The Minnesota Lynx moved to 7-0 on the season with an 87-79 road win over the San Antonio Silver Stars. Seimone Augustus led the way with 25 points, while the fantastically monikered Tan White came off the bench to score 17 points on 7-9 from the field. It's good to see contribution from the bench, as that has been a weak spot for the Lynx in the early season.
Dev Peters played her 2nd game of the season and seemed to find a little bit of rhythm after her 3 minute, 3 foul debut. She only had 2 points, but contributed 4 boards and a steal in her nine minutes of action. Maya Moore played all 40 minutes in this one, scoring 18 points, while Linday Whalen got her first double double of the season with 14 and 10 assists.
The Lynx have been terrific in close games this year, which is lucky because they've been in several. Unlike last season, when they struggled in close games, the Lynx have been able to make plays late, in part because they are a superior passing team. The entire squad can find open people, as demonstrated by rookie Damiris Dantas, who had five assists in 18 minutes as fouls restricted her playing time.
This was the first game of a four game road trip that will take them to Seattle on Friday, Los Angeles for a key game against the Sparks on Sunday, then on to Atlanta. The Lynx will have played eight of their first 11 games on the road by the time they return home in mid-June.
This was Cheryl Reeve's 100th win as head coach of the Lynx.
In World Cup preparation, the U.S. defeated Turkey 2-1 at Red Bull Arena in New Jersey. There was good and bad in this one: the offense looked fluid and dangerous for significant spells of the game with Jozy Altidore doing a good job in hold up play and using his strength to fend off defenders, and Michael Bradley orchestrating things from the tip of the diamond midfield. Clint Dempsey got a classic Dempsey goal by being in the right place when a Turkish defender muffed a clearance, and generally looked in good shape.
Defensively, it was another story, as the Turks generated chance after chance that the Yanks were lucky to repel. The diamond shaped midfiled caused two defensive problems: first it leaves only one holding mid-fielder (Jermaine Jones) in front of a limited pair of center backs. Second, because the diamond midfield requires the full backs to provide width going forward, there was a ton of space on the flanks for the Turks to move into.
In the 2nd half, the U.S. flattened things out a bit and were stronger with their cut-outs and clearances, though a terrible give away by Timmy Chandler, who is talented but often sloppy, led to the goal; a penalty after Cameron handled the ball on the goal line.
I think they would be better off returning to a 4-2-3-1, but Klinsmann seems committed to this formation. We'll see. He knows a lot more about this than I do.
In Kevin Love news, a funny weekend. Boston!
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Yo <a href="https://twitter.com/kevinlove">@kevinlove</a> if you need advice on moving from Minnesota to Boston just let me know <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23CityOfChamps&src=hash">#CityOfChamps</a></p>— David Ortiz (@davidortiz) <a href="https://twitter.com/davidortiz/statuses/473239792537575424">June 1, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Kevin Love spent his weekend in Boston, went to a Red Sox game, hung out with Rajon Rondo. Hard not to read anything into it, as Boston is one of the teams said to be interested in him. Was he there with Flip's blessing? To put pressure on the Wolves? Just because? Flip had this to say:
"The last I knew Kevin was under contract with us, and I expect him to be playing for us next year," Saunders said Sunday after a workout of draft prospects. "I don't really dictate where guys go on vacation or what they do. They can go wherever they want to go."
..."I know there's a feeding frenzy out there from a lot of teams," Saunders said. "Unfortunately, they have no say. I plan on Kevin being here."
So there's that. Obviously there's going to be a lot of talking from now until the draft, and even after. Teams won't start getting serious about making deals until draft week, and very little gets consummated until the draft itself.
It's hard to know how big a poke at the Wolves Love intended his visit to Boston to be, but I have to say--he's a smart guy. It was something. There was a message in there somewhere; exactly what I don't know.
On the coaching front....a whole boatload of nothing. Key Dae summed up the situation in his article yesterday, and we have no idea who is going to coach this team next year. Flip addressed that topic as well (all this after the draft workout at Target Center on Sunday):
"I'd say there's probably a better chance we would than wouldn't, (have a coach by the draft)" Saunders said. "But you know, as I've said we're not going to put a timeframe or anything."
"...I know people want to know what's going on. But we're not going to let any kind of time frame inhibit us in what we need to do to get our total search. We've been patient, we've waited. We've wanted to see what's going to develop whether it would be the playoffs or whatever."
"We want to make sure we go through the process," Saunders said. "And we're not going to see what's going to be best for right now but what's best for two, three, four years down the road."
Saunders also pointed out that just because someone doesn't come in for a workout doesn't mean the Wolves aren't interested. He pointed out that Gorgui Dieng didn't visit the Wolves last summer prior to the draft. The next scheduled draft workouts will be June 11th. No names attached as yet.
Timberwolves.com also has a piece up (slide show alert!) that finds six different mock drafts with the Wolves taking six different players: T.J. Warren, Tyler Ennis, Dario Saric, Rodney Hood, Nik Stauskas, and Adreian Payne. Yay.
So to sum up: we have no idea where Kevin Love is going to be playing next season. We have no idea who is going to be coaching the Timberwovles next season. We have no idea who the Wolves are going to draft.
Today in History
1763: Pontiac's Rebellion at Mackinaw, Michigan
1835: P.T. Barnum begins first circus tour
1862: Robert E. Lee takes command of Confederate armies of Northern Va.
1896: Marconi submits patent for radio
1928: Velveeta introduced by Kraft foods. The beginning of the end.
1936: Anastasio Somoza takes over as dictator of Nicaragua
1953: Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II
1989: Students face off with soldiers at Beijing's Tianenmen Square
Today's musical birthday is Lydia Lunch, born in 1959. Here is something from her first band, the No Wave era Teenage Jesus and the Jerks.
It's Monday. You needed that. Open the eff up.