No game wraps for quitters. With more than 45 seconds on the clock the Wolves conceded a 5 point game by not fouling a 77% free throw shooter. I believe they did so with timeouts remaining. Their "coach" was noticeably clueless during the largest comeback in Dallas Mavericks history.
Britt Robson was on the Chad Hartman show today. One of the points he made was that the only people still watching this squad are either in it for the long run or about to jump ship. After tonight's game, I'm not sure how anyone could be in for the long run barring an immediate and massive overhaul.
McHale shouldn't be allowed to board the plane.
This team has potential and usable assets. However, it will never properly utilize its resources until it jettisons the posse of clowns that occupy its front office and replace them with real, honest-to-Pete professionals.
If they can't find a new set of eyes to run this franchise by the draft, I'm jumping ship and becoming a Blazers fan.
UPDATE: Who can forget this quote from McHale after firing Casey:
"The ups and downs, we just couldn't find any consistency. After 40 games we were in another of our inconsistent times.
"There was no huge watershed moment where 'this' happened or 'that' happened. It was your basic two steps up the hill and two steps down. We were never able the entire year to establish a style of play we could bank on. We'd get close, you saw signs, and we'd backslide."
A quick reminder: The Minnesota Swarm are about to start their season. Their 1st home game is on the 10th. Get your tickets here. Remember, Canis Hoopus is your SB Nation Leader for Minnesota Swarm news and information. We don't know the 1st thing about lacrosse but it certainly has to be better than Wolves basketball at this point.
UPDATE ii: Is there such a thing as a perfect loss? While the Wolves were getting beat, Portland was dusting off the world champs; the Blazers are a team that McHale is rumored to consider Minny's equal in talent. Also, Dwane Casey goes up against the man who scapegoated him for being too up and down and leads the Mavs to their greatest comeback in team history while the Wolves run up their season best and worst halves of basketball in a single game. If Katherine Kersten still had a job her next column would be about how one could finally prove that there is indeed a God.
UPDATE iii: From the Department of Well Timed Headlines, Britt's last 3 Pointer was entitled The Worst Is Over. Isn't It? A: No. Also, there were a few things I wanted to write about last night's game:
- I never, ever, ever want to see Al Jefferson get after another teammate for not pulling his own weight on the court. If anything, last night's tilt was Exhibit A that Big Al isn't fit to be team leader. From gingerly walking out to "cover" a 3 point shooter, to failing to rotate on defense, to piss-poor rebounding positioning, to settling for grinding the offense to a halt in the 3rd when he was double/tipple teamed and settling for 18 foot jump shots (while the guards looked like they were on strict orders to get him the f'ing ball no matter what), Big Al (along with Craig Smith) short-circuited last night's game and got away with things that would have sent guys like Bassy, Brewer, and Love to the bench for weeks.
- I don't want to see the Rhino starting ever again. I'm unofficially revoking his nickname. He is no longer the Rhino on this site. We'll have to think of a new nickname.
- The Dallas Mavs' broadcast team started playing the "largest comeback" graphic with @ 5:12 to play in the 3rd quarter.
I wonder how the writers of the Glen & Kevin Show will get out of this mess. I'd like to go back to something I wrote at the time of the coaching change:
What if the Wolves play .400 ball down the stretch? ... Ultimately, this nasty little possibility raises some fairly uncomfortable questions for those fans who believe Papa Glen pulled a Godfather and placed a horse's head at the end of McHale's bed by moving him out of the front office. The Godfather option depends on the Wolves achieving the worst possible options both on the court and in the front office. In order for it to work, McHale has to be bad enough as coach that he will simply walk away at the end of the year. More troublesome is the fact that it also means that the Wolves are so bad that they can't even win/improve in the style of play that they were built for. ... We all know he was a failure as a GM, but now the owner has a large chunk of his fans rooting for him to be a failure as a coach as well. That's bad juju. It's f-ing with basketball karma every bit as much as is trading Brandon Roy for cash. Perhaps it's simply a solid reminder that the big problem with this team all along has been the owner. A culture of boobery abounds at 600 First Avenue.
He should have been let go from the very beginning. This is what you get when you mess with the Basketball Gods.
Finally, I want to give a tip of the cap to Blakeley and McCleak for the comment exchange of the year (additional h/t to Mavs Moneyball):
In theory, this should be a very painful loss...
But watching Dwayne Casey completely out coach Kevin McHale has been absolutely fantastic. How bout that third quarter!
by Blakeley on Dec 30, 2008 9:37 PM CST
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He porbably said...
“Hey Josh Howard, this guy picked Ndudi Ebi over you. How do you feel about this?”
up 
Beware the Basketball Gods.
I'm wondering what Casey told them at half
“let’s whip on my old boss”?
by McCleak on Dec 30, 2008 9:38 PM CST
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