Sorry for the postgame delay. In full disclosure I kinda sorta forgot to update the blog before leaving Target Center tonight and didn’t realize it until I was screaming down 35W in a nice late-night drizzle. I wish I had a better reason than “I forgot.”  But, alas, here my forgetful self sits at a local establishment with a weak-yet-able wireless signal in the suburbs to rehash yet another forgettable Wolves loss.
Minnesota has lost 10 in a row overall, and 11 straight at Target Center. That’s the most for one single season; the Wolves lost 14 consecutive home games spanning two seasons from April-December 1994.
As coach Kevin McHale put it, tonight’s game was an uphill battle from the start (see: first quarter; Songaila, Darius) and even when it appeared Minnesota was getting some stuff to click, you never really sensed any kind of momentum. All this against a Wizards team that is dead last in the East and is having its own struggles.
And then there’s the whole injury situation from tonight, adding - um - injury to insult. Rodney Carney left the game in the second quarter with a lower body contusion, which is the Wolves fancy way of saying Carney got hit, uh, downstairs. I didn’t see him after the game, but all indications are it wasn’t too serious of an injury.
Unfortunately for Minnesota, the same cannot be said for guard Randy Foye. The Wolves far and away leader since Al Jefferson went down with a season-ending knee injury a month ago, Foye crashed to the court with about five minutes left in the game and immediately grabbed his right leg. The ball never went out of bounds, so play continued down to the Wizards end of the court as Foye lay in pain. Finally Minnesota regained possession and a timeout was called. Foye was immediately helped up and carried into the locker room. He’s been diagnosed with a sprained right ankle.
Some 30 minutes later, when the media was allowed into the locker room, Foye was still walking with the help of a trainer and did not look like he was in good shape at all.
Coincidentally, I wrote an early notebook item titled “Guards all right” referring to the overall health of Sebastian Telfair and Foye, and the need to play through nagging injuries the final 19 games.
Whoopsies.
With little time to rest before Wednesday’s game against Memphis, the Wolves are all of a sudden quite close to seeing a whole lot more of new acquisition Bobby Brown. Because if I had to garner a guess (and this is strictly a guess) I would say Foye is going to be out for a bit.
Jerry is back on tomorrow and I am sure he will give you all the pertinent details about Carney, Foye and the Wolves as they get set for the Grizz. 

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It’s a battle of teams missing their respective stars tonight as the Gilbert Arenas-less Wizards are in town to face the Al Jefferson-free Timberwolves.

Just how mightily have these two teams struggled this season? Their 32 victories combined are fewer than 14 NBA teams have alone, including the Suns who are currently ninth in the Western Conference.

Something’s gotta give, right?

For Minnesota, coach Kevin McHale has elected to go with Kevin Love at center against the Wizards and use Ryan Gomes and Mike Miller at the forward positions. Randy Foye and Sebastian Telfair will be at the starting guard spots.

Other nuggets to note:
-Foye is averaging 21.8 points per game since Al Jefferson was lost for the season to a knee injury a month ago
-Antawn Jamison is averaging 22.7 points and 9.5 rebounds per game since the All-Star break
-Caron Butler is one steal shy of 800 for his career

This entry was posted on Monday, March 9th, 2009 at 5:55 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.