Budinger Returns to Practice, Wolves Over Blazers Quotes

Good health news from yesterday: somewhat suprisingly, both Dante Cunningham and Kevin Martin played last night against the Blazers (and looked fairly good), and also, the return of Chase Budinger moves ever closer:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>The Wolves have announced Chase Budinger has been cleared for full-contact practice starting tomorrow: <a href="http://t.co/QpO2ugF4ty">http://t.co/QpO2ugF4ty</a></p>&mdash; MN Timberwolves (@MNTimberwolves) <a href="https://twitter.com/MNTimberwolves/statuses/413445532493684736">December 18, 2013</a></blockquote>

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Someone was wondering about why Alexey Shved didn't get any second half run after a pretty good first half shift and some generally improved play over the past few games. Here you go:

"I thought he was really good. What I liked about him was he was really active. He ran the floor. Now that I think about it, I should have brought him back in the third quarter. I was trying to keep guys on the floor because they were making such a run and got some consistency going. He played good the other night, so he's probably waking up right now." --Rick Adelman on Alexey Shved.

Love on Pekovic:

"He sealed the guys the right way tonight and was able to get back to that left shoulder that everyone knows he loves but he's so big that you can't really stop it. I knew we were in the bonus and I knew that was a good way to get them with fouls and get easy buckets in the paint and he did a good job in there tonight. I thought as far as containing their run in the third quarter that he did a tremendous job of scoring three or four buckets almost in a row and that really helped us."

Let's see, what else is happening?

• The Heat came back and beat the Pacers at home in last night's marquee matchup in the league.
• Anthony Davis returned for the Pelicans in a loss to the Clippers. He merely had 24 and 12.
• Trey Burke went 30, 8, and 7 in a Jazz win over Orlando last night.  Wait, didn't we actually draft that guy? Note: the Jazz aren't great either way, but are 6-10 with Burke, 1-11 without him.
• Seriously, how did Flip flynn up that draft so badly?

1732: Ben Franklin begins publishing "Poor Richard's Amanack."
1776: Thomas Paine publishes his first "American Crisis" essay ("These are the times that try men's souls...")
1946: Ho Chi Minh attacks French at Hanoi, beginning the Indochina war.

Today's musical birthday is Phil Ochs, born in 1940 (d. 1976):

This thread is yawing, gaping, stretching. It's open.