Month: December 2012
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[Co-Authored by Andy & Patrick] What a difference a year makes. Last December 31 the Timberwolves were 0-3 and, despite some hugely entertaining early losses to Oklahoma and Miami, not yet familiar with winning basketball since Kevin Garnett’s departure. Now,…
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Okay, folks, the Wolves are winners again. Hallelujah, rejoice. They beat the Phoenix Suns 111-107 last night at home. They did it without Golden Boy Ricky Rubio, about whom I’d written a slurptastic game preview, in which I suggested Rubio…
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The Wolves have lost four of their last five games. They are 3-2 since Ricky Rubio returned from injury. (Ricky sat out against Miami, because it was the second game of a back-to-back.) Rubio’s role is going to get bigger,…
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…in which Andy G and I break down candidates for the Brooklyn Nets’ coaching vacancy. (We don’t see PJ Carlesimo keeping the job either.) Patrick J: Moving the Nets to Brooklyn and aggressively changing the team’s branding and player personnel…
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The Timberwolves are not a bad team. They might even be a pretty good team. ESPN’s Marc Stein’s most-recent rankings slotted them 14th in the league; barely ahead of the middle. John Hollinger’s calculator has them a little bit higher…
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James Harden and the Houston Rockets are in town for a 7 PM tilt against the Wolves at Target Center. The Wolves have lost 3 out of 4 and could use a win. Harden is the main attraction. At 25.7…
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Let’s get the qualifiers out of the way. Coming into yesterday’s matchup with the Knicks at Madison Square Garden, the Timberwolves had a road record of 5-8. At home, the Knicks were 11-2. Though both teams had the previous day…
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Coming off a signature win over the West-leading OKC Thunder, the Wolves take on the East-leading Knicks Sunday afternoon at Madison Square Garden. The 13-11 Wolves will be without Kevin Love, who played one of his best one or two games…
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A difficult but essential responsibility of any basketball coach is to get his or her players to “buy in.” By whatever psychological tactics necessary (with some famous coaches showing little-to-no bounds in their exploration), a coach needs to teach and…
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SIGNATURE WIN OF THE POST-GARNETT ERA — Punch-Drunk Wolves (@PDWolves) December 21, 2012 Last year’s Timberwolves were the first in years to play consistently competitive basketball. Before Ricky Rubio went down with a knee injury the Wolves had a winning…
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When I saw that the Wolves were a 8.5-point dogs, my naive optimism dwindled pretty significantly. Vegas usually knows what’s up. In this case, Ricky Rubio was sitting out. The Wolves were on the tail end of a road back-to-back. …
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Patrick J: How hard do you think AdelKahn is shopping Derrick Williams and change right now for a shooting guard? And, would they do a Beal trade? Would the Wiz? This probably means nothing, but I saw that WaPo picked…
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Tonight’s loss at Orlando had a similar trajectory to those early-season losses that caused so much fan frustration. A double-digit lead was squandered in the second half as missed shots seemed to affect decision-making and effort. With 1:18 to play…
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I’m traveling today, and am writing this from my iPhone. And so to preview tonight’s matchup, that means bullets. So, rat-at-tat-tat. * Orlando *seems like* a bad team. Maybe they are one. But they have upped their record to 10-13…
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Andy and I are still grieving about Newtown, just like most of America. It was awful and shocking and evil. Newtown made me think about selfishness. Why did the attacker have to kill innocent people if he was just going…
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BREAKING: #Twolves @rickyrubio9 takes next step in recovery: officially cleared to play tonight vs Dallas. #ReturnOfRubio — Mark Remme (@MarkRemme) December 15, 2012 It's official: Ricky Rubio IS playing tonight — Jerry Zgoda (@JerryZgoda) December 15, 2012 https://twitter.com/steventurous/status/280006786172473344 Excited to…
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He’s back, folks. (At least that’s what they’re saying.) We all know what that means. There’s no need to overthink it, so no pre-game breakdown today. If you take anything into this one, it’s this: shut down your Internets for a…
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I think there is an old adage in sports that when two teams with the same winning percentage match up, and the home team has had 4 consecutive days off to rest and the away team has played 2 road…