The Minnesota Timberwolves continue their rough stretch of games against the elite teams in the NBA. Tomorrow night’s matchup is no different. The T’Wolves will be going up against the Big Three and Co.: The Miami Heat.
The T’Wolves have now dropped 8-straight games and the schedule won’t be getting any easier as they wind down another season.
The Miami Heat are playoff-bound, while the Wolves sit high in the lottery, however, if the Heat are expecting the Wolves to “roll over & die” they’ve got another thing coming.
The Timberwolves are coming off a blowout loss to the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday: 108-91. It was the first game back for Kevin Love, but it wasn’t enough for the Wolves as they fell to the Best in the East.
The Miami Heat are coming off an embarrassing loss Tuesday night to the NBAs worst team: the Cleveland Cavaliers. It was another return of LeBron James to his former stomping grounds, but the Big Three couldn’t defeat the lowly-Cavs. They played the Washington Wizards, Wednesday night and earned a 123-107 win, lead by James with 35 points, 8 rebounds, 5 steals and 8 assists.
Miami is obviously lead by their “Big Three”: LeBron James, Dwayne Wade & Chris Bosh. I don’t know whether or not the League will be suspending Ilgauskas & Juwan Howard of the Heat after the small “brawl” against the Wizards between Z and Wall as well as Howard and McGee. The Timberwolves will have to match up: Ridnour/Bibby, Wes/Wade, Beasley/LeBron, Love/Bosh, Darko/Dampier.
The Timberwolves will need big performances from Beasley & Love if they want to keep this one close and if Wes Johnson can step up his game like he did a week or so ago against the Lakers and Randolph can bring energy and points off the bench, they could steal a win from a very solid ball club.
The biggest issue for the Timberwolves will be matching up with that Big Three. Johnson is just a rookie and not a sensational defender, which you have to be if you’re going to stop D-Wade. Beasley is a sub-par defender and much more interested in scoring the ball and again, against a guy like LeBron, that can’t happen. Love and Bosh should have a good battle. Love is certainly a bit more physical than Bosh, but Love is a bad interior defender and Bosh’s quickness could be an issue on the elbows as Bosh drives the lane.
This will be the second game back for All-Star forward Kevin Love after he missed 3 games with a groin injury. All players participated in practice earlier today (Thursday) and reserve rookie center Nikola Pekovic, who has missed the past two games with a hip injury has been “upgraded” to probable for tomorrow’s game.
Tipoff is set for 7pmCT and a full-gameday recap can be found on this site following the final horn. Until then, as always, thanks for reading and GO WOLVES!
