Wolves / NBA

That first half is why KAT will never be a top player in the league…embarrassing.

Winning this game would be huge if for no other reason than they avoid the Suns, who would likely sweep us handily. The Wolves actually fared well against the Grizzlies this season.

Wow. Referees called initially a double technical, one on Beverly and one on Morris. Morris would have been ejected and refs didn't want to eject him so they change the call to just a T on Beverly.

These refs are garbage

Wolves trail by 6 going to the 4th quarter.

Refs have been abysmal but Wolves are 16/25 from the line which is trash.

Towns fouls out going for a rebound. Really soft call but really dumb play by KAT

Lot of questionable or outright obviously bad calls but not the ones against KAT, who then makes it worse by throwing a tantrum like a toddler.

At least 4 of KAT's fouls were just extremely stupid plays.

DLo and Ant Edwards having an incredible 4th quarter

Edwards combination of quickness, speed and power is impressive.

Vanderbilt with fantastic defense on PG13. Wolves can clinch it by making FTs!

PatBev makes 1 of 2 to put the Wolves up 6, then pokes the ball away from Jackson.

I still loathe his flopping but he has been a gigantic addition to this team. Completely changed the attitudes of the guys on this team.

Wolves dominate the 4th quarter (31-20) to advance. #Clutch #WinningTime

How bad did Beverly want to win that game? Wow…

He was requesting a contract extension in summer of 2021 and they apparently offered him an extension that was "borderline disrespectful" (his words). When he realized they weren't going to give him a fair offer he requested a trade. He felt a bit disrespected considering he was one of the foundations that took that team into the Western Conference Finals and then didn't offer him a decent extension.

So I'm thinking this game meant a lot to him.

Wolves were 4-28 this season when trailing entering the 4th quarter. They were down 6 going into the 4th tonight and were dominant.

Watched the 2nd and 3rd quarter… NBA officiating is horse crap. All the more reason I’ll stick to watching college basketball.

I saw something yesterday about coaches who voted for their peers as Coach of the Year. How did Finch not get a single vote with what he’s done this year?

That was fun.

Yeah that seems a bit strange unless maybe there was a nearly unanimous other choice.

The fact that he didn't get a single vote is absurd. But I won't make an argument against what Coach of the Year winner Monty Williams has done with the Suns, especially given the garbage he's had to deal with from Suns owner Robert Sarver.

Only the TV media and local media here could take a fun moment like last night and turn it into a debate and want to crap all over the wolves having some sort of success in, how long?

Baseball players get mugged by their team and the stadium goes nuts over a walk off hit or homerun to win a mid June regular season game.

Agreed. With how abysmal the Wolves franchise has been historically, and everything else that has happened worldwide (let alone locally) the last couple years, last night was a big moment for the Wolves and their fans.

To overcome mostly terrible officiating, their all-star center having one of the worst games of his season AND fouling out with 7.5 minutes left when the team was down by 7 points and to close the game out the way they did? The team earned a celebration last night and they relished the moment celebrating with the fans that have been so desperate to see a Wolves team have success.

I tweeted this last night to a buddy of mine, but last night's game was, IMHO, the biggest game for this franchise since the original KG era where they were routinely getting into the playoffs. Somebody mentioned the game 82 win-and-in game in 2018 with Jimmy Butler, but to me that felt a bit hollow because everyone knew regardless of whether they won that game that they were going to get stomped by Houston in round 1.

To me, the game last night was more important because they avoided the inevitable ass-kicking by the Suns. They match up decently with Memphis and split the season series 2-2 (one OT loss, one loss by 7, while their wins were by 43 and . They have a legitimate chance to win this series and advance to the second round (Shaq and Barkley even picked the Wolves to win the series last night in their postgame).

I must've flipped over to the Twins game for a minute and missed the woman trying to super glue herself to the court during the 2nd quarter.

The Twins champagned showered after earning a Wildcard berth. I see no difference in what the Wolves accomplished last night.

Don't most MLB teams champagne shower after making the playoffs and playoff series win?!?!?!

Yeah, I mean, for some reason it's ok in baseball but Lavelle and TNT just had HUGE problems with the Wolves celebrating last night. I don't get it.

The dumbest part, IMO, about the faux outrage over the celebration last night is that this was the exact type of response/reaction/celebration that the NBA wanted when they decided to keep the play-in tournament around. They wanted another game with a lot on the line, where emotions would run high, etc. They got it last night.

And after the last two years? I say celebrate everything. Celebrate life. Celebrate every milestone. Nothing is promised.

I don’t think they had huge problems with it they were just poking fun.

Wolves new motto in the playoffs should be "we came to party!"

I think I saw 5 or 6 coaches got votes in this particular poll. It was coaches voting for their peers. It wasn’t unanimous but even Popovich got votes.

It is absurd

No, I think Mr. Barkley was serious. Along with a lot of other people.

Chuck is about the only person that takes Chuck seriously.

Lavelle is trolling...he has decided he wants to be the next Souhan I guess and much like Souhan he sucks talking about anything but baseball. He trolls...a lot!

He isn’t that great talking about baseball, either.

A fair critique

(same with Soupcan for that matter)

Warning: he does drop the F bomb twice

https://twitter.com/OldManAndThree/status/1514412423993831425?s=20&t=h0giGiJGNlnwp4KX9EqDQQ

Wolves with a very solid opening game to kick off the playoff series with Memphis.

Are we allowed to be happy about this win? :unsure:

Karl Anthony Towns  and Anthony Edwards both have great games combining for 65 points on 23 of 41 shooting.

KAT + ANT = WIN

Wolves with a very solid opening game to kick off the playoff series with Memphis.

Reading that the Wolves "stole this one" from various sites. I suppose it's considered an upset, but I believe they only trailed for a little over a minute the entire game. Now they get a couple more days off until game 2.

BTW, when I turned the game on, there was an "Experiencing audio difficulty" message in the corner of the screen. After realizing we were listening to Mike Greenberg and Stephen A. Smith, I couldn't have agreed more.  :yes:

KAT and Ant need to capitalize on significant advantages for the Wolves to win the series. Today was a great start. Memphis is a great team but they go as Ja goes. If KAT and Ant play the way they are capable of, the Wolves win this series IMO.

After the Wolves won game 1 MrSmug said on his show that they would sweep Memphis, how does this tool get paid to talk about sports?

Really unpleasant game all the way around for the Wolves. Way too much referee involvement, especially early. Just no flow to the game. 60 FT attempts (33 in the first quarter, which is ridiculous--by comparison there are a combined 28 FTs with 8 minutes left in the Pelicans-Suns game).

Wolves played poorly anyways but to have a whistle every minute (literally 50 foul calls in 48 minutes of game) is just such a brutal game to watch. Wolves couldn't get any offensive flow going at all. The only positive is they made 25/28 FTs.

Ultimately they did what they needed to do in the first two games - got a win and flipped home court to their advantage.

Really unpleasant game all the way around for the Wolves. Way too much referee involvement, especially early. Just no flow to the game. 60 FT attempts (33 in the first quarter, which is ridiculous–by comparison there are a combined 28 FTs with 8 minutes left in the Pelicans-Suns game). Wolves played poorly anyways but to have a whistle every minute (literally 50 foul calls in 48 minutes of game) is just such a brutal game to watch. Wolves couldn’t get any offensive flow going at all. The only positive is they made 25/28 FTs. Ultimately they did what they needed to do in the first two games – got a win and flipped home court to their advantage.

It was a game that reminded me why I don't watch much basketball.

There is nothing in sports more boring than free throws.

You saw last night why many wrote/commented that the Wolves stole game one. We'll see if they have any pushback after getting trounced in games 3 and 4.

You saw last night why many wrote/commented that the Wolves stole game one. We’ll see if they have any pushback after getting trounced in games 3 and 4.

Didn't the teams split during the regular season and don't the Wolves own one of the best records in the entire league since January?

ScoobyDoo wrote:

You saw last night why many wrote/commented that the Wolves stole game one. We’ll see if they have any pushback after getting trounced in games 3 and 4.

Didn’t the teams split during the regular season and don’t the Wolves own one of the best records in the entire league since January?

They did split in the regular season. The Wolves won by 5 and 43, the Grizzlies won by 8 and 7 (in OT).

The Wolves also had one of the best records in the NBA after the first 13 games of the season (they started 4-9 and went 42-27 over the last 69 games of the season). That pace would have been 9th best in the NBA. from January 2nd on, they were 30-16 which was a pace good for 3rd best in the NBA.

There was a great article in The Athletic on the youth of the two teams. This part is apt and kind of what I was referring to. I certainly am not trying to dismiss what the Wolves did this year. The article is from March 3rd.

If the Wolves can get out of the Play-In, fans should be happy to follow in the footsteps of previous good but not very good young teams by having a 4-in-11 chance of winning a first-round matchup. That would have qualified as a great result coming into the season, because whereas Memphis is hoping to make a run now, Minnesota is closer to where Memphis was last season. Still building.

The recent history of young teams with .600-plus winning percentages suggests the Grizzlies can absolutely make a multi-round playoff run this season, and no one should assume otherwise based strictly on their youth or inexperience. Young teams that do as much regular-season winning as Morant and company have also done plenty of damage in the playoffs.

https://theathletic.com/3158663/2022/03/03/are-the-grizzlies-and-timberwolves-too-young-to-make-playoff-runs/