GH And Petey's Timberwolves Blog

Sunday, January 16, 2005

We Did It!

So maybe it was just the Blazers. Maybe it was the same team who lost the previous night to the Hornets despite Stoudemire's 54 points. Maybe it's a team that was missing Zach Randolph, Darius Miles, and Shareef Abur-Raheem. To quote myself from several days ago:
Unfortunately, at this point the Twolves need to stop getting moral victories and start getting actual victories. They need to build big leads and turn them into bigger leads--leads so big that they can't possibly blow them. Instead of me saying "What the Wolves can take from this game is that Troy Hudson played very well", they need me to say"What the Wolves can take from this game is that they won and it's their 7th win in 8 games".
Well, it wasn't their 7th win in 8 games, but it was their second straight. And despite the fact that it was against a crippled Blazers team, it counts the same in the win column as a win against the Spurs.

For the second straight game, Spree had a fantastic night. Throughout his entire career, he's been a streaky player. So far this season we haven't really seen him hit a good streak, but now we finally are.

It couldn't come at a better time either, as we've needed somebody to pick up the slack for Cassell. I can only assume that this means Spree finally figured out how to feed his family on $14.6 million and still have enough left over for rims.

The Wolves D was as good as I've seen it this season as well. Despite the Blazers shooting 50% from three point range, we limited them to only 84 points. The Wolves pretty much forced them to take everything from outside. Of course, their inside game was severely lacking due to the absence of the players mentioned above. Still, our defense was stifling. Especially in the second half, it seemed like everything the Blazers put up was blocked or in danger of being blocked. This improved D could have to do with the new lineups, it could have to do with the fact that Cassell and Kandi are out, or it could just be because we're playing poor offensive teams. I imagine it's some combination of the three, but you know what? I'll take it.

Kandi was suspended for 4 games for his spat with Mr. Hilario. Nene also received a 4 game suspension. I was a bit surprised that they got the same suspensions. 4 games seems appropriate for Kandi, but if he gets 4, then Nene deserves 6. Nene is really the one who initiated the whole thing by head-butting Kandi, and he really did a lot more of the actual fighting when he busted out his windmill style. Kandi really only threw one punch, and frankly, it wasn't even a good punch. I say the Wolves should appeal Nene's suspension and ask that he gets more. Not Kandi though, he got what he deserved.