Timberwolves Fight Hard, Fall 90-79 To Lakers

Rather than regale you with my take on the game, let's kick this off with what Canis Hoopus has to say about tonight's match-up against the Lakers.

Does SB Nation have a WWE blog?  Do I even need to write a game wrap about this one?  Was there any doubt about what would happen? The Lakers slog through the 1st half (hey, there's Joe Smith on the bench!) while complaining non-stop to the refs about the calls and exerting very little to zero effort.  

At the half, Phil Jackson finds time to pick his head up from Jeanie Buss's Twitter feed on his BlackBerry to give a thrilling Gipper-esque speech: "Guys.  For sh%ts sake. Guys."  

How zen. 

The Lakers then come out with no noticeable extra energy but amazingly their tackling defense is tighter and their non-stop bitching aggressiveness pays off with trip after trip after trip to the line. The fans at the Target Center reward the World Champs for their half-assed valiant road effort with an relative smattering avalanche of cheers.  The Laker announcers gush about Minnesota Nice.  

Wes Johnson played his ass off tonight.  On both ends of the court he outplayed the cartoonishly coasting (on everything) Kobe Bryant and he was rewarded with 6 ridiculous foul calls, a smirking Bryant, and a lesson in how the NBA is rigged really works for the wrestlers with the fancy intros big name teams and players. 

Ugh, sometimes I just don't know about this league anymore.  That was a really, really tough game to take seriously, let alone make it all the way through the 2nd half without wanting to go do laundry or wash the dishes.  At least the game finished in time for me to turn off the Twitter feed before the Charlie Sheen nonsense started.

(For the record, SB Nation does, indeed, have a fine WWE blog called Cageside Seats. If you like the wrestling as much as I do, they should be a big part of your internet regimen.)

But the NBA has been like this ever since the Jordan era. Stars get the calls, as they always have, and the little guy gets hosed. The best we can hope for is that the Wolves are on the other side of that equation someday, but I wouldn't hold my breath for it happening any time soon.

Such is life as a Minnesota professional sports team. Most of us are used to this sort of thing by now.