The Thunder moved a half game past the Wolves in the standings, leaving the Wolves with the league’s fifth-worst record and with one more game played than Oklahoma City.
If it all ended today, they’d have an 8.8 percent chance of getting Blake Griffin.
Love’s 23 points and 12 rebounds in Tuesday night’s loss to Dallas gave him double-doubles in back-to-back games and five of the past nine.
One of just two Wolves players, with forward Ryan Gomes, to have played in all 75 games this season, Love said he actually feels pretty fresh.
“I was feeling good in warm-ups tonight,” he said Tuesday. “I got a good warm-up in, got a little bit hot and just came out and hit my first jump shot. I feel great.”
With a rookie-high 25 double-doubles on the season, Love could get some votes for the NBA Rookie of the Year Award, although Chicago’s Derrick Rose is the favorite.
Saturday in Detroit, Ed Pinckney will sit in the stands at Ford Field with the rest of his 1985 Villanova teammates. It won’t all be about nostalgia, even though that championship team, the one that pulled off an upset of Georgetown, which ranks among the greatest championship games ever played, will certainly get plenty of television time.
Pinckney is doubly connected to this Villanova Final Four team, one that will be an underdog against North Carolina Saturday night. The 1985 Final Four MVP was an assistant under Jay Wright from 2003-07. He helped groom Dante Cunningham and Dwayne Anderson, and helped Scottie Reynolds, Shane Clark and Reggie Redding make the transition from understudies to starters.
And now, instead of being only a celebrated fan, he’ll be watching some of his guys try to win another title for Villanova.
“It makes this even sweeter,” said Pinckney, now in his second season as an assistant coach for the NBA’s Timberwolves…
“I couldn’t handle Villanova losing,” Wolves coach Kevin McHale said early in the tournament, “because Eddie Pinckney would go into such depression, it’d take a week just to get him out of it.”
McHale was joking. Sort of.
“I’d like to argue that point, but I can’t,” Pinckney said. “I kind of lose it when they lose. I’m still close to all those guys.”
Close enough that Pinckney will fly from Salt Lake City with the Wolves after Friday night’s game, work Saturday morning’s scheduled practice at Target Center and then fly to Detroit for Villanova’s game that night against North Carolina in the Final Four semifinals.
From Bucks Diary: Kevin Love: the modern day Tom Boerwinkle
Jonah Ballow/Timberwolves site talked to Mavericks owner Mark Cuban about social media and the economy.
Jonah: Have you seen what the Wolves have offered for next season? You can get $5 tickets per game as part of the Early Bird season ticket package.
Mark: That is great, that is awesome. That is the way it should be. We went through a time where people perceived professional sports to be expensive. The reality is…it’s not. The Mavs have done it for a long time, now the Wolves and other teams are showing you that it can be cheaper than going to a movie. Particularly here at the Target Center, because it’s so convenient, so easy and inexpensive to get to and you have a strong downtown area where people can just walk to the games. I think it’s smart, Glen Taylor is a good owner and he knows what he is doing.
ESPN and ABC basketball analyst Steve Lavin will headline the Hy-Vee/Sanford Legends, event officials announced on Tuesday.
Lavin, a former basketball coach at UCLA, is one of 12 sports celebrities who will take part in the series of youth clinics scheduled for June 10-16 in Sioux Falls. He will also emcee the Legends banquet…
Lavin will be joined by Mitchell native and Minnesota Timberwolves player Mike Miller and former Roosevelt and Wisconsin player Joe Krabbenhoft for the basketball clinic.
Alex Raskin/Hoopsworld lists Kevin McHale as a candidate for next season’s coach of the year award.
Kevin McHale – Timberwolves: Who knows if he’ll even be back next year, but his team responded to him when they were healthy. Under McHale, Kevin Love has taken large steps. If Corey Brewer and Al Jefferson come back strong next year, this team could be looking at .500.
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