Countdown from 11: Boston Celtics

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PJD is a Minnesota Vikings blogger (poorly) at Purple Jesus Diaries who has made a terrible mistake by purchasing 11 tickets this spring to Minnesota Timberwolves games. These are his game recaps highlighting what may have been the worst mistake of his life, outside of cheering for Minnesota sports teams ...

This was clearly a game my brother and I expected the Wolves to lose. When we first bought our pack of 11 tickets in December, we figured the Celtics could be inked in as a fat L but that it would still be fun to see what a "real" basketball team looks like offensively and defensively. We weren't fooled tonight, even when the Wolves made a tear of a comeback and even when they took the lead. No, the Wolves would lose and they inevitably did. Only they lost in the worst way possible. They lost giving casual fans hope and giving Papa Taylor a reason to not fire Rambis at halftime.

But the real fans who have followed this entire team knew better. What we saw from the Wolves tonight was pretty typical, even in the good stretches. Sure, there was some competent basketball for stretches, but it was almost completely wiped out by the totally predictable momentum killers and mind numbing plays that they inevitably fall back on. The only bonus was that I don't think Jonny Flynn played AT ALL the entire second half. Amazing. Here's what we saw from the upper decks:

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- It was announced that the game had sold 19,000 tickets to the game. Sold, I believe, attended, not quite, but it was real damn full, probably the fullest game we've been to so far. It was annoyingly so, because when my basketball team is under performing I can waltz in ten minutes to game time, zip up to my seat, shift seats after the first quarter and enjoy myself. Tonight? By god, we barely made it to our seat in time and had to stay there the entire game! I demand more freedom!

- Why the hell are the Target Center speakers so loud? I feel this is especially noticed on the weekends and when marque teams come to town. My head is still ringing from being aurally finger blasted for two and a half hours, for no good reason at all.

- I love seeing KG back at the Target Center. He got a good ovation and lots of people clapped every time he did something. He didn't act like a punk tonight, as unfortunately has become typical of late, so that was nice. Before tip off he walked towards one end of the court by himself and the section there kind of went wild. It still chokes me up a bit.

- Darko wasn't terrible tonight. That's ....... probably the nicest thing I could say about him. Well, aside from not saying "Boy, he sure played like a Flynn tonight!"

- Anthony Randolph had a tough outing tonight. He got into quick foul trouble and then disappeared the rest of the game. That was disappointing because I, and I'm guessing many long-time fans, were kind of excited to see him match up with KG. Didn't really work out like that.

- Anthony Tolliver is OK in my book. I hope he sticks around for a while. He seems to know his role, plays hard every night, isn't a complete moron, has some versatility, and hustles like a black Mark Madsen with talent. I would trade everyone on the team but him and Love.

- Speaking of Love, my brother and I were debating whether or not he would have made a difference tonight, or in any of the past games he's missed. Would he have an extra couple of points that weren't accounted for? A game changing rebound? His defense wouldn't have won the game ... This is what worries me the most about Love. Is he really a game changer? How much worse would this team be without him? Bad, certainly, but like ... 14 wins bad versus the current 17? If that's the case ... whatever, right?

- The crowd sucked. Boston fans are just the absolute worst. The fact that ANY Boston fan would get up, fist pump, put their arms in the air like they just won the championship, AFTER they had blown a 25 points lead to a horrible 17 win team and then just retook the lead is embarrassing both for their fan base and the team. The Celtics are in some serious trouble without Perkins these playoffs.

- The crowd did get loud at certain points, but don't let anyone tell you any differently that the Celtics contingent wasn't just as loud if not louder. If you accept marque games like this as a vacuum, then the noise the Celtics fans made was as loud as any normal Wolves group of fans on a random Wednesday night this year. It was embarrassing.

- And I really mean it was embarrassing. And I mean it when I say it was too bad that they won in the way they did. I've been happy to know that Taylor sits on the bench next to Rambis every night. I'm glad he hears his arena filled with the opposing teams' fans. I'm glad he doesn't hear anyone cheering for the team he owns. The fact that the Wolves made a game out of it is a catch 22, and that's it. It's not really a promising sign of the future. We've watched these same guys play all year. They're not all of a sudden getting better. Personally, this was a missed opportunity to put another nail in the Kahn and Rambis coffin.

- The big surprise halftime show was a bunch of circus Russians. They MIGHT have been related to Pekovic, but that has yet to be confirmed.

- Sunday games at Target Center also suck because it's Sunday Kid's Day, which means you have a bunch of ratty 12 year old boys singing Rhianna and banging thunder sticks in your face after drinking a bunch of Mountain Dew. What kind of horrible parents let that happen??

- Rambis has really cut down the usage of his bench, did anyone else notice that?

- Beasley had a good/bad day. Good in that he scored buckets of points and had his way with Pierce a lot of the time, and bad in that he took some stupid shots in crunch time. Overall, I was more impressed than not though, although I would have liked it better if he would have done kareoke on the big screen again.

- How stupid do you think the Wolves fans felt who wore their green throwback t-shirts to the game today? Way to do an attire scouting report, idiots.

- I am a thousand times ready for this season to be over.

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They showed a commercial of a bandwagon fan walking into the Target Center wearing a Celtics, Lakers, Lakers, and Heat hat from the past four years during a break. When he came in with the Heat one, Crunch was there to look him up and down, then subsequently slap him, HARD. It was a good slap, followed by the message "Bandwagon fans are annoying. There will be a lot of them this Friday. Watch the Wolves slap the Heat." While that is just a ridiculous statement, the Heat game is the final game of the 11 we will be attending, and holy cow ... I cannot wait for this masochism to run it's course.

Until then.