So this is what happens when the Wolves share the ball and Mike Miller shoots at will.

After falling behind in the very early going today, Minnesota eventually built an 18-point lead in the second quarter and never let New Jersey closer than within five en route to a pretty well-balanced nine-point victory.

Mike Miller made eight of 14 shots, the most attempts he’s put up since that game Nov. 28 at Oklahoma City. As a whole, Minnesota had 26 assists on 37 made field goals - including 17 of 21 in the first half.

Off the bench, Rodney Carney was his explosive self, scoring 19 points in 32 minutes.

This looked like a conpletely different Wolves team. In past games, when something like Vince Carter going off for nine straight points to open the third quarter would happen, Minnesota would crumble. Instead, today it seemed like the Wolves said ‘bring it on.’

This is obviously too little too late for this season. But it’s nice to see a team not give up, even though the season is all but over.

———————————————————————– 

Hello from Target Center. This afternoon the Timberwolves return home to take on the New Jersey Nets. Tipoff is about a half hour from now.

Minnesota will be without big forward Craig Smith, who is nursing a sore calf. Too bad for the Rhino, who sits just two points shy of 2,000 for his career. We’re also waiting to see whether or not guard Randy Foye plays. He has been bothered by a sore hip for about six weeks now, and coach Kevin McHale didn’t sound too optimistic about his chances.

This much is for sure: Foye will not start. Here’s who will: Kevin Ollie, Mike Miller, Ryan Gomes, Kevin Love, Jason Collins.

UPDATE: Foye is in street clothes. Will not play today.

Collins, by the way, was more than willing to talk about his flagrant foul on LeBron James the other night during today’s pregame media availability. Collins played in New Jersey for 6+ seasons, so the Nets media here were interested in talking to him anyway. After a few softball questions, one of the East coasters tipped his head to me and said “I think the kid wants to talk with you about LeBron.” Guy must be a mind reader, because he was correct. And Collins obliged.

“Its just one of those plays that happened. I wasn’t going to get dunked on. I was just going to give him a hard foul and wrap him up. But he fell too quickly for me to wrap him up.”

James called the play “borderline dirty.” Mr Collins?

“He;s entitled to his opinion. There was no intent to hurt him. There was just intent to give him a hard foul and wrap him up. I think he understands that.”

Also pregame, a lot of buzz centering around assistant coach Ed Pinckney and his alma mater, Final Four-bound Villanova. He was an assistant there up until 2007, and worked a lot with this year’s seniors. He also played at ‘Nova’s 1985 national championship team. More on that in tomorrow’s paper.

Enjoy the game!

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 29th, 2009 at 1:09 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.