T-Wolves Booyah, Pacers Almost

     If you ain't believe in these T-Wolves yet, you best hop aboard the bandwagon.
     Playing without four of its best players, Minnesota rode its scintillating Russians, wily coach, and Neon Chase Buddinger to a last-second 96-94 victory Friday night at the rocking Target Center.
     There would have been at least two clinching moments for the Wolves in the endgame had not the gritty Pacers kept on coming back.
     The first came with about 2:30 left on the clock, the score tied at 86-all, my pet Alexey Shved ball in hand, top key left. This slender Russian, a mere five games into his NBA career, put a move on Paul George, took him to the hole, and finger-rolled it in, crashing to the floor in the process. George--probably shamed by the play in which the 6-6, 180-pound Shved took George's 6-8, 220-pound booty to the bucket--then grabbed the ball and inbounded. But Andrei Kirilenko, who never ever stops hustling, got his fingers on George's lazy inbounds pass, corralled it, and flipped it to his countryman Shved who converted another lay-up, his second in five seconds. What excites me so about this simple sequence are a couple things. One, Shved is an ice-cold baller at the end of the game, a guy who's not afraid and has the moves to back it up. He's truly triple threat at this point with his ability to pass, shoot, or drive with equal aplomb. Two, a talented hustler like Kirilenko is as valuable to a ballteam as a smart-passing point guard like Ricky Rubio. The hustle is as contagious as the passing, and I just love it. Third, Shved and Kirilenko are on the exact same exotic page. So... at that point, T-Wolves led 90-86, and I thought, Turning point.
     But then the Pacers come back and we fast forward to under a minute, another big Wolves possession, shot-clock winding down, Luke Ridnour swings it to Neon Chase about 35 feet from the bucket. I'm thinking Neon Chase is going to let fly (and maybe even make it b/c Dude has serious range), but he whips it instead to the corner just inside the three-point line where Dante Cunningham awaits. Now I'm a big fan of Cunningham here in the early going because he's another hustler with a crazy knack for rebounding, D, and getting his hands on the ball. I don't, however, necessarily want him shooting from anywhere closer than about 12 feet--especially at crunchtime. Cunningham's about 20 feet out, but without hesitation, he lets fly. I'm thinking, Nooo! but ball splashes net. A six-point lead for the Wolves with 40 seconds remaining. Should come down to salting 'er away with free throws now.
     Nope. After some juking, George Hill takes it to Neon Chase and gets an And-1 to cut the lead to three. Pekovic misses a wide open lay-up on a sweet (and foreshadowing) pass from Kirilenko with ten seconds left. Hill pulls a double step-back against Cunningham and drills a killer money three-ball to tie the game with 3.8 seconds remaining.
     By the way, the poker game I'm at over at Ace Miller's has slowed to a pause due to the Wolves game--or was it Iron Mike Shores's crazy story of how he, a number of years ago, won Old Dutch potato chips for life with a winning short story in a mail-in contest? Or was it Marten's shimmery, wheaty mustache, a distraction to say the least? Little Guy's big BWCA beard? I'm not sure.
     Now here's where it's nice to have the best coach in the league. You've got no precedent for where the ball should go for the game-winner since we're just into the season and the offensive studs whose hands you might put the ball into normally--Rubio, Love, Roy, Barea--are out with injuries. I was calling for Shved, because he's got that ice running through his veins. Weldon is calling for a touch for Big Pek from behind his big stack of poker chips. But Coach Adelman knows best. He curls Kirilenko off a solid Cunningham pick to receive the inbounds from Ridnour on the right wing, 18 feet out. It's fairly apparent that the play is intended to let Kirilenko find a way to win it, and he does, waiting patiently for Neon Chase to backcut the shit out of an oblivious Gerald Green (he of a former T-Wolves roster spot as a throw in on the KG trade), then hitting Neon with a dart for the winning lay-up. The TC goes wild. The Miller basement erupts in exaltations and high fives. Gametime.
     This is the way the Wolves are gonna make you love 'em this year, folks.