FanPost

Timberwolves @ Nets: A full day Report Card

Noah K. Murray-USA TODAY Sports

Good evening to all. The following will recap my overall experience in Brooklyn as our beloved Timberwolves took on the Nets of Brooklyn.

Food/Before Game: My father and I ate at a nice, small restaurant a few blocks from the arena called The Smoke Joint. V9j2nro_medium

We got some hot wings, pulled(-ish) pork, and pork ribs. The wings were the best I've ever had, perfect combination of hot and sweet, cooked to perfection. The semi-pulled pork was lacking in flavor, and the ribs were very nice. Also, those pickles I had were flynning delicious. At the arena we got some "Concretes" from Juniors, which are kind of like Blizzards from DQ. They were also flynning delicious. During dinner, Spike Lee walked outside the restaurant. He looked mad, probably because the Knicks suck at basketball, or because I had a delicious chicken wing and he didn't.

OVERALL GRADE: A

Arrival/Pregame:

We arrived at the arena about half an hour before tip. The Barclays Center itself is really awesome looking. If it wasn't raining, I would've gotten a cool picture, but there's Google for that and other things. I digress. If you didn't catch it in the pre-game thread, we sat here, $45 a seat.

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The lower bowl is quite large, and the upper level (not featured in the picture) is steeper than the mountain of cash that Papa Glen has collected from selling draft picks.

During warmups, Kmart, Brew, and DC were talking and joking a lot, which makes me question the reports of Dante not fitting in well with the locker room. Shabazz was kind of on his own, which I kind of expected for some reason. Corey threw down some awesome dunks in warmups, and Ricky has hitting everything. To give everyone some hope for the feature, it's quite apparent that Love and Ricky are good friends. They work together during warmups a lot, and they did some cool handshake before lineups were announced.

OVERALL GRADE: B+

Game Grades:

Ricky Rubio: Ricky came out firing, piling up assist after assist in the first quarter, with a little bit of magic thrown in. He got into a little bit of foul trouble later on, picking up 2 terrible calls against him, and at least 1 more questionable foul. His defense was excellent, holding Williams, Deron to 1/9 shooting, and forcing him into foul trouble as well. Ricky also had a nice crowd behind him. There was an adorable Spanish couple sitting in front me that kept cheering for him, shouting words of encouragement in Spanish to our little unicorn. He also became the single season record holder for steals in Timberpups history.

OVERALL GRADE: A

Corey Brewer: Corey is such a f-ing mess, it's insane. In the first quater he gambled way too much on defense, leading to a bunch of open threes caused by over rotation. He threw up a bunch of contorted, falling down layups, and almost hit is head on the rim after dunking. His gambling later became more of a positive, as the Nets were extremely careless with the ball. Brew finished with an efficient 21 points and 4 steals, to the delight of his goat.

OVERALL GRADE: B+

Pek: Pek put up a fairly quiet and efficient 13/6 in somewhat limited minutes. He was being held and grabbed throughout the game, causing a lot of frustration for both him and coach Rick. According to my father, he is "built like a fucking mammoth".

OVERALL GRADE: B

Love: He can't be Superman all season long. Love looks frustrated out there, seeing slightly overweight athletes like Dwill, Joe Johnson, Pierce, Blatche, and Jason Collins cruising to the playoffs in the turrible East. He didn't seem to box out as much as usual, and his hustle back on defense was mediocre. I don't blame him at all. He also had a rough shooting night, and had a few potential assists bobbled out of bounds. Love pulled up lame at the end of the game, with what looked like a sprained ankle, after chasing a Corey Brewer falling down, off balance layup that should not have gone in. Let's hope he's okay.

OVERALL GRADE: B-

KMart: Kmart scored efficiently, his defense sucked. Not much else to say.

OVERALL GRADE: B

Barea: I had to explain to my dad (who doesn't watch basketball) how much I hate Barea. JJ still sucks at defense, he's still a ballstopper on offense, and he got T-ed up. JJ and Brew took a bunch of shoulders and elbows to the facial region on post-ups, perhaps accomplishing Ricky's past wish of "Change this Face".

OVERALL GRADE: F FOR FLYNN YOU JJ.

Rest of bench: My dad (who still doesn't watch basketball) noted that the Wolves bench does not defend, dribble well, shoot, or pass well. He is very right. Gorgui had a bunch of rebounds, looked like a mess on offense, and had a few nice possessions on D. The 4 main bench players (JJ, Bud, Gorgui, Ham) averaged -17 in an average of 16 minutes. Yikes.

OVERALL GRADE: C

OBSERVATIONS:

  • The Nets are terribly undisciplined when it comes to passing. They had 20 TOs tonight, with a bunch of them being the result of lazy entry passes. There were a few simple passes up court that led players out of bounds. This is something that 'Coach' Kidd should try to fix.
  • JJ Barea sucks in person as much as he does on TV. He also sucks equal amounts if you watch him on your computer, your iPad, or your microwave.
  • Wolves timeout huddles are really strange. Sikma, Adelman, Adelman the Younger, and Porter stand separate from the players, and it seems like Turiaf and Price were doing a lot of talking to the active players.
  • Brooklyn has a lot of hipsters.
  • "The Smoke Joint" sounds like the name of Mayn's favorite restaurant.
  • The t-shirt cannon launched a shirt that ricocheted and landed in some guys beer a few rows ahead of me. I hope they stuff Barea in one of those things and launch him to Milwaukee.

No this, that, or the other thing (Did I do that right?)

Co-signed,

Jacob.