Lynx vs. Fever in WNBA Finals, Wolves Open Practice

The Indiana Fever upset the New York Liberty in the deciding game three of the WNBA Eastern Conference Finals, meaning they advance to the Finals against the Lynx. The Fever more or less controlled game three from the outset, as the Liberty had a disastrous night offensively, shooting 33% and turning the ball over 21 times. Even their vaunted defense couldn't overcome that sort of performance, and the Fever cruised to a 66-51 win behind star Tamika Catchings.

This is great news for the Lynx, who will have home court advantage for the Finals, which they would not have against the Liberty. The Lynx won both match ups against Indiana this season, and will look to win their third WNBA title against the third seed from the East.

Game one of the Finals will be at Target Center on Sunday at 2:00 pm CDT and will be televised on ABC.

Meanwhile, the Wolves held their first day of training camp Tuesday following Monday's media day. Some of it was televised on NBA TV apparently, though unfortunately I missed it. Any commentary would be appreciated, but of course it being the first day, everyone was enthusiastic and I'm sure looked good. Video of parts of practice and interviews can be watched on nba.com.

I'm going to try not to harp on the three point shooting (or lack thereof) as much this season, but I can't resist a comment about head coach Sam Mitchell's remark about "earning it" in practice. That argument would be much more palatable if the alternative wasn't an absurd number of 20 footers instead. Last season the Wolves took 24% of their shots from 16' to the 3 point line, and made about 37% of them. (That was the 2nd highest percentage of shots from that distance in the league).  They took the lowest percentage of shots from beyond the arc (18%), and made 33% of them.  I won't insult you by doing the math.

The point is this: I don't think Mitchell and the rest of the Wolves coaching staff and brain trust is dumb. They must know the value of the three and relative problems with hoisting all those long twos. I can't understand why they continue to repeat  the things they do when they make very little sense, and more importantly why they actually played that way last season.  My hope is that regardless of what they run, a healthy Ricky Rubio gets them better shots.

Elsewhere, Derrick Rose suffered a broken orbital bone in Bulls practice. He will have surgery, but how long he will be out is unknown. Rose has had brutal injury luck for the last several seasons and he'll once again miss time.

Cavs guard Iman Shumpert will miss roughly 3 months with a wrist injury. Meanwhile, it's getting down to the wire for the Cavs and Tristan Thompson, who continue to negotiate a long term contract. Thursday is the deadline for him to accept the one year qualifying offer that would make him an unrestricted free agent next summer.

Today in History

1399: King Richard II abdicates
1520: Suleiman the Magnificent becomes Sultan of Turkey
1659: Peter Stuyvesant forbids tennis playing in New Netherlands during religious services. 
1791: Mozart's "The Magic Flute" premieres in Vienna
1867: Midway Islands become U.S. possession
1868: Spain's Queen Isabella deposed, flees to France
1935: Hoover Dam dedicated by FDR
1946: Hermann Goering (among others) sentenced to death at Nuremberg. 
1953: Earl Warren appointed Chief Justice of U.S. Supreme Court
1962: James Meredith registers for classes at U of MS; Federal troops are routed to Mississippi
1962: Cesar Chavez forms United Farm Workers 
1991: Jean Betrand Aristide is ousted as Haitian prime minister

Today's musical birthday is rapper/singer T-Pain, born in 1985