New T-Wolves

I had the chance to watch most of last nights T-Wolves/T-Blazers (why does no one call them that?) (apart from that it sounds lousy, I mean) game, which Portland won by a fairly narrow margin, and so I got to see The Men Formerly In Green in action.

Mark Blount apparently has changed the pronounciation of his name from "Blownt" (rhymes with frown) to "Blunt" (rhymes with doobie). I would think it was misinformed announcers, except that they explicitly discussed the change. Perhaps he's trying to get more of an edge, except that he's done the opposite. Anyhoo, he had a characteristically Blountian game, hitting a few jumpers but disappearing inside in the face of big men like Joel Pryzbilla and Theo Ratliff, who had 8 blocks between them, which was 8 more than Blount. The box score says he grabbed six rebounds, but the only one I recall was off a missed free throw.

Marcus Banks had some electrifying moments taking the ball to the hoop, and put up some good numbers: 30 minutes, 6-10 FG, 3-4 FT, 2 reb, 5 ast, 1 steal, 1 block. Sebastian Telfair had a hard time guarding him. On the other, Telfair was playing in high school last year, and Banks had a hard time guarding Telfair and Steve Blake. For someone so speedy, he kept getting beat off the dribble. As I recall, his steal and block came after he'd been beat, suggesting that he was gambling -- not the instincts on defense I'd like to see. What Banks didn't do was run the game. Towards the middle of the fourth quarter, Garnett had hit something like 12 shots in a row, but Minnesota stopped getting him the ball. I think Banks was running the offense (such as it was) at that point. Maybe he'll never get those point guard skills; on the other hand, that's what I thought about Chauncey Billups.


Ricky was Ricky. He played 38 minutes, second on the team only to Garnett. 7-20 FG, 1-4 3FG, 3 reb, 2 ast, and a quiet 17 points. It's too early to expect him to fit into their offense, whatever it is now, but he was getting his points free-lancing.

Justin Reed had little to show for an aggressive 11 minutes, apart from 3 personal fouls. The announcers suggested that he was trying to become another Ruben Patterson, which is a nice way of putting it.