MINNESOTA [31-23] ALL-STAR GAME!

[cklitsie]

Nice dynasty so far, except you gotta start winning lol.

[Kieran]

haha yeah I know, that Stromile Swift buzzer beater was fucking bullshit.
I got beaten in a different dynasty by Danny Fortson in the same fashion

[Kieran]

GAME 8:
WAS @ MIN


WAS 105 - MIN 110

[Boxscore]


POTG - K. GARNETT - 23 pts, 2 ast, 12 reb, 3 stl, 6 blk
(3 POTG so far)

MIN
Points: R. Davis - 26
Assists: K. Garnett / R. Davis / T. Hassell / T. Gugliotta - 2
Rebounds: E. Griffin - 15

WAS
Points: A. Jamison - 24
Assists: G. Arenas - 8
Rebounds: A. Jamison - 14

Recap:
It was looking like another loss for the Timberwolves, struggling early on with a defecit of 13 points staring them in the face as early as the second quarter. It was going to take a big effort to try and top the scoring and offensive vision of Gilbert Arenas and rebounding of Antawn Jamison.
The Timberwolves banded together though and played some smart, tight basketball. The silly shots and wasted opportunities were cut right down as Jaric, Garnett and Davis found their strokes. This was backed up by an increased defensive presence on the inside by Garnett and Griffin, and Hassell and Davis on the outside.
After leveling the scores in the third quarter the Wolves slowly chipped away to increase the defecit point by point, and although they were faced with a tight finished involving many clutch free throws from intentional fouls, were still able to close out this thriller.


Marko Jaric energises the crowd after nailing a 3 to put the Wolves in front.


Eddie Griffin with a put back from one of his many boards.


Kevin Garnett was instrumental in keeping the team ahead in the final stages.


And what would the highlights be without the Davis factor?

[rongotai]

Nice win, Jaric Davis and KG all with big games

[KIG1]

good win now lets get these t-wolves back on track

[Kieran]

Thanks for the comments.
Jaric has been great over the last couple of games, really deserves his spot in the starting lineup.
Good all-round game against the Wizards so hopefully we can turn this into a winning streak.

Team stats and league standings coming soon

[Kieran]

GAME 9:
CHA @ MIN


CHA 115 - MIN 123

[Boxscore]


POTG - K. GARNETT - 32 pts, 2 ast, 14 reb, 2 stl, 4 blk
(4 POTG so far)

MIN
Points: K. Garnett - 32
Assists: R. Davis / T. Hassell - 5
Rebounds: K. Garnett - 14

CHA
Points: B. Knight - 27
Assists: B. Knight - 8
Rebounds: M. Ely - 12

Recap:
The Timberwolves went into this match expecting a shoe-in win. Boy were they in for a shock. The Bobcats came out firing, with Brevin Knight back to his best. His penetration and court vision were problems for the Wolves all night long, as the considerably slower Marko Jaric had trouble keeping up with Knight's quickness on the defensive end. Emeka Okafor, although experiencing foul troubles was equally as dominant when he took the floor.


His inside power play kept the Wolves inside defense on their toes, but it was his counterpart at the other end of the floor, Kevin Garnett who stole the show. Garnett's post play was equally as impressive as Okafor's and helped the Wolves hang on through the 4th quarter and into overtime where they eventually ran out winners by 8 points.



One of Eddie Griffin's 6 blocks.

AND, introducing.....
The
RICKY REEL!
This feature will be present in every game recap from now on, seeings that he always seems to be on the highlight reel for each Wolves game.

[Kieran]

GAME 10:
MIN @ NOK


MIN 114 - NOK 103

[Boxscore]


POTG - K. GARNETT - 21 pts, 3 ast, 16 reb, 2 stl, 3 blk
(5 so far)

MIN
Points: R. Davis - 32
Assists: T. Hassell - 7
Rebounds: K. Garnett - 16

NOK
Points: J. Smith - 26
Assists: C. Paul - 5
Rebounds: B. Bass - 10

Recap:
Coming off a far-too-close home win over the Bobcats, the Timberwolves realised they had to hit their straps and start playing a tighter game of basketball. While it was true that the Hornets are struggling so far this season [3-6] and were missing veteran big man PJ Brown, the Wolves managed to pull together and play a better game than they had been in the last couple. At half time, the match had all the makings of a blowout as the Wolves went into the locker rooms with a 14 point lead with Ricky Davis already on 20 points and Kevin Garnett already having pulled down 12 boards. Minnesota's reserves were given more of a chance to show what they were made of as they kept the lead steady throughout most of the third quarter.
The push was made by the high-flying skills of JR Smith and Desmond Mason and the lead was starting to look threatened before the Wolves' starters were brought back on to close the game out.
The Hornets' injury woes continued when they lost another big man during the game, namely Mamadou N'diaye who went down in the first, returning later in the game, only to be later diagnosed with neck spasms which will keep him out of action for a week or two.


Kevin Garnett takes rookie Brandon Bass to school.


Young project player Ndudi Ebi.. a highflyer in the making?

The Ricky Reel:

Ricky Davis stirs up the home crowd, after sinking 2 consecutive 3's, who had been booing him all game.

[Kieran]

On the 25th of November, the Timberwolves traded Mark Blount and Richie Frahm to the San Antonio Spurs for old T-Wolf Radoslav Nesterovic:


The club were very happy with this trade as they felt they needed a bigger defensive boost off the bench, as this had been a problem so often when Griffin and/or Garnett were off the floor.

We welcome back Rasho Nesterovic to the T-Wolves and give him back his old number 8.

[Malfa]

ehh i dont like it. I think blount is better than rasho and you also had to give u frahm.

[Kieran]

GAME 11:
MIL @ MIN


MIL 113 - MIN 127 in OT

[Boxscore]


POTG - K. GARNETT - 32 pts, 3 ast, 16 reb, 3 stl, 2 blk
(6 so far)

MIN
Points: K. Garnett - 32
Assists: K. Garnett / M. Jaric - 3
Rebounds: K. Garnett - 16

MIL
Points: M. Redd - 35
Assists: T. Ford - 8
Rebounds: A. Bogut - 12

Recap:
The Bucks came to town with a point to prove. They are a young and talented team who are getting better all the time and the Wolves needed to be at their best to win tonight. And they were. Michael Redd's shooting was unstoppable, and the quickness of guard TJ Ford was also hard to counter. Luckily enough it was realised early on the Jaric was too slow to guard Ford and hence this game saw more minutes allocated to just about the only man on the team who could match Ford's quickness, namely Marcus Banks (pictured below).

Banks kept pace well with Ford once he was brought on and will most likely be given the starting spot against the quicker point guards in future.

In a game kept more or less even the whole way along, Minnesota's efforts on the defensive end went into containing the Milwaukee guards, whereas the Bucks were troubled by Timberwolves forward duo Garnett and Ricky Davis. The Bucks gained control in the final quarter and almost had it in the bag, 2 points up with less than 5 seconds to go and a last ditch easy layup to Marcus Banks missing the target. Eddie Griffin was luckily there to scoop up the miss and put it back right before the buzzer to send the game into an overtime that was dominated by the Timberwolves 23-9.

Garnett dominates again.

Rasho Nesterovic with one of his 2 blocks that came within his first 10 seconds back in T'wolves colours.


The Ricky Reel!

[Kieran]

GAME 12:
MIN @ CLE


MIN 121 - CLE 113

[Boxscore]


POTG - R. DAVIS - 27 pts, 4 ast, 6 reb, 1 stl, 0 blk
(1 POTG so far)

MIN
Points: R. Davis - 27
Assists: R. Davis / M. Jaric / M. Banks - 4
Rebounds: K. Garnett - 9

CLE
Points: L. Hughes - 38
Assists: L. Hughes - 5
Rebounds: Z. Ilgauskas - 16

Recap:
This game looked like it might have been the one to snap the 4 game win streak of the Timberwolves, but all were surprised with this one. The visiting Timberwolves were worried about containing the hot hands of Larry Hughes and Lebron James and weren't expecting too much from a game against a very good team at their home court.
The advantage seemed to swing from one team to the other quarter by quarter but Lebron in foul trouble left the weight of the team's offence on guard Larry Hughes who handled it expertly with 38 points and was unlucky to come away without the POTG title. Instead the votes went to Ricky Davis for his first POTG of the season, whose sharp shooting and high-flying spectulars led the team to victory. Kevin Garnett never far behind played strongly in the 4th as he always does, and helped to ensure the win.
The only negative to be taken from this game was a late 4th quarter injury to Ndudi Ebi which turned out to be a sprained ankle which will keep him out of action for 1-2 weeks.



The Hassell Hop! Trenton Hassell with a nice pro-hop through the key to score on Eric Snow

Huge defensive game by Jaric which included 3 blocks.

The Ricky Reel!

[Kieran]

GAME 13:
LAC @ MIN


LAC 102 - MIN 94

[Boxscore]


POTG - E. Brand - 22 pts, 4 ast, 10 reb, 0 stl, 1 blk

MIN
Points: K. Garnett - 25
Assists: T. Hudson - 9
Rebounds: K. Garnett - 12

LAC
Points: C. Mobley - 25
Assists: D. Ewing - 6
Rebounds: E. Brand - 10

Recap:
Simmed game.

[KIG1]

damn ricky showin off

Aye nice dyansty so far and hope for u to get a better record

[twolvesguy]

you gots to start Banks!!

[Kieran]

you gots to start Banks!!

Yeah it's something that's always in the back of my head, but whenever I start thinking about replacing one of the starters, they end up having a good game.
He gets good minutes off the bench at the moment though and I'll definitely be starting him against the quicker guards.

[Kieran]

GAME 14:
MIN @ LAL


MIN 113 - LAL 109

[Boxscore]


POTG - K. GARNETT - 29 pts, 2 ast, 12 reb, 2 stl, 1 blk

MIN
Points: K. Garnett - 29
Assists: R. Davis / M. Banks - 3
Rebounds: K. Garnett - 12

LAL
Points: K. Bryant - 40
Assists: S. Parker - 7
Rebounds: K. Brown - 11

[Marquis]

Great dunks by Davis and good win

[Kieran]

GAME 15:
MIN @ SAC


MIN 106 - SAC 102

[Boxscore]


POTG - K. GARNETT - 24 pts, 1 ast, 10 reb, 3 stl, 1 blk
(8 POTG so far)

MIN
Points: K. Garnett / R. Davis - 24
Assists: T. Hassell / M. Banks - 5
Rebounds: E. Griffin / K. Garnett - 10

SAC
Points: M. Bibby - 31
Assists: M. Bibby - 4
Rebounds: B. Miller - 11


Garnett dominating as always

Reef and Griffin take out a cameraman after Eddie swats one of Reef's attempts in style

Justin Reed is explosive off the bench

The Ricky Reel!

[KIG1]

nice pic with the cameraman

[Kieran]

nice pic with the cameraman

Thanks. Yeah, they get pretty far behind the backboard with those swooping in from behind blocks sometimes!

[HonorGlow]

Looking forward to your first submission after 21 games!

This is a sweet shot:

[TRUball]

Nice screenshots. I really like the 'Ricky Reel' idea.

[Kieran]

Thanks for all the comments guys. I've had less time recently to put into this dynasty. I am just about back on top of things though and there shall be some more submissions soon.

HonorGlow, I look forward immensely to being a part of your project, you'll get the stats as soon as I can rack up 21 games

[Kieran]

GAME 16:
MIN @ UTA


MIN 112 - UTA 100

[Boxscore]


POTG - R.DAVIS - 28 pts, 3 ast, 4 reb, 2 stl, 0 blk
(2 POTG so far)

MIN
Points: R. Davis - 28
Assists: M. Banks - 10
Rebounds: E. Griffin - 13

UTA
Points: C. Boozer - 22
Assists: K. McLeod - 8
Rebounds: C. Boozer - 13

Recap:

Eddie Griffin shows the hot hand, hitting one of his two 3's here.


Ever powerful

The Ricky Reel!

Ricky does his best impression of an Air Jordan pose.