Press Break: The Wolves are Delusional
And that's a good thing
Welcome back to Press Break. If you’re new here (welcome) this is a very chill weekly segment where I gambol around the NBA (maybe the world) and write about anything that captured my attention from the week prior. Or the day prior. Maybe the month prior. Who cares the world is ending. Off we go!
When The Wolves Show You Who They Are Believe Them
Minnesota won ugly the past two nights (Wednesday it was 124-117 over the Pistons and Thursday it was 118-103 over the skeleton Grizzlies) but it won nonetheless and the more I watch the Wolves (who are 30-11 now) the more I realize they play like a team that’s won something before. Even though they haven’t. And I like that. They’ve fooled themselves into thinking they have a target on their back even though they’re still the Minnesota Timberwolves until they show us they’re not the “Minnesota Timberwolves” that we’ve always known (which I think they’ll do this year).
The Timberwolves are the best team in the West and only two games away from being the best team in basketball and I still think the Timberwolves are the only team really taking the Timberwolves seriously. They’re basically screaming “WE ARE THE MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES AND WE ARE HERE TO WIN” to the rest of the league and the rest of the league is responding with “Oh yeah sure Minnesota Timberwolves are here hey guys” because the Wolves have historically been an after-afterthought. Like… Karl-Anthony Towns is the franchise’s second-leading scorer. I love KAT but that’s outrageous.
This is all complimentary by the way even though it sounds like I’m talking shit because I think you need to be delusional if you want to win an NBA championship. I think the Wolves should act like they’re unbeatable because they genuinely are that good and it doesn’t matter if no one believes in them as a Finals team except themselves. Teams “can’t do it in the postseason” until they do.
The Wolves want to win a championship. And I’m growing more bullish about their prospects to do that every time Anthony Edwards pulls off something like this:
The Western Conference Playoffs Will Change Me
The postseason is going to be a war and I’m goddamn Sun Tzu.
Oklahoma City is 28-13 after knocking off the Hot Jazz (gross) on Thursday night. OKC lost to both LA teams earlier this week so earning a clutch-time road win in Utah felt necessary heading into a Saturday game with Minnesota that I am exceedingly excited to watch while I simultaneously pretend to know anything about the NFL.
Speaking of OKC and Minnesota matching up… the Western Conference playoffs are going to be a backwood bare-knuckle brawl in the best way possible. I have no idea what’s going to happen. You could tell me the Nuggets or Wolves or Thunder or Clippers make it out of the West and I’ll believe you but if you tell me they make it out without a metaphoric black eye and cracked rib I’ll sadly be forced to call you a fibbin’ rat bastard.
You can make a Finals case for each of those four teams.
Denver has the best basketball player in the world and we’ve seen (basically) this same roster do it before.
Minnesota theoretically has a defensive answer for every matchup (best team defensive rating by nearly two points) plus a top… 12 (?) player (and rising) in Anthony Edwards.
Oklahoma City is so young (23.8 years old on average) but busts your ass on both ends (fourth in offense and sixth in defense). Plus a Jalen Williams playoff coming-out party is so obvious it hurts.
And the Clippers… they’ll just stare through your soul and shoot over you and every time you’ll say “well that one can’t go in too” and the shots will keep going in and nobody on the team will smile while they kill you but they’ll kill you regardless. Best offense in the league over the past 15 games (124.5 offensive rating.)
Plus would we be shocked if New Orleans or Dallas or Phoenix toppled one of these teams in the first round? I wouldn’t! It’s gonna get nasty out West come April and I can’t wait. I think we’re in for some really strange stuff. Like a huge Vasilije Micić game or something.
The Bird Stat That Ruined My Week
Ornithologists predict that by the end of the 21st century one-third of all bird species will be extinct and that’s almost solely due to human activity. Of course there are good folks out there trying to stop that from happening but there are also bad folks who want to build suburban neighborhoods and those folks seem to have all the money so we might be well and fucked.
In the meantime before the birds go I’m going to start birding hard. All are welcome to join (not joking at all hit me up and we’ll bird together.) I don’t think we’ll fully be able to appreciate the beauty of a bird song until the singing is replaced by the sounds of a nine-lane freeway but we might as well try because apparently that’s happening pretty soon so let’s get our bird guides and get out there.
A personal favorite: the humble Chickadee.
What birds live out Graham Oaks way?