Last night was one of those when despite having paid for a cable subscription, an NBA League Pass subscription, and even Timberwolves season tickets, I was unable to watch the Timberwolves game. Comcast was not showing the game on “FSN Plus,” as was advertised. That is the bad news.
The good news is that by all accounts I missed one of the ugliest games of the season, with two struggling teams trading missed shots for turnovers. The score was 47-33, Advantage Suns, at the half. The Wolves clawed back and forced overtime, eventually missing two buzzer-beater shots, either of which would’ve won the game. (One fadeaway jumper by Ricky, another semi-contested layup by Shved.) The Wolves shot 34.4 percent from the floor. If you take out with Williams and Pekovic front line (combined 39 points) the Wolves shot 27 percent from the floor. Phoenix committed 20 turnovers and is a bad team. So I don’t feel all bad about missing this one. I took the opportunity to listen to the 2nd Half on the Wolves radio feed that League Pass makes available for blacked out games. Alan Horton does a great job.
Anyway, that’s all I can really say about the game, so I’ll continue my world famous Breaks Running Diary.
Halberstam, in describing some of Maurice Lucas’ run-ins with coaches, told of a particularly heated exchange with then coach, now famous broadcaster, Hubie Brown:
That Hubie Brown hated Lucas came as no surprise. There had been one terrible moment when Brown yanked Luke from a game and dressed him down. Luke had walked away and sat down at the end of the bench. Brown had come over and continued the tirade in front of teammates and thousands of fans, voice loud, words harsh, fingers moving. Luke had sat there for a moment and then followed Brown to the team huddle, grabbed him, spun him around, taken him by the jacket and gold him never to talk to him again that way. Never. So it was not surprising that when the [the ABA and NBA] merged in the following year and Hubie Brown, by now coaching at Atlanta, with a chance to pick Maurice Lucas from the dispersal pool, had instead passed on that opportunity and quite gladly traded his rights to Portland.
This is one of countless “Imagine if that happened today!” stories that you read about from the 70’s or even 80’s. (Well, I guess Sprewell/Carlisimo happened, but that was at least behind closed practice doors.) Plus, people of my generation only know Hubie as the friendly, grandpa-type figure who shares his immense hoops knowledge by speaking in the second person. (Right to me!) Imagining him dressing down a once described enforcer is funny.
Punch-Drunk Wolves 
What an awful game. Adelman even pulled Rubio at the end. Not sure if it was because Rubio was tired (played almost the entire 4th quarter) or because the Suns refused to guard Rubio and just defended the pass and Rubio cannot shoot.
I still think this team has a better chance to win with Rubio on the floor, but Shved did get a nice look on his missed layup.
Meanwhile, Wes Johnson had 14 points on 16 shots or something like that. He smiled a lot.
Sounds like Ricky struggled. Since I couldn’t see it, I’ll pretend it didn’t happen.
Timberwolves are a poor team. Therefore, I enjoy the competition when we play the other poor teams, like Phoenix. We had the opportunity to see former Wolves W. Johnson and M. Beasley and can compare them to D. Williams. All three were near-the-top draft picks. Williams is becoming a significant player, better than either Johnson or Beasley. Credit goes to the Wolves.
Funny about Wes, he hit a buzzer beater to force overtime at San Antonio last night, and defended Tony Parker very well as they upset the Spurs. Probably the highlight of his career.