Wolves record: 20-53
A postgame tweet from Brian Cardinal:
I was a witness tonight…
James, a leading candidate for the NBA’s Most Valuable Player Award, matched the Timberwolves with 18 first-quarter points. The Wolves never recovered, losing 107-85. “He was too tough to handle,” said Wolves coach Kevin McHale.
With no one on Minnesota’s squad able to check him inside or out, James put up 25 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists in 33 minutes.
The Wolves’ season to forget rolls on. They’ve dropped seven straight overall, seven straight to the Cavaliers and nine in a row on the road.
From the Associated Press:
The loss extended the Timberwolves’ overall losing streak to seven games and their road skid to nine. Kevin Love and Randy Foye each scored 18 points for the Timberwolves, who have lost 18 of 20…
A game after benching his starting five to begin Wednesday’s game against Philadelphia, McHale started two regulars, Love and Ryan Gomes, along with Collins, Rodney Carney and Kevin Ollie.
The man they call King called Jason Collins’ flagrant foul type 1 on him “borderline dirty” after tonight’s game, a 107-85 Wolves’ loss.
Collins tried to keep James from getting off a shot on a drive down the lane in the third quarter and laid James out flat with an arm and shoulder that hit James high after he split through two other defenders.
“That’s not part of the game, but hard fouls are part of the game,” James said. “I thought it was a little overboard. That was one of the better ones I’ve felt before. I tried to explain to (the officials) that play right there. You can ref how big I am and being able to take that blow. If it was Mo (Williams) or Delonte (West) or Daniel (Gibson) and they take that blow, do they get up and finish the game. Maybe not?”
Kevin McHale said as much:
“If you can sell the foul…Most flagrant fouls, the fall determines whether or not. It looked like he crumbled pretty hard.”
Don’t get me wrong, I am sure it hurt like hell. LeBron’s head whipped back and it was a full arm shot. And sure Collins was trying to send him to the deck, he was angry about LeBron throwing him to the floor in the first half and he didn’t want to see him dunk.
Until then, the evening’s only real drama was waiting to see how James tweaked the team’s pregame introductions. James’ camera idea has started something: Phoenix’s Shaquille O’Neal responded with a bowling bit in which he pretends to roll a bowl down the court toward teammates standing in a pin formation. Everyone falls except for the guy in the middle, who after a pause wobbles left and then right before falling on top of the other pins.
James admires Shaq’s version, but says you can never surpass a brilliant original idea.
“A couple of our guys wanted to know if they could get involved in the picture,” McHale said. “I told them to go ahead, but I’d be a lot more impressed if they ran down there and bowled them over, like a flying body block. The photo would be looked upon as nice. The body block, there’d be suspensions. I liked the league a little better when the body block was looked upon as nice.”
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
