night long.

"Those players, I felt really continued to try to do the right things," Rambis said.

Then he mentioned star center Al Jefferson.

"I thought Al had moments out there, to add him to that group," Rambis said referring to a 22-point, 10-rebound performance that was Jefferson's 31st double-double in 63 games this season. "But my expectation of him is a lot higher than everybody else's, too. He's got to step up and be a leader on this team.

"Even though he's still a relatively young player on this team, he's the one who can have the biggest impact on our team."


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Wolves Updated 3/15

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The Kings passed on Rubio and chose Evans fourth overall in last summer's draft after Blake Griffin, Hasheem Thabeet and James Harden went 1-2-3 respectively.

"Size, length, speed, quickness, strength, those are all assets in this league," Rambis said. "He has all those."

The Wolves then selected Rubio with the fifth pick and Flynn with the sixth. One of the many reasons Flynn plays for the Wolves today is the way he competed against Evans that day last June.

"He was the one guy out there not intimidated by Tyreke physically," Wolves basketball boss David Kahn said.



Now that Target Corp. has put its name on the Twins baseball stadium, you wonder if it will continue with its name on Target Center, with a contract that ends in September of next year. The company pays the Timberwolves $1.25 million a year for the Target Center naming rights, according to Sports Business Daily.

Meanwhile, the Timber-wolves continue to lose and the management has surprised a lot of fans by offering half-price tickets for the 2011 season.

However, the fans are also reacting with purchases: Timberwolves President Chris Wright reports the franchise has sold 625 new season tickets since the Wolves announced the new policy. In fact, in the first two weeks of the new deal, the Wolves have sold more new lower-level tickets than all last year. There is also is a $10 lower-level ticket. The half-price deal is only for this month.

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Wolves 100, Kings 114

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Wolves record: 14-53




Rookie Tyreke Evans had 29 points, 11 assists and nine rebounds to lead the Sacramento Kings to a 114-100 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Sunday night.

Evans, who recorded his first career triple-double Wednesday against Toronto, scored 24 points in the opening half to help Sacramento assume a 64-49 lead. The Kings scored 15 unanswered points in the first five minutes of the third quarter, including 11 from streaky-shooting Donte Greene, to push the lead to 30.



Minnesota's big man Kevin Love, who has averaged 17 points and 14 rebounds in two games against the Kings this season, missed his second consecutive game on Sunday night with a sprained left foot. Darko Milicic did not play due to flu-like symptoms.

Minnesota has now lost nine consecutive games and 15 of its last 16. The current streak is the second longest drought of the season. The club dropped 15 straight games in November.

The Timberwolves shot just 39.6 percent in the first half, a number that would have been far worse had it not been for the 8-for-12 shooting of forward Al Jefferson who finished the half with 18 points.



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Wolves Updates 3/14

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Click here for the forum's thread for tonight's game at Sacramento

Game previews:



Rambis started Hollins in 17 consecutive games before the suspension because, he said, he likes Hollins' energy and willingness and ability to run the floor from a big man's position.

Darko Milicic started in Hollins' absence rather than Kevin Love, who remained on the bench and who tonight is expected to miss his second game in a row because of a sprained foot.

"I'm a long player," Hollins said. "I'm just trying to play hard, whatever it takes. That's not to say I'm a dirty player or anything like that. I might catch a guy with an elbow. It's not intentional. I catch my teammates. It's not like anybody's singled out."



Kevin Love and Al Jefferson -- the team's two best players -- also questioned coach Kurt Rambis's strategies after a loss to the Denver Nuggets earlier this week.

Rambis says his team is just frustrated and needs a win.



From Jerry Zgoda/Star Tribune: Wolves have reason to watch NCAAs
The draft picks

• Timberwolves' pick: Likely will have the second-best chance to win the No. 1 pick or could pick as low as fifth.

• Charlotte's conditional pick: Top 12-protected. Likely will end up being the 15th or 16th pick if the Bobcats maintain one of the final East playoff spots.

• Utah's pick via Philadelphia: The 25th overall selection, if the season ended today.



Big Al came back from his two-game team suspension because of his drunken-driving arrest and delivered in his return a 36-point, 13-rebound game against the Mavericks, the first of two double-doubles in the week's three games.
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Wolves Updates 3/13

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Jefferson, whose 13 points Friday weren't enough to prevent Minnesota from falling for the 14th time in 15 games, hopes to do that with the help of Idan Ravin, a trainer who works with some of the NBA's elite players. Ravin spent much of this homestand meeting the Wolves, at the request of team president for basketball David Kahn, and found Jefferson an especially eager pupil.

"It's not stuff we hadn't been doing. He's just got a real good workout," Jefferson said of Ravin. "I'm looking forward to working with him this offseason. He's going to help me be in absolutely top, top shape."

That's what Kahn had in mind when he asked Ravin, best known for his workouts with Denver's Carmelo Anthony and New Orleans' Chris Paul, to visit Target Center. "I wanted to see what he was about and allow him to familiarize himself with our players," said Kahn, who emphasized that he sees Ravin as a complementary approach to the offseason plans of coach Kurt Rambis. "Our organization in the past hasn't been in the flow with some of these opportunities. We're trying to figure out how to approach (working with their players) this summer with people that we trust, and if this is an opportunity for our players, let's take advantage of it."




Marc Stein/ESPN posts five questions with Jonny Flynn
Q: That seems a little harsh, doesn't it, considering you're running the triangle offense for the first time?

A: It's tough. It's like learning a foreign language. You sit in class and you think you've got it and then there's one verb you left out or something and you pronounce it the wrong way. It's definitely difficult. It's new to all of us, but definitely tough for me because I have to make sure everybody's on the same page.

Q: What kind of grasp do you have on the triangle at this point?

A: I would say I'm at a C right now. ... It's really tough doing something your whole life and then switching. It's been a humbling experience. But I think I'm making strides. There's so many different wrinkles [in the offense]. I don't think we've really even scratched the surface.



From Geoffrey C. Arnold/The Oregonian: NBA: Kevin Love's frustration grows; news, notes and links



We recently sat down with Timberwolves rookie point guard Jonny Flynn to talk about how his life has changed since joining the NBA and it's a story you won't want to miss.



Darko is sticking to his plan of leaving the NBA this summer and returning to play in Europe. The Minnesota Timberwolves have been getting decent play out of Darko – he's averaging 23 minutes a game in his last five games.

The Wolves have said they would be open to re-signing him this summer. Darko says he's thankful for the Wolves' interest and support, but the plan is still to head home to Europe which will likely close the door on Darko Milicic in the NBA.



Of course, there are plenty of veteran basketball decision-makers who don't believe that stats are the only key to success. They'll tell you the difference in winning percentages has less to do with statistical analysis than with statistical freaks. "If you took LeBron off the Cavaliers, you could give them 10,000 number crunchers, and it wouldn't make a difference," says David Kahn, the Minnesota Timberwolves' president of basketball operations.



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Wolves 85, Spurs 103

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Wolves record:14-52




From the Associated Press:
Wayne Ellington scored 17 points for the Timberwolves, who have lost eight in a row and 14 of their last 15 games. They actually held a lead midway through the second quarter, but San Antonio outscored them 26-8 over the next eight minutes to send them hurtling to yet another loss in a season full of them.

"They need a win is what they need," coach Kurt Rambis said. "Guys establish winning attitudes and losing attitudes and right now, our guys feel when things go bad, it's here we go again."



On Friday night, San Antonio didn't wait that long. After a lackadaisical quarter-and-a-half and trailing by six, San Antonio exploded for a 34-10 run. They eventually built a 20-point lead, allowing them to give some of their starters a short night. In particular, DeJuan Blair was the beneficiary of the minutes normally reserved for Tim Duncan.

"It was great to get a short night," Duncan said. "We got [a game] tomorrow and it's good to get a win like this and go back home and gear it up to go again tomorrow."



Kevin Love was a pregame scratch due to a left mid-foot sprain suffered in the loss to Denver on Wednesday night. Ryan Hollins also missed the game after the league handed down a two-game suspension following his altercations with a couple of Mavericks earlier this week. Without both post players, Rambis was forced to place Nathan Jawai and Oleksiy Pecherov on the floor, counteracting San Antonio's frontline.

The Spurs are dealing with their own injury woes with Tony Parker missing at least six weeks after he broke a bone in his hand on March 6. Parker's replacement, George Hill filled in nicely by scoring 19 points and dishing out eight assists for San Antonio. Manu Ginobili contributed seven dimes, focusing on spreading the basketball instead of lighting up the box score.

Small forward Richard Jefferson bounced back from a tough stretch of games with 19 points to improve the Spurs to 38-25 on the season.



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Wolves Updates 3/12

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Click here for the forum's thread for tonight's game against the Spurs


Game previews:



From Benjamin Polk/City Pages: Minnesota Timberwolves scuffle; Denver Nuggets barely notice



From True Hoop: The Timberwolves' long-term approach
Nikola Pekovic, currently playing for Panathinaikos, is part of the sales pitch -- and yet not one current Timberwolf is. Could it be any clearer that this team is positioning itself for the long term?

That kind of thinking has been evident in the coaching, too. In recent days, the team has had private trainer Idan Ravin in to run some special sessions in addition to regular practices and shootarounds. It is yet another break from the norm.

Ravin is the focus of a whole chapter of Chris Ballard's The Art of a Beautiful Game, in which Carmelo Anthony explains why he calls the trainer Crouton: "Because his name rhymes with crouton, and he's a lot cooler than a regular cracker."

Ravin -- who has a reputation both for challenging, and connecting with, players -- took some questions on the phone on Thursday, and says he hopes to inspire the young Timberwolves.




From Matt Moore/Fanhouse: The Empty Optimism of the Minnesota Timberwolves



Hollins insists he's not a "dirty player or anything like that," but he still was given a two-game suspension Wednesday by Stu Jackson, the league's executive vice president of basketball operations, for striking Dallas guard DeShawn Stevenson during Monday night's game at Target Center.

"I understand the suspension," Hollins said after Thursday's practice. "They said my fist was closed when it happened. That's a league rule. I have to learn to control myself better and know what the refs are watching. I know it's a matter of interpretation about what they see."

Hollins is allowed to practice during his suspension, which cost him $53,252 of his $2.183 million salary this season, but he is prohibited from being in the arena for Wolves games. He was at home for Wednesday's loss to Denver and will be again tonight for the Wolves' game against San Antonio at Target Center.



Rambis said he has a "good relationship" with Love, who Rambis said played a season-low number of minutes on Monday because he wasn't playing well (1-for-7 shooting) and didn't match up defensively out on the floor with Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki.

"What player is happy when they come out of the game?" Rambis said. "He wants to play. He wants to play a lot, so he's probably never going to be happy. If he plays 42 minutes, he'll be unhappy that he didn't play six minutes. That's just who he is as an individual. You like players who feel they should be on the court and can help the team win. You don't want players just accepting when they come out."

Love noted after Wednesday's game that his shooting percentage is 42 percent over the past 10 games and attributed it to not knowing when he's going to get the ball in the team's triangle-based offense. "It's OK to be disappointed, it's OK to be unhappy, it's OK to be frustrated," Rambis said. "Those are all natural human emotions. It's how to you deal with them."



From the Timberwolves:
Timberwolves first-round draft pick Ricky Rubio and his Spanish team, Regal F.C. Barcelona, will wrap up the Euroleague Top 16 playoff round by facing Serbian club Partizan Belgrade in a game scheduled to air on NBA TV Saturday (Mar. 13) at 12:00 p.m. Rubio, the fifth overall selection in the 2009 NBA Draft, has appeared in 39 games with a 36-3 Barcelona (ACB/Euroleague). Rubio is averaging 6.4 ppg, 4.8 apg and 1.95 spg in 19.9 mpg and is shooting 38.4% from three-point range and 84.6% from the FT line, with an assist/TO ratio of 2.5-to-1.



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Wolves Updates 3/11

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The NBA this afternoon suspended Timberwolves center Ryan Hollins for two games without pay, starting tonight against Denver, for two incidents in Monday's loss to Dallas.

Stu Jackson suspended him for punching DeShawn Stevenson in the second quarter and striking Dirk Nowitzki in the face late in the game. He received a type 2 flagrant foul for striking Nowitzki and was ejected from the game.



With a 2010 Spanish League championship, Timberwolves first-round draft choice Ricky Rubio and Regal FC Barcelona face 2010 Serbian League champion Partizan Belgrade in the final game of the Euroleague Top 16 playoff round, a game that will air on NBA TV at noon Saturday.


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Wolves 102, Nuggets 110

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Wolves record:14-51




Al Jefferson had 17 points and 10 rebounds for the Timberwolves, who lost their seventh straight game and 13th in the last 14. Minnesota has won once since Feb. 6.

Minnesota led for much of the first three quarters, including 63-55 with under eight minutes left in the third. But the Nuggets responded with a 15-0 run bridging the third and fourth to take control.

Carmelo Anthony added 19 points, but it was the contributions of his supporting cast that proved to be the most important for the short-handed Nuggets.



While Minnesota closed the gap a little in the fourth quarter, a thunderous 360 alley-oop dunk by Smith from Billups with 4:28 to play put an exclamation point on the game and helped Denver avoid a third straight road loss. Denver has won 11 of the last 12 against Minnesota and the Wolves have now dropped seven straight games and seven in a row at home.



He is no longer a starter, and while he insists he doesn't feel like he has been demoted, he also feels less and less certain of his place in the team's offense.

"This offense has been easy to run," Love said Wednesday after the Timberwolves' seventh consecutive loss, "but hard to figure out."

Lots of things were hard for Love to figure out during Denver's 110-102 victory in Target Center -- like the brief stretch where coach Kurt Rambis assigned him to guard Carmelo Anthony, the league's third-leading scorer. "I said, 'Are you sure?'" Love said.

He was, and while the matchup, forced by Denver's decision to play a three-guard lineup, didn't last long, it coincided with the Nuggets' decisive burst of energy.



Darko Milicic replaced Ryan Hollins in the starting lineup when the league handed down a two-game suspension on the big man for the altercations against Dallas on Monday night. In 26 minutes, Milicic attacked the glass with 12 boards and affected countless close looks from the Nuggets. He could not find the range on his jump hook; however, the former No. 2 overall pick added a much-needed defensive presence for the shorthanded Wolves.

Corey Brewer extended his franchise-record streak to 29 consecutive games with at least one three-pointer and scored a team-high 21 points in the defeat. In a backup role, Wayne Ellington relieved Brewer off the bench after missing three consecutive games with an ankle injury. The rookie tallied six points and five boards as Minnesota fell to 14-51 on the season.
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