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Preview: Timberwolves Host Nuggets

December 12, 2012 by

Coming off of four days of rest, the Minnesota Timberwolves will host the Denver Nuggets Wednesday night and they may see a familiar face return to the lineup. Ricky Rubio, who was edging to return to game action for last Friday’s game against Cleveland, has practiced with no restrictions for the past two weeks and feels ready to give it a go.

Regardless of how Ricky feels, the decision to play the fan favorite will ultimately come down to the Timberwolves coaching staff and management, who may not want to risk aggravating Rubio’s recovering knee. When asked about when he thinks the Spaniard will be ready, head coach Rick Adelman responded:

“He could go out and play some right now, but is that the smart thing to do?” Adelman said. “I’d like to see him where he’s ready to go and right now I don’t think anybody can gauge that. He seems fine given the injury he had, but you don’t want him to get other injuries by going out too soon and pulling a muscle, doing something like that.”

It is hard to argue with that sort of reasoning. Although everyone, including myself, is anxious to see Rubio back on the floor, there is no shame in waiting until he is 90-95% in order to lessen the chances of further injury. While Minnesotans have witnessed possibly the greatest recovery from a torn ACL in sports history with what Adrian Peterson has done this season, it is difficult to imagine that lightening will strike twice.

The return of Rubio was supposed to – and should have been – the primary storyline for this next week for the team, but Kevin Love had to steal some of the attention. Seemingly out of nowhere, K-Love had some tough things to say about the Timberwolves organization and about his uncertain future with the team in a column by Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports:

“I don’t know who labels people stars, but even [T'wolves owner] Glen Taylor said: I don’t think Kevin Love is a star, because he hasn’t led us to the playoffs,” Love told Yahoo! Sports. “I mean, it’s not like I had much support out there.

“That’s a tough pill to swallow.”

“You walk into the locker room every year, and it’s completely turned over,” Love says. “There’s new guys everywhere. And then it happens again and again. You start to wonder: Is there really a plan here? Is there really any kind of a … plan?”

“I haven’t been in the playoffs yet,” Love says. “I’m looking at my contract in the eye of two years from now, and if I haven’t been to the playoffs – or it’s been one playoff berth – well, it’s going to be tough to say, ‘Oh well, I’m going to stay here and continue to rebuild.’ ”

Well, Love, you got the attention you wanted. One thing – if you are such a professional about everything, then why are you continuously whining to the media about how tough you have it in Minnesota? The last time I checked, you are making maximum contract money and you have a team sitting 8th seed even before the return of arguably the most important player to the team. The thing that bothers me the most about Love’s comments is that he takes little to no personal responsibility for his own faults. For one, this team did not start winning until Rubio got here – and when he got hurt, they went straight back to losing. I do not blame Timberwolves management for saving the 5-year max deal for Ricky, because he is the only player in the last decade who has brought Ws back to the record column.

It is no surprise that Love may very well leave the Wolves for a bigger market, most specifically Los Angeles. For one, the former UCLA star has family and friends there and is exactly the type of personality to be a good fit in that market. With that said, I believe that Love does appreciate living in Minnesota, but is hungering for a championship right now. The problem with that is that Minnesota lacks the ability that so many big market teams have of spending over the salary cap due to luxury tax provisions that can cost a team a lot of money when elevating over the hard cap. For example, the Lakers are spending a shed over $100 million this season pre-tax, while the Wolves sit comfortably at the soft cap of $68 million with so many other cash-strapped teams. That extra $32 million can end up being a Dwight Howard or Dwayne Wade to add to an already talented team, but Minnesota will never be able to experience that. Unless the core of Rubio-Shved-Kirilenko-Love-Pekovic can really grow and elevate itself to elite status, or we will likely watch Love leave via trade or free agency.

Which brings us to tonight. The Pups are set to tip-off around 7:05 at the Target Center, and face a Denver Nuggets squad who came back 18 points to defeat the Wolves the last time they faced off. With or without Ricky, the Wolves will have to lock down on the defensive end and not allow themselves to get dominated on the weakside rebounds like they did the last time they played the Nuggets. It should be a fun one to watch, as the Wolves and Denver seem to always be neck-in-neck.

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Minnesota Timberwolves 91 – Cleveland Cavaliers 73

December 8, 2012 by

Friday night’s game against the Cavs was set up perfectly for the Timberwolves – they had an off night the day before to rest after their quick trip to the East coast.  They also don’t play again until next Wednesday.  Therefore, it was an opportune time to try to get AK47 back on the court to test his back.  The time off after this game was a good reason to keep Ricky Rubio off the court for one more night.  As an aside, I fully expect the Unicorn to be in action next week and the Wolves announcers did virtually nothing to temper those expectations.

The Wolves starting five consisted of Ridnour, Lee, Kirilenko, Love, and Pekovic.  The Cavs opened up with Jeremy Pargo, Boobie Gibson (sorry, had to), Alonzo Gee, Tristan Thompson, and Anderson Varejao.  As expected, the Cavs were without Dion Waiters and Kyrie Irving.  “Supremely overconfident” could be used to best describe how I felt about this game and the Wolves getting the win.

The Mayans might be right because I actually had this one correct.  Less than three minutes into the game and this felt appropriate:

Kevin Love and Luke Ridnour led the way for the Pups with real strong first quarters.  Love finished with 15 points and 4 rebounds, while Luke did a little bit of everything – 4 assists, 3 rebounds, 2 points, and 1 steal.  (Given it is December, here’s the obligatory “and a partridge in a pear tree” wit.)  The Wolves had a nine point lead (25-16) after the quarter and it didn’t really feel that close at all.  The only watch-out worth mentioning is the continuation of sub-par free throw shooting, with the team going 7-11 in the quarter.

At the beginning of the game, Jim Pete offered up his three keys to the game and they all had to do with “2nd” stages; “2nd chance points”, “2nd half performance” and “2nd effort”.  Unfortunately, that second one should or could have said “2nd quarter woes” as the team struggled once again in the quarter.  The Cavs were able to cut the lead to a single point about half way through the quarter.  Going into a timeout, it was time for Adelman to bring back a few starters as the second unit was not working, putting up only 2 points in the quarter with several minutes already gone by.

After the Cavs tied the game at 35, the Pups woke up and finished the quarter on a 9-2 run to go into the half with a 44-37 lead.  Thank goodness for Kevin Love and his 20 points because no one else on the Wolves was scoring.  The second leading scorer for the team at the half was Ridnour with 6 points.

Here are a few halftime thoughts through my Wolves lens:

  • Pekovic and Varejao were both scoreless in the half.  That deserves a kudos to both guys’ efforts on the defensive end
  • Paging healthy wings … the Pups were 1-11 from three point range in the half
  • Paging a FT consultant to come into practice over the weekend; the Wolves were 13-19 in the half.  They continue to get there but continue to struggle from the line
  • Alonzo Gee had 8 points at the half but was a -9 in +/- for the half and did virtually nothing else on the court.  However, he’s the biggest call-out for the Cavs at half time.  This is going to be another tough sports season for Cleveland

The Wolves built their lead going into the first time out of the 3rd quarter, finally getting to the fifty point mark, while still holding the Cavs to under forty points.  Luke Ridnour continued to impress with a few assists that gave AK47 a few easy buckets in the early minutes.  This was just as much about Kirilenko’s ability to see the court and be in the right spot at the right time.

Aside from when the Wolves were running in transition, it was surprising at how little they went into the paint to feed Kevin Love.  They tried to feed Pekovic quite a bit, but it wasn’t working against Varejao.  Conversely, Love owned Tristan Thompson when given the opportunity to post up.  This really could have and should have been a set play every trip down the floor when they ran the half court offense.

At the end of the 3rd, the Wolves maintained their nine point lead, 66-57.  This wasn’t exactly a free flowing, offensive game by any stretch of the imagination.  The Cavs were shooting 34% from the field, while the Wolves were at a 42% clip.  Love already collected his double-double for the evening with a quarter to go, finishing the 3rd with 30 & 10.  The only Cavs player worth noting (sorry Cleveland fans) was Alonzo Gee, who had several highlight reel dunks in the quarter and leading the Cavs with 16 points.

The 4th quarter got a little interesting as the Cavs cut the lead to just six points.  However, similar to every other run that was made the Pups were able to answer with their own small run to increase the lead to right around double digits.  As the quarter wore on, the Cavs wore down.  The Wolves built the lead thanks to … well, frankly, the same players that you’ve read about multiple times throughout this summary + JJ Barea.

I don’t have evidence of this, but I feel like JJ plays under more control when he’s on the floor with AK47.  This may just be Kirilenko’s overall presence on the game and the team.  He simply makes the game look easy and makes everyone else look that much better.  AK’s final line of the night is quite impressive: 8 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists, 4 steals, and 3 blocks.  Seriously?

The final score of the game was 91-73 with the Wolves continuing to run away with the game as the minutes wound down in the final quarter.  This was a good team win against a team that the Pups should beat and need to beat if they have playoff aspirations.

Three Stars of the Game:

  1. Kevin Love
  2. Andrei Kirilenko
  3. Luke Ridnour
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Preview: T’wolves at Celtics

December 5, 2012 by

Setting the stage

Photo Credit: Hoopedia

The T’wolves come into Wednesday’s game with a little bit of momentum, having won their last two games, including last night’s blowout in Philadelphia.  The ease of last night’s win allowed Coach Adelman to limit the amount of minutes Kevin Love and other starters had to endure and potentially leaves them with a bit more bounce in their step for tonight’s match-up in Boston.

Minnesota continues to play very strong team defense and is currently ranked fourth in the league in points allowed per game (92.3).  The team showed some life last night on the offensive end finally, putting up 105 points – which included 65 by halftime from the regular rotation.  Hopefully, some of that performance carries over to the TD Garden this evening; most specifically the performance the team received from Josh Howard last night (16 & 10) as he will match-up with Pierce on the floor given Andrei Kirilenko’s continued absence.

The bad news for the Pups is that Rajon Rondo returns from his two game suspension and is “probably” ready to get back into the action.  As their record suggests (9-8), the Celtics have been pretty average so far this season.  They come into the game 15th in the league in scoring at 97.5 ppg.  Somewhat surprisingly, the team is playing average to below average defense, allowing 97.9 ppg which is good for 17th in the league.  An area we can expect the Twolves to exploit tonight against the Celtics is on the boards, as our opponent comes in dead last in the league at 37.4 rpg.

I’ve gone far enough without mentioning that this is one of two times each season that the Twolves and their fans get to see KG up close and in direct competition with his former team.  I don’t think we need to go down the accolades.  In fact, I’m a little perturbed to the fact that when you now search for Kevin Garnett on Google Images, the first three pages has him wearing a Celtics uniform.  It will be good to see KG on the floor playing his former team once again and maybe we’ll get to see/hear a profanity laced tirade directed at one of the current Pups (Stiemsma is the odds on favorite here, right?).

Player to watch

Rajon Rondo – As mentioned earlier, Rondo is probably chomping at the bit to get back onto the court following his suspension.  What better way for a speedy PG to get readjusted than to face one of the weaker defensive teams in the league at PG.  Ridnour will likely get the start, but you can see how and why it makes sense to see JJ Barea playing extended minutes tonight to try and contain Rondo.  Rajon leads the league in assists per game with a 12.9 average, while also averaging the same in points.

Match-up to watch

Love vs. KG.  While KG has been playing Center for the Celtics, I can’t imagine that Doc Rivers will have him guarding Pekovic when Brandon Bass is on the floor with him.  The past superstar vs. the present.  Love comes into the game dominating the boards since his return (14.6 rpg), while KG is only averaging 7.4 rpg.  To be fair, Doc Rivers is limiting KG’s minutes as best he can early on this season, playing him under 30 mpg.  It will be interesting to see these two match-up again and who will come out on top.

Predictions

We’ll see if the Twolves can win back to back games on the East coast.  This will be a tough test however, as the Celtics come into the game with a few days rest having not played since this past Saturday.

Final score prediction: Boston 91, ‘Sota 86

Three stars of the game predictions:

  1. Rajon Rondo
  2. Kevin Love
  3. Paul Pierce

Let’s go Wolves!

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Preview: Timberwolves Begin Two Game Road Trip Against 76ers

December 4, 2012 by

Timberpups Game Preview

Evan Turner was once the Timberwolves most coveted player on 2010 NBA Draft night.

The 7-8 Minnesota Timberwolves will begin a two-game road trip against the 10-7 Philadelphia 76ers tonight, and will not yet witness Ricky Rubio’s highly anticipated season debut for at least two games. Although cleared to play, Rubio has had less than a full week of practice time as he returns from a torn ACL suffered in March.

The 76ers are 3-1 in their past four games led by up-and-comers Jrue Holiday and Thaddeus Young, and have played well as a team despite the highly-publicized absence of offseason acquisition Andrew Bynum. Bynum has been unable to play this season due to recurring knee problems, and recently gained negative publicity for injuring his knee bowling (yes, bowling). Last season’s Western Conference All-Star starting center remains without a timetable for return, and it appears that the gamble that Philly made by giving up All-Star Andre Igoudala and promising young prospects Nikola Vucevic and Moe Harkless may have been a bad one.

The Wolves will once again be without starting SF Andrei Kirilenko, which will mark the third straight game the oft-injured forward will miss due to back spasms. On the court Kirilenko has been everything Minnesota expected and more, and the Pups will greatly miss his defense in what could have been a favorable matchup against fellow tweener-forward Thaddeus Young.

Not too long ago, the Wolves drew the 4th overall selection in the 2010 NBA Draft and witnessed coveted prospect Evan Turner go to the 76ers second overall while the Timberwolves were left with the scraps that turned out to be mega draft-bust Wesley Johnson. Nearly two years later, Johnson is already off the Wolves team riding the bench in Phoenix, while Turner has continued to show glimpses of becoming a nice piece to a young and talented 76ers core. While inconsistent at times, Turner is beginning to find his groove averaging 14.1 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 4.1 assists in nearly 35 minutes per game. With Igoudala gone, the 6-foot-7 SG was called on to take on much increased responsibility and production, and he has done that so far this season.

The Pups will need to rely heavily on the services of Kevin Love and Nikola Pekovic if they are to take one in Philly. The strength and grit of the Timberwolves frontcourt is clearly the team’s competitive advantage, as they are able to establish inside position and attack the offensive boards as well as any PF-C combination in the NBA. When considering how poorly the Wolves have shot from outside this season, they are a much more efficient team offensively when running the offense through the post and kicking out when faced with double-teams.

The game kicks off at 6:00 PM and will be broadcasted on local TV. Here is my prediction for the Three Stars of the Game:

  1. Kevin Love
  2. Nikola Pekovic
  3. Jrue Holiday
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Minnesota Timberwolves 95 – Milwaukee Bucks 85

December 1, 2012 by

Jim Mone – Associated Press

Tonight’s game from the Target Center featured two of the colder teams in the league.  I don’t mean the weather in their hometowns, but how they were playing coming into the game.  Both teams have been struggling to win games more recently and both teams have been woeful in their respective three point shooting – percentage wise, the worst two teams in the league.

Earlier in the day the Wolves announced that Andrei Kirilenko was going to miss another game due to his back spasms.  As if that weren’t enough, the team also announced that Kevin Love would be a game time decision due to food poisoning.  Love decided to give it a go and the Pups opened up the game with Ridnour, Barea, Howard, Love, and Pekovic.  Barea got the nod tonight over Malcolm Lee in an effort to better match up with the Bucks’ backcourt of Jennings and Ellis.  After ruining 40% of the following sentence, Milwaukee opened up with Brandon Jennings, Monta Ellis, Tobias Harris, John Henson, and Samuel Dalembert.

Early on, both teams looked good on the offensive end of the floor and/or woeful on the defensive side.  John Henson had three offensive rebounds and tip-ins in the first three minutes of the game, largely out-jumping Love on the board.  However, Love had his jumper going, hitting his first two shots, including one from beyond the arc.

A very entertaining 1st quarter ended with the Bucks leading 30-29.  Pekovic had a monster quarter for the Wolves with 12 & 8 playing the entire twelve minutes.  Had I written a summary after the first six minutes, I would have said JJ Barea had a nice quarter, as he had 4 quick assists earlier in the quarter.  However, as soon as Ridnour went to the bench and Barea moved over to PG, he morphed into “pound the ball on the floor and then do something annoying” JJ Barea.  Probably not to anyone’s surprise, the Bucks backcourt combined for 14 points in the quarter.  Also worth noting, Larry Sanders finished the quarter with 6 blocks.  Six!  Granted, there was a flurry of activity that led to a few of these, but that is still impressive.

Both teams took a significant step backwards in the first six minutes of the 2nd quarter.  Going into the first timeout of the quarter, the Wolves had retaken the lead 41-38 and it felt like no one had done much of anything positive in twenty minutes (real time).  Minnesota was able to turn it around in the final minutes of the quarter while also holding Milwaukee to 17 points for the quarter.  At the half, the Pups held a 57-47 lead, which included an off balance three at the buzzer by Barea.

Here are a few halftime thoughts through my Wolves lens:

  • After poking fun at John Henson in the game preview, it should have been assumed that he would have a nice half (10 & 7, largely from the 1st quarter though)
  • Derrick Williams had a nice half as well, with 4 points and 5 rebounds
  • The Twolves continue to miss too many FT’s, hitting 11 of 16 in the half
  • Love had a nice half but only played 15 minutes – the food poisoning limiting his time on the court

The Wolves opened up the 3rd quarter with the same starting five that began the game and had two bad offensive sets.  On the first, the ball was swung around and Love missed a three pointer.  On the second, Love threw the ball away.  In fact, Love had a really bad quarter which led to the following perspective:

You may never see that again.  In fact, let’s hope we never see that again.

If the 2nd quarter was slow, the 3rd quarter could be defined as sluggish.  With less than three minutes to go in the quarter, the teams combined for 15 points.  The Wolves went over six minutes without scoring a basket in the quarter.  Thankfully, the Bucks weren’t much better.  At the end of the quarter, the Wolves held a 68-63 lead despite scoring 11 points in the quarter.

The 4th quarter came to a halt when Beno Udrih drove to the lane and fell into the baseline cameras.  Udrih rolled his ankle and to be honest, I gagged a little when the Bucks broadcast put the replay in slow motion.  Hope that isn’t too serious for Beno but it wasn’t pretty.

Alexey Shved played quality minutes in the early stages of the 4th quarter, with good team defense and making a few baskets to help maintain the lead.  The sequence of the game came from JJ Barea with just over three minutes to go.  Love, who had another terrible shooting night, missed a jumper but JJ grabbed the offensive rebound and kicked the ball out.  Seconds later, Barea got the ball back and drove to the basked, hitting a runner in the paint to increase the Wolves lead to 11 points.

The Bucks made a small run with a few minutes left to go in the game to cut the lead to 8 points, but Shved answered the Bucks call again with a 27(-ish) foot dagger with the shot clock running down.  From that point, it was just a matter of semantics.  However, kudos must be given to the Bucks’ Larry Sanders, who scored a garbage bucket with seconds remaining to give himself a triple double, with 10 points, 12 rebounds, and 10 blocks.  Wow!

The final score of the game was 95-85, as the Pups did enough to win in the 2nd half with a few key plays and never giving the Bucks too much momentum or confidence to push themselves over the hump.

Three Stars of the Game:

  1. Nikola Pekovic
  2. Alexey Shved
  3. Larry Sanders

The Twolves are off for the next few days and swing over to the East coast (bias!) for games on Tuesday in Philadelphia and Wednesday in Boston.

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Preview: Minnesota Timberwolves at Los Angeles Clippers

November 28, 2012 by

Setting the stage

The Timberwolves wrap up their four game road trip on Wednesday night in Los Angeles, facing the Clippers.  Also of note for fans, tonight’s game will be broadcast on NBA TV.

The Clippers come into the game off of a home loss against the Hornets on Monday night.  Blake Griffin will look to rebound off an abysmal showing Monday; 1-9 from the field for 4 points and 6 rebounds, before fouling out.  By his standards, Griffin is off to a pretty slow start this season, with both his points and rebounds down for the second consecutive year.  The ‘other’ LA team is actually led by Jamal Crawford’s 18 ppg, but true to form, he is doing very little else for the team aside from scoring.  (To be fair, that is what they need him for and what he was signed to do.)

Despite being coached by Vinny Del Negro, the Clippers are 8-6 on the season and currently tied for 1st place in the Pacific division with the Warriors.  They are putting up 99.5 ppg as a team, good for 8th in the league and holding opponents to 95.6 ppg (12th in the league).  Despite Blake Griffin and the growth of DeAndre Jordan’s game and role on the team, the Clip Joint are 24th in the league in rebounding at 40.4 a game.

The Pups are playing the tail end of a back to back after last night’s much needed win in Sacramento.  The win snapped their five game losing streak and moved the team 6-7 on the year and in a logjam / tie for 9th place in the conference.  Tuesday night’s win was a true team effort, with all five starters in double figures, led by Kevin Love’s 23 point, 24 rebound performance.  That performance was Love’s 16th 20-20 game in his young, but brilliant career.

Coming off the win, the Pups slightly improved their team’s season averages.  While still one of the lower scoring teams in the league (92.1 ppg for 27th place) the team improved to 5th overall defensively, holding opponents to 92.5 ppg so far this season.  The Wolves are 7th in the league in rebounding at 44 per game and will look to exploit their advantages in this area vs. the Clippers tonight to create some easy baskets.

Player to watch

Chris Paul – Prior to joining the Clippers and growing a prima donna attitude, I loved how Chris Paul played the game.  Truth be told, he still plays largely the same way, I just don’t like all of the whining and flopping that he has become accustomed to doing over the course of a game.  So with that prefaced, it will be interesting (and probably painful for Pups fans) to see what Paul does against the Twolves PG’s.  You might see a 20 point, 20 assist game here tonight.  Paul had a rough game last Wednesday against OKC, but I don’t believe the Wolves will be able to march out Thabo Sefolosha to guard him.  Paul’s averaging 16.4 ppg and 9.3 apg and I can’t imagine those numbers dip after tonight’s game.

Match-up to watch

Kevin Love vs. Blake Griffin – Was there any doubt that this would be the match-up selection?  Love comes into his first back-to-back series of games on the season due to his injury and it will be interesting to see how he follows up his monster performance from last night.  Is his conditioning in a good enough place to be able to handle heavy minutes in a back to back?  As mentioned earlier, Griffin’s stats are a little down this year but you know both guys will be ready to showcase their talents and try to stake their claim as the best PF in the league.

Predictions

Final score prediction: Minnesota 99 – Los Angeles 96

Three stars of the game predictions:

  1. Kevin Love
  2. Chris Paul
  3. Josh Howard (break out game alert)

Let’s go Wolves!

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Minnesota Timberwolves 97 – Sacramento Kings 89

November 28, 2012 by

Photo Credit: CSN Bay Area

Entering Tuesday’s matchup in Sacramento, the Minnesota Timberwolves hoped to end a five-game skid on the second to last game of their West Coast road trip. With the help of Kevin Love and his 23 point, 24 rebound performance, the Timberpups did just that defeating the Kings by a score of 97-89.

Feeding off of Love’s energy and physicality in the paint, the rest of the Wolves starting frontcourt – Andrei Kirilenko and Nikola Pekovic – helped to brutalize a less than dominant Sacramento frontcourt. Kirilenko enjoyed his best performance in some time after enduring a slight shooting slump over the past three games. AK-47 finished the night with 14 points (5-12 FG), 6 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 blocks in 41 minutes of action. Kirilenko played tremendous wing defense while creating scoring opportunities from his passing and lane penetration. To put it simply, AK was a perfect complement to both Love and Pek last night.

Pekovic was a game-high +10 on the floor and finished with 16 points (6-13 FG), 8 rebounds, 4 assists, and 1 block in 36 minutes. Pek ran the floor very well in transition and demonstrated his soft hands when catching and scoring quick passes into the post. The frontcourt defense brought by the Kings was very subject, and Pek was able to effectively maneuver past Demarcus Cousins and Jason Thompson fairly easily. Overall, nice game for Nikola.

A much improved game for the Timberwolves starting backcourt, as they too enjoyed softer defense than they had previously been experiencing this season. In 30 minutes of play, Luke Ridnour scored 18 points (8-13 FG) and tallied 5 assists while only turning the ball over twice. Ridnour was a veteran amongst boys when faced up against an immature Kings backcourt, and used his intelligence to effectively dissect the opposing defense while properly identifying when to score one-on-one. Alongside Ridnour in the starting backcourt was Malcolm Lee yet again, who nailed two of his three three-point attempts on his way to 10 points (4-6 FG) in 21 minutes.

Backing up Ridnour and Lee were JJ Barea and Alexey Shved, who were both very effective against an inferior Sacramento second unit. Shved converted 2 of his 5 three-point attempts while also grabbing 2 steals. Barea played a relatively brief 18 minutes but dished out 6 assists while grabbing 4 boards, turning the ball over once.

Derrick Williams received another DNP-CD, and the mystery regarding his future with the club continues to grow. Who could have predicted that the former number-two draft choice could have fallen so far out of favor with head coach Rick Adelman that he would virtually not be receiving any playing time this season. Surely, his trade value has taken a definite hit with the recent events.

As a team, the Pups outrebounded the Kings by a tally of 51-36 led by the frontcourt trio of Love-Pekovic-Kirilenko. Love was the key to the Timberwolves victory, as he was simply relentless in his pursuit of rebounds on the offensive and defensive ends. K-Love went without his protective black glove on his shooting hand, and his 23 points and 24 rebounds were the key to stopping a sensational performance by Tyreke Evans on the other end.

The Pups conclude their road trip in Los Angeles tonight as they face off against the Clippers at 9:30PM CT. Last but not least, here are my three stars of the game (of which I predicted perfectly in the preview):

  1. Kevin Love
  2. Andrei Kirilenko
  3. Tyreke Evans
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