Regular Season Game 51
Timberwolves (25-27) vs. Wizards (29-21)
Verizon Center
7 PM
CSN
The second half begins with a game against Kevin Garnett and the Minnesota Timberwolves tonight.
It's been a strange season for Minnesota. They've basically been the definition of mediocre this year, but still are in 8th place in the West. Dwayne Casey was fired right after the team went on a nice winning streak, and very little has changed. It's a testament to Kevin Garnett that they're even this good. Mark Blount has emerged as a decent player, but Mike James has flopped completely and Randy Foye hasn't been consistent thus far. In fact, the Timberwolves are getting awful production out of their guards. Their point guard and shooting guard positions have a 13.0 and 12.5 PER respectively.
Minnesota is not a bad defensive team, but I'm thinking this is going to be a scoring fest tonight. The Timberwolves struggle against opposing point guards (19.3 average PER against), and the Wizards aren't particularly great against power forwards (17.6 PER against), particularly those like Kevin Garnett. Andray Blatche is going to struggle to defend Garnett and keep him off the glass. Meanwhile, James, Randy Foye, and Marko Jaric won't be able to stop Arenas if he's on.
As an aside, my buddy and I are going to be there in the nosebleed seats (section 418), so if you're there for some reason and feel like making the trek up, you might see me.
Timberwolves blogs: I Heart KG, Wolves Hoops Blog, Wolves Watch, T-Wolves Blog.
Your lines for tonight:
Timberwolves at Wizards: Wizards by 4.5.
Over/Under on Big 2: 49.5 points.
This is an open game thread, so any Kevin McHale and Joe Smith/Marko Jaric/William Avery/Michael Olowokandi/ jokes go here.