Timberwolves host Kings: Game #71

Kings vs Timberwolves coverage

Kings at Wolves
7:00 PM CST
FS North

The Kings will be coming to the Target Center tonight having lost 8 out of their last 10 games. It has been a profoundly disappointing season for the Kings as they initially hoped to compete for one of the last playoff spots as they were coming into the season. However, turmoil on and off the court has essentially derailed the team as they have struggled to find any sort of cohesive identity.

A lot of these issues stem from three main sources, the ownership group which continues to make confounding decisions, coach George Karl, and DeMarcus Cousins. Cousins and Karl specifically have semi-publicly feuded throughout the year and it is still unclear if this will result in one if not both of them leaving the team at some point (although the easy money is on Karl being fired). At one point this year reports stated that George Karl was being fired, but then the Kings changed their mind and decided to keep him on. At any rate, it's a bit refreshing to talk about teams with ridiculous front office issues and not mention the Timberwolves.

One thing to watch out for tonight is that the Kings will likely try to play an uptempo game, as they currently are leading the league in pace at an estimated 99.9 possessions per 48 minutes. This will likely suit the style of our current starting 5 as they have been playing significantly faster than the more defensive oriented group that started out the year. As is the case with our own Timberwolves, the Kings are also terrible on defense.

The Kings are actually kind of a bizzaro version of the Wolves. The have a impossibly talented big that anchors the team, a pass first, second, and third point guard from a seemingly bygone era, and a high-volume wing scorer that thrives on mid-range shots. They even have no real power forward option and instead have tried running out several different dual-center line-ups as a stop-gap solution.

The match-ups to watch tonight will be between the Wolves and the fun-house mirror versions of themselves, especially between Towns and Cousins. Towns has struggled throughout the year against bigger centers who can bulldoze him in the paint as Towns just doesn't have the mass nor strength yet to really compete on the block with the strongest centers in the league. However, Cousins is also known for his lackadaisical defensive intensity and Towns should be able to get a bunch of mid-range pick and pop shots with ease if Cousins doesn't make an effort to close out.

Altogether, this should be a fun game to watch as the Kings are right around where the Wolves are in terms of talent level and irregular execution. If the Wolves from Monday's game against the Warriors show up tonight, then we should be able to handily beat the Kings. But we all know that it's anyone's guess trying to figure out what level of play we are going to be seeing on any given night from this young team.

The Wolves already lead the Kings in the season series 2-0. Let's hope we can keep on working towards that season sweep.

Edit: Boogie is out tonight. Should make for an easier wolves win. However I'm at work now and can't rewrite whole article. Header picture still relevant due to fun-ness

Starting Lineups

Kings
Rajon Rondo
James Anderson
Rudy Gay
Quincy Acy
TBA

Wolves
Ricky Rubio
Zach LaVine
Andrew Wiggins
Gorgui Dieng
Karl-Anthony Towns

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Enjoy the game