Wolves Host Magic, Jim Peterson Interviewing for WNBA Head Coaching Job

The Wolves begin a four game home stand tonight against the Orlando Magic at Target Center. After looking bright but not winning at the start of the season, the Magic, unsurprisingly, have begun to string some wins together and now sit at 9-8 on the season and are coming off three straight home wins.

Their defense has been steadily improving under Scott Skiles and is now in the top ten in the league, driven largely by their shot contesting. They are holding teams to the 6th lowest efg% in the NBA, and teams are shooting only 32% from three against them.

The first meeting between these teams in Orlando went to overtime when Andrew Wiggins tied the game late in regulation and Karl-Anthony Towns blocked the potential game winning layup by Tobias Harris. Unfortunately, two monster threes by Evan Fournier were enough for the Magic to escape with the win. The Wolves will be looking to even the score tonight.

Elsewhere, Jim Petersen has interviewed for the head coaching job with the Connecticut Sun. As we know, he's been a Lynx assistant for several seasons now and has helped them to three championships. It isn't surprising he's being pursued for head coaching gigs, the question is whether he'll take it if offered. My assumption is that the head coaching job with the Sun would mean the end of his Wolves analyst job, which would be bad for us, but obviously if that's what he wants, more power to him.

Good luck to Jim Pete.

Looks like it was a fun night in the NBA, I wish I could have watched it. The Bulls and Hawks won close games at home against Western Conference powers the Spurs and Thunder respectively (don't look now, but the East remains ahead of the West in cumulative record), while in the game of the night, the Warriors managed to stay unbeaten with a 106-103 win in Utah.  Steph Curry hit a nutso three with the game tied in the final minute, but the Jazz wound up with the ball down one with 10 seconds left. They couldn't get a good look, however, and that was that. Biggest scare so far for the Warriors.

Today in history

1420: Henry V of England enters Paris
1640: Portugal regains independence following 60 years of Spanish rule. 
1641: Massachusetts codifies slavery
1742: Empress Elizabeth orders expulsion of all Jews from Russia
1824: U.S. House begins consideration of deadlocked Adams-Jackson election
1835: Hans Christian Andersen publishes first book of fairy tales. 
1900: Portofirio Diaz sworn in for 6th straight term as Mexican president. 
1955: Rosa Parks arrested for not giving up her seat on a Montgomery Alabama bus
1971: Lennon/Ono' "Happy XMas (The War is Over) released in the U.S
1982: Michael Jackson releases his album "Thriller."

Nobody jumps out as a great musical birthday, so we'll go with a song from Thriller, since it was released 34 years ago today.