Wednesday night marked the return of the playoffs to the Twin Cities pro sports scene; so naturally, we made our first appearance of the season at Target Center to watch the woeful Wolves. Huh? That was pretty much the reaction, minus a few [redacted] words, from anyone we came in contact with throughout the day. You’re going where? But hey, our guy Stensation had some very nice tickets (shaky picture above taken from our seats, not long before tipoff, good seats available across the way), so basically for the cost of a couple beverages, we had the the ability to watch Chris Paul’s dynamic playmaking and Tyson Chandler’s approximately 37 alley-oop dunks (final score: New Orleans 122, Wolves 90). We even saw Rashad McCants pass. Maybe even twice. It was glorious. It also wasn’t a very tough ticket to get — something we knew going in and had confirmed when 1) a woman offered to sell us two tickets for $10 right outside Target Center 15 minutes before tipoff and 2) the lower bowl wasn’t exactly spilling over with fans. Seeing as how we’re normally a cheap-seat sitter when going to games just for fun, being among the chosen few was entertaining and interesting. Spotted sitting courtside: Benilde-St. Margaret’s standout Jordan Taylor, who is headed to Wisconsin to play hoops. A gentleman, his wife and her friend sat down in front of us just after the game started. He noticed some members of our party surveying their scene, and he turned and said, “It’s good to be me.” He later tried to buy a drink for a man we are 99.9 percent sure is a prominent local car dealer, but said man was getting set to make a mid-game switch from Target to Xcel — what with the 7 p.m. tipoff and 8 p.m. puck drop, why not hit both? He had the right idea. While our crew honestly had a lot of fun at Target Center, we left in time to catch on TV the second, third and cruel overtime of the game that the vast majority of the state really cared about. Which brings us to today’s questions:

1) What’s the lamest reason you ever missed watching a game you really wanted to watch? (We’re pretty sure we already know Stensation’s answer).

2) If you were us, would you have gone to the Wolves game?

P.S.: Text messages received shortly after Jason Kubel’s slam yesterday broke open the Twins/Sox game: “Kubel just hit a grand slam. My new favorite player? … [Jersey] could be worth money someday?” Not sure if that means Mike has purchased the jersey yet, but we’re optimistic.

Fasola-link! Man loves his Swedish Chef.

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