matt weighs in

I am pretty excited, just like others, for the NBA Finals, which begin tonight. I watched the Celtics or the Lakers play in and win just about every Finals throughout the 1980s, before turning the keys to the championship parade over to a certain team from Chicago in the 1990s. Multiple Hall of Famers playing basketball, the game I like the most, at the highest level possible? Sign me up for a seven-game series, please.

My quick take is that the Celtics should win the NBA Championship over the Lakers in six or seven games. The Lakers are very good at home, so will win at least two games in Staple Center, but I think the Celtics steal either game one or two in LA, eventually clinching it at home in game six or somehow winning game seven on the road.

I know it isn’t a popular prediction, that the Celtics can win game seven on the road, with Kobe Bryant trying to cement his legacy as a top-10 player of all-time, but either Ray Allen or Paul Pierce will have just enough to get it done. Kevin Garnett will match up just fine with Lamar Odom or Pau Gasol in the post, and the Celtics need just enough solid defense from Perkins to make it difficult for the Lakers big men to get comfortable in the block.

I do think that the Lakers length can give the Celtics fits, especially when Rajon Rondo attempts to get to the basket or when they close out on Allen. However, Rondo has become a master at the floater in the lane or going up-and-under after getting the defender in the air. And Allen…well, you don’t become one of the top-five pure shooters in NBA history without knowing how to get your shot off. No matter the angle, he’s always squared up to shoot.

Game one will be a nice gauge to see if the Celtics old legs are fresh for a killer series. Rondo will have to be on top of his game to handle the multiple defenders Phil Jackson will throw at him throughout the game. I think Kobe gets his points, 26-32, but the Celtics defense should bother the other guys just enough to stay in it.

In the end, the Celtics certain Hall of Famers, Garnett and Allen, along with the probable HOFer Pierce, should raise their second NBA Championship banner in three years, defeating the Lakers certain HOFers, Kobe and Coach Jackson. And I will enjoy every trip down memory lane to those 1980’s series that ABC will throw at us over the next couple weeks.

I do love this game.

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One paragraph on the blown call by umpire Jim Joyce at the end of the Tigers-Indians game Wednesday night, denying Armando Galarraga the 21st perfect game in MLB history:
I absolutely hate that this happened. Hate it for Galarraga, for Joyce, for the Tigers team and fans, and for baseball. It was a great story, turned sour. However, I don’t think Joyce should be suspended. He made the mistake, he’s owned up to it, shows he’s tearing himself up for it, and Galarraga has handled it with a class we do not often see from professional players. I’ll add my vote to expanding instant replay and will try to have more on this soon.

The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame held it’s 2009 induction ceremony last Friday, September 14th, honoring Jerry Sloan, John Stockton, C. Vivian Stringer, David Robinson, and Michael Jordan as the 2009 class. Even without Jordan, the great former Chicago Bull, this is one heck of a class, with Robinson probably the headliner. But Jordan was there, and from what I can gather by reading different websites and analysis of the ceremony, he possibly was the only one who gave a speech, and most people were not happy with it. Others thought it was fine.

You probably won’t find many fans these days who wouldn’t call Jordan basketball’s Greatest Of All Time (G.O.A.T). You’ll get some old timers who will throw out Wilt or Russell, but those guys were giants playing in a game of many slow, white men. Looking back on it, they should have dominated, and they did. Their competition didn’t include, as Jordan’s did, so many players who could match up, either with size or quickness or both, and push them on the court. Jordan’s competition included: Magic Johnson, Larry Bird (yes, an athlete), Clyde “the Glide” Drexler, Dominque Wilkins, James Worthy, Joe Dumars, Reggie Miller, Dennis Johnson, Mitch Richmond, and near the end of his career, Kobe Bryant, Ray Allen, and Allen Iverson. These are all great players and competitors, who tried every time they played Jordan to slow him down, but failed.

The theme of Jordan’s Hall of Fame speech was competition, or rather, drawing your competitive fire from any source possible in order to achieve your goals. He told people to find things to continue adding “wood to that fire.”

The first thing people mention after calling Jordan the G.O.A.T is what a competitor he was, not only on the basketball court, but in his personal life. There are many stories, usually involving money and different games, where Jordan relentlessly pushes his opponent to keep playing until Jordan wins. He would practically force guys to stay up late into the night playing cards until he won most or all of his money back. He did the same thing on the golf course. Anything to keep him sharp and on top. And he didn’t know when to turn off his competitiveness, and probably doesn’t know even today.

In his speech, Jordan gave people a little more personal look into some of the moments in his basketball life that drove him to become great. These moments included talking about:
* Leroy Smith, whom he flew to the ceremony, the sophomore chosen over him for the varsity basketball team
* feeling slighted that Dean Smith didn’t include him on the cover of Sports Illustrated when he was a freshman at North Carolina
* the supposed “freeze-out” in the all-star game by the other Eastern Conference starters
* how Pat Riley and his teams always played him the hardest, and
* what might have driven him back to the game in 1994 after his retirement to play baseball (it involves comments made by Bryon Russell, the player for Utah who couldn’t defend Jordan on his final shot of the 1998 NBA Finals).

There are other very candid moments Jordan talks about that you can view in the link I included above. And I have to admit, I enjoyed his speech. I thought that it was refreshing that a player stepped outside the box on speeches and delivered something that really let us into his core as a player and let us see, from him, why he yearned to be the best and not only beat his opponents, but attempt to humiliate them. Most of these speeches follow the same bullet points – talk about the upbringing that grounded them, thank their families, their early coaches, their mom, the people and players that helped them achieve greatness as a professional, and then they’ll finish with some words of wisdom to tell the kids to follow their dreams.

Michael Jordan did all this in his own way, and it was at times funny, at times emotional, but it was all heartfelt. He had tears in his eyes as he stepped on stage, talked kindly about Scottie Pippin (briefly), his family, Phil Jackson, and yes, some of it was cold-blooded, just like he was as a player. He probably could have laid off Jerry Krause, the former Bulls’ General Manager, a little bit, but it would have been superficial of him to disregard their player-management feud in that setting and sugarcoat their relationship over the years. It probably would have been better to not mention Krause at all. If they ever do end their disagreement, it will be face-to-face, not from a stage.

I am really surprised that so many national sports writers reacted negatively to Jordan’s speech. In a nutshell, they wished it followed the clichéd H.O.F speech bullet points. They think that because he was such a competitive player and person for so long, that this stage was his time to be more humble, put all that drove him in his career behind him, and take more time to thank those who helped him achieve all that he did.

Isn’t this what he did? He did thank those people, but did so by telling us his personal stories about how they pushed him throughout his career to get better and play at a level higher than the rest. He had note cards, but appeared to say most of it off the cuff, which might be the reason some have called it rambling and unfocused. I like that he was just up there telling stories, naming names, telling me why he competed like he did, as hard as he did.

The only time he read directly from his notes, and looked the most uncomfortable, was at the end of his speech, when he talked about what the game of basketball has meant to him and how, hopefully, his career has given people the “optimism and desire” to achieve their own goals. Some people are calling Michael Jordan’s speech petty, but I thought he was genuine, his words refreshing, and he gave us a final glimpse at the competitive player he was and the man he is. It is hard to argue with the results.

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To finish this, I have to say that Michael Jordan is my favorite player of all-time, just like many of you. I don’t recall having any other player’s poster up in my room (maybe one Larry Bird one, but it was probably soon covered up by a Jordan poster). One year, I even remember having all Jordan notebooks and folders to take to school for my work.

Here are my two favorite Jordan dunks of his career, one from college, an unexpected windmill on a breakaway, and the other in which he posterizes Patrick Ewing of the Knicks after making an unbelievable move on the baseline to shake two defenders:

(at North Carolina vs. Maryland)

(as a Bull vs. the Knicks. Skip to 1:20, if you prefer)

The NBA Finals start tonight (just about to tip off, in fact) with most people picking the Los Angeles Lakers to beat the Orlando Magic in 5 or 6 games. I can’t disagree. I’ll take the Lakers in 6. The Black Mamba, Kobe Bryant, wants his 4th ring so bad, it appears he’s actually willing to fake enjoying a talk with his teammates to make them feel good (Kobe Doin’ Work) as the season went on.

My predicting mind isn’t that great, as I picked Cleveland and Denver to make the Finals. For the Lakers to beat the Nuggets in 6 and destroy them on their home floor to close it out, really says something about their focus in these playoffs. The Magic shocked me with their play against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Not so impressed with their defense on Lebron James, whose play might have been in the top five playoff performances of all time (Wade, Shaq, MJ, Magic, Russell, West to name a few in the mix).

Nike Lebron needed just one more guy to play consistently, whether it was Big Z, West or Williams, and Cleveland wins in five or six. The other guys only needed to hit open shots and play some defense and they didn’t. They probably should have tried to let Dwight Howard beat them and cover the other guys when they continued to hit three after three after three after three. They didn’t, Mike Brown didn’t call it and here we are with Orlando in the Finals – Disney World vs. Disney Land.

I don’t think the Magic will continue to pull rabbits from their *sses from beyond the arc in the Finals, as I tweeted earlier today. At least not at the clip they have so far in the playoffs. The Lakers should be able to try to play Superman, Dwight Howard, one-on-one with Bynum and stay close to Orlando’s shooters. The Lakers have size, they have athleticism, they have veteran wile, they have home court.

And they have Kobe Bryant. I think he is going to burst if he doesn’t win the title this year, and that will drive him. He wants to leave those Shaq-led teams on the side of the road, as good as they were with him, once and for all. In 2004 and 2008, his team wasn’t the best – Detroit and Boston, respectively, were better and showed it on the court by winning. Not this year. Kobe is the best player. He has the best team. He has home court. And he will win his 4th ring, cementing in the NBA a great legacy he so deeply desires as a top-12 player of all-time.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SISTER! Sure, we’ve both lived 30 years or more (31+ for me), but there are plenty more ahead. Hope you’re looking forward to all your cards from jokester friends saying how old 30 is. It’s not. You’ll do great.

I’m glad I’m in the mood this morning to send birthday wishes. I want the Celtics to win the NBA Finals, so the game on Thursday night was a tale of two emotions for me. It’s a good thing the kids are in bed by the time the games start, because I was cursing very early on, which lasted about an hour-and-a-half. I’m pretty sure it sent Laura to bed early.

However, once again, I found myself standing up in the 4th quarter and hitting my hand on the ceiling when Posey hit that ridiculous three pointer from the corner. Unlike game 3, in which the Lakers won, the Celtics actually made shots down the stretch, matching the Lakers just enough to maintain their lead once they got it.

I think Doc Rivers finally found his offense when he really needs it – KG, Pierce, Allen, Posey and House. There are 3 sharp-shooters, along with Pierce who can shoot from mid-range or drive, and then KG, who can draw attention in the post, and if he has to, find one of the shooters on the outside. Thursday night, he did both in the 4th quarter.

I thought LA found something at the end of game 2, when they pressured the Celtics full-court in the 4th quarter and almost won the game with their own huge comeback. Once the Celtics were making their run in game 4, I don’t recall the Lakers putting the pressure on to help stop the bleeding. Token pressure doesn’t do it, especially if they were shocked from the shot in the mouth they were taking.

I’m still trying to understand how a Phil Jackson coached team let a lead like that slip away. I’m very surprised. Odom was the main reason the Lakers built their big lead. He was playing well for the first time in the series, with 15 points in the 1st half. However, he scored four after that, and he was on the bench for much of the 4th quarter. Some foul problems, but he needed to be on the floor.

A year ago, no one would have thought it, but the Celtics, coached by Doc Rivers, are going to be the 2008 NBA Champions. Doc and Pierce should buy KG and Allen cars.

Welcome back, folks. Been a long time since I rapped at ya. NBA Finals are here, with game 1 about what I thought it would be. Some rustiness from both teams, missed shots that are normally made (I’m looking at you, Kobe), refs making too many calls early on, Celtics defense stifling Kobe’s game, although he did make his teammates look pretty good through three quarters, Pierce and KG showing up at big moments (I loved the two-handed follow-up dunk by KG – I’m serious, I stood up and hit my hand on the ceiling) and, finally, the Celtics pulling out the victory.

I’ve been having a hard time understanding why 75% of the predictions I’ve seen have picked the Lakers to win in 5, 6 or 7 games. This still may happen, but after Kobe, I would take KG over Gasol, Pierce over Odom, Allen over LA’s Euro sharpshooters and the Celtics D over the Lakers O. In the first half, Ray Allen looked like he hadn’t played in months, in that he had great hop in his step, driving to the hoop, good ball-handling and playing decent defense on the other end. This bodes well for the green.

Also, I’ve heard Pierce getting ripped for being carried off the court, riding in a wheelchair and then coming back as though nothing happened. I don’t understand this. Trainers had to be in his ear not to get up, not to do any further damage, telling him to have it checked out in the lockerroom, etc. That he came back doesn’t mean his knee is fine. I doubt he could play today, but I thought it was handled right. No reason to be a hero on this stage. Be safe and move on.

I love that the Celtics and Lakers are playing in the Finals again. I’ve read analysis that this is the greatest rivalry in sports, going back to the 60s (others say it wasn’t a rivalry until 1985, when the Lakers finally beat the Celtics in the Finals) or that it isn’t a rivalry anymore, since they haven’t met in 20+ years and the Celtics have been bad for so long.

We can’t deny the history between the two teams, since they won 8 of 10 titles back in the 80s when Bird and Magic played, but I’m a big believer that rivalries are more for the fans and communities these days, not the players and coaches. In the 80s, it was a great rivalry, in that most of the players from each team played against each other each year for 5+ years. They beat up on each other year after year, playoff after playoff. Now, free-agency and coaches getting fired yearly moves loyalties too soon for rivalries to really set-in for players and coaches.

The media asks the current players about it, and they respect what the two teams playing each other meant in the past, but I need to see what this series brings, what their games next year bring and then have them meet again next year in the Finals to bring this rivalry back to what it was 20 years ago.

With the great players each team has now, there is no reason to believe 2008-2010 can’t be just like 1984-1987, complete with Hall of Fame players and coach, physical play, great performances, and players having their legacy defined by what happens when the Lakers and Celtics meet on the court. The NBA…where history happens.

Laura posted a picture today showing milk in a Grolsch pitcher. We took a morning trip to Target on Saturday. I was rushing to bring groceries into the house, so I could run to work for a few minutes to pick something up and then head with the kids to my brother’s house to hang with family. Key word is “rushing.”

I brought two gallons of milk into the house, one in each hand. I handed them to Laura in the entryway and turned back, really not even checking that she had them. Apparently not.

I was already out the door when there was a shriek from the house. One gallon of milk burst on the hardwood floor. Milk everywhere. Shoes, rugs and kids thrown out of the way.

The beer pitcher is what was left of the carnage. Luckily, it wasn’t the organic whole milk costing $6 that burst. But don’t try using this fact on Laura. We lost her at “rushing.”

I’ve been reading TrueHoop every day as the NBA regular season came to a close and the playoffs continue. Even though I don’t read all the links to what they post – I don’t need to know now who columnists think Miami should draft with their 1st round pick this summer – I like that they mix it up with on-the-court analysis and off-the-court team info (and other basketball stuff, such as this. Look closely at his “My Stats” page).

I’m really hoping for a NBA Finals throwback series – Celtics & Lakers. Since I believe (and try to prove on Sundays) that I can play basketball like I could when I was a kid, I want a series that can take me back to those days, too. If the Celtics don’t lay the hammer down in game 1 of their current series against Cleveland, then my hope will likely fade right along with Kevin Garnett’s NBA legacy – promising throughout, but without a strong finish.

Let’s hope this isn’t the case. I really want KG to lead them to the top.

Okay, I’m back at it. You can stop holding your breath in anticipation now. I hope you have noticed some additions in the sidebar of the main page – Twitter (or tweets), which we love and force ourselves not to update every hour and our Flickr pictures, which we have to do better to update more often. We can even send our tweets by text message, which we did Friday night from Chino Latino in Uptown. You’ve been warned. I’m working on a few other things that may or may not screw up the sight if I mess them up, but I’ll try to keep that to a minimum, or at least contact my friend Dave, who’s recently been experiencing some updating pains. That’s the joy of the interweb.

A few thoughts on a Sunday night to catch up:

1. We could get some closure to the Democratic race on Tuesday. Most polls show Hillary with only a slight edge in Pennsylvania (down from earlier in the month), but nowhere near significant enough to make up much ground in delegates. I didn’t see the most recent debate last week, but most accounts were fairly disgusted with ABC’s lines of questioning. Two different recaps are here and here. I have thoughts on what Obama said at the private fundraiser in San Francisco a couple weeks ago, but he looks to have weathered the ridiculous reactions to it (hint as to how I feel about those reactions).

2. The NCAA basketball tournament was exciting as advertised. I have to admit that I fully jumped on the Davidson bandwagon after they disposed of Georgetown, who, most unfortunately, was my pick to win the whole damn thing. I had G’town in my pool with Laura’s family, who mostly live on the West Coast and had a predictably strong UCLA bias. Congrats to those in Missouri who were biased to Kansas, and, therefore, came out on top in the pool.

3. The NBA playoffs have started, and they are living up to their billing, as expected. I watched about 52 of the 58 minutes in Game 1 between San Antonio and Phoenix. The Suns were ahead most of the game and should have won, but were in foul trouble when it mattered – I’m not a big fan of refs and usually tell whoever will listen that I know I could do better in stripes.

The game was almost unwatchable for two reasons: every ref call was followed by players whining about it (this grows tiresome) and THE PA ANNOUNCER AND THE MUSIC WERE SO LOUD THROUGHOUT THE GAME THAT I ALMOST TURNED DOWN THE SOUND ON THE TV (bet you want to stop reading after I just screamed at you for five seconds). They do this at MN Timberwolves games, too. Music plays while the game is going on, and the game announcer thinks it’s his job to get the crowd going. The game should be exciting enough to keep the fans in it. This was evident during last year’s playoff games between Golden State and Dallas. GS’s crowd was so amped that they drowned out the music. I can’t imagine the next time that might happen at Target Center.

4. Elliot is walking. I can’t tell you the non-stop joy this is to watch him keep his balance on grass, dirt and sand. It’s great comedy, and I may start taking bets with people as to whether or not he can stay on his feet for more than five seconds on different terrain. I would take the over every time.

5. I miss Johan.

6. I watched three of the six MN Wild games and listened to two others on the radio. They only led for about four minutes in the six games played (about 380 minutes total), but with my limited hockey knowledge, they controlled play for most of the series. They ran into a Colorado Avalanche team whose goalie won the series for them (you can’t overlook their overall defense, though). I think the Wild were done in by a team that played their game better than they did in the series. The Wild are coached to be defensive minded first and take advantage of opportunities to score when the opponents give it to them. This series they lost, they were the aggressive team the majority of the time, and Colorado scored when they had the chance. Only one goalie was MVP in this series.

I mentioned on the main page that changing the look of catnamedpig.com actually wasn’t as bad an experience as I thought it would be, nor did it take as long. However, there was about an hour where I just stared at the screen, trying to figure out what to do. During this hour, there were 3 lines of error messages on a white screen where our website should have been. This is what prompted the swearing to Laura.

I had deleted a bunch of old files that were going to be replaced (which is what my Support Forums suggested to do, as not all files would overwrite correctly). What I didn’t realize was how much harder it would be to upload the new files to our new theme template. I thought I could just upload the files in their folders, but this was not the case.

I had to remember which folders and files I had deleted and then upload the new folders or files to their correct locations in the new theme template, which was my problem. My handwritten notes should have been sufficient for me to recall where files went, but if you’ve seen my handwriting before, you’d understand the flaw in me trying to follow what I had written. I’m a typer, not a writer.

Thanks to those of you who commented or e-mailed us with fixes that needed to be made. Upcoming additions God-willing to the site are a widget in the sidebar linking to our Flickr account (catnamedpig), an expansion in the number of categories we have, so posts can actually be sorted together (is that an oxymoron?) and, possibly, getting me my own URL on this site, instead of a Page, which is an absolute b*tch in which to write. I won’t get into that here.

Finally, sports talk – I love all the activity in the NBA before the trade deadline. The West is now even more loaded, and I’m not so sure the Celtics will be the team to come from the East. My prediction now would be Lakers-Cavs. More to come on this.

I was moaning and groaning a month ago about election season and how I really didn’t want it to be here, how I couldn’t believe we had been hearing from candidates for over a year now and how the primaries and caucuses shouldn’t happen until closer to spring. I don’t think I’ve changed my mind much on this; however, I am very, very excited about the Democratic candidates and am having a hard time deciding who I whole-heartedly support (maybe I need Bush to come be my “decider”).

Sure, I placed a vote at the MN caucus on Tuesday night, but was it for who I really believe in? Should I support the candidate who has pretty much started a movement across the country and has songs inspired by his speeches? Or do I support the candidate who knows exactly what she’ll do from day one and won’t waste any time if she steps into the White House on January 20, 2009?

According to the Presidential-match survey I took later on caucus night, I probably wrote down the wrong name. But I don’t feel bad at this point, because I know I will be supporting either the first female or first African-American President of the United States come election time in November.

Damn, that feels good to write.

Other thoughts…

It’s a good thing Laura planned an awesome 31st birthday for me last week. I had been bummed leading up to it, because the Johan Santana trade finally went through. You know how I feel about this. I could not feel more terrible about the Twins upcoming season. The only 2 things I’m seriously looking forward to are seeing if Liriano will be the same as he was before and knowing that I’ll ride the light rail to the Metrodome to watch a game, which will make Siena and Elliot very happy (and me).

Next, the Super Bowl…that freaking Super Bowl. Eli Manning – Super Bowl MVP, Super Bowl-winning quarterback. Patriots not coming up with one stop in the 4th quarter when they needed it. 3rd and 11 – 1st down. And most unbelievable of all…The Great Escape, as I call it. 3rd and 5, 2 defensive hands on his jersey, he spins away, heaves it just to get rid of it and a guy with 7 catches all year (7, right?) pins the freaking ball to his helmet as he’s falling to the ground AND HANGS ON while a guy is punching at the ball, his helmet and him. No way the Giants should have won that game. No way they should have even had a chance to win that game. No way the Patriots should have come out as conservative as they did to begin the game and NO WAY SHOULD ELI MANNING EVER BE SUPER BOWL MVP OVER TOM BRADY, RANDY MOSS, BILL BELICHECK AND THE PATRIOTS DYNASTY.

If I was a betting man, I would have been taken to the cleaners. I chastised everyone who picked the Giants leading up to the game. I still think it was a bad bet to make, but you can’t argue with the results. If you took the Giants, you shouldn’t have, but enjoy your filet mignon, nice bottle of wine and bippity-boppity-bacon wrapped shrimp you can buy with your winnings.

Finally, KG (may) come to town on Friday. Doesn’t look like he’ll play, but I hope the Timberwolves still do some sort of video tribute to him before the game or halftime.

He put this franchise on his shoulders for 11 years and despite managements’ mis-management of the team, took them to the playoffs more times than they should have gone and played with anybody they asked him to play with. He put up hall-of-fame numbers while making hall-of-fame money.

He was worth every penny.

Thanks to ticket-hookups from friends, I was able to check out the Minnesota Wild and the Minnesota Timberwolves in person over the last week. We had really good seats for the Wild (club level), even though there isn’t a bad seat in the place, and decent seats for the Wolves (center court, 1st row of upper level). As much as I love basketball, catching a hockey game at the X is a great sporting experience.

Growing up in small-town southern Minnesota, I followed in my dad’s and brothers’ footsteps and loved basketball – played it in our driveway, even in the snow, played it by myself in the high school gym at 10pm and played it in Ween’s hayloft when it was snowing at 10pm. I prefer to watch college and pro b-ball, rather than hockey, on TV, but it’s the exact opposite in person, and really, it’s not even close.

The Wild had a rematch from their playoff loss in 2007 against Anaheim, so I knew it would be a good game. I don’t follow hockey closely, but I hate Anaheim after the playoff series last year (yes, I think it’s ok to hate sports teams, players and their fans, but it’s not personal, just fun). The playoffs were physical, borderline dirty, throughout, but Anaheim crossed the line for many fans in game 4, when a third guy entered a 2-man fight and helped take the Wild player down to the ice face-first and by throwing knockout punches to a Wild player who avoids fights, for the most part, due to his size.

Sadly, in the game I saw this week, the Wild only mustered about 14 seconds worth of offense and lost 2-4. There was still bad-blood, as Boogie-man had more than his share of stare downs and shoving matches.

Watching from the Club level was great. Easy to follow the puck, see who is who and possibly the best part, only had a very short distance to walk for more beer, nachos, brats and bathrooms. And, the Wild still have an actual organ player for much of the background music. I loved the experience, even if it was a loss.

The Wolves, on the other hand, played the Suns, which I was really excited about, because I’m a big Steve Nash fan. I’ll admit that I was more into it than I thought I would be – the Wolves are horrible, Target Center is ok as an arena, but not great, and it was the Suns, who should have ran up and down the court against the young Wolves.

However, as it was earlier in the season, the Wolves pulled out a win by feeding the ball to “Big Al” Jefferson all game, and he couldn’t be stopped. Amazingly, too, is that the Wolves actually made some outside shots, which has been a huge plague this year for the whole team. As I said, I was excited about our seats, because usually we’re in the rafters (why pay a lot of money to see half-*ss basketball?). I believe the closer you are to the court for a pro-game, the better the experience and more into it you can get. Pro players just don’t bring out that much excitement in the game, unless your team has a superstar (we miss you KG!) or they go on a huge run to take a big lead or they win a game they really have no business winning.

Maybe the Wolves have made a turn for the better in the last week – wins at Golden State and against the Suns and a narrow loss in Boston to KG’s Celtics Friday night, in a game they should have won. We could not have said this about the Wolves at the turn of the New Year. The young guys appear to be mixing together well, finally, and even though they’ll still end up with a top-5 pick in the 2008 NBA draft, maybe they’ll give us something fun to watch the last couple months of the year, even if we have to watch from the nosebleed seats.