There's something very metaphorically satisfying when a clash between wolves and deer goes so spectacularly in favor of the toothy predators, and the Timberwolves tore apart the Milwaukee Bucks. The big attraction of the Bucks was seeing their 2.11m forward 易建联, newly arrived from the Guangdong Southern Tigers but best known for selling vans sneakers in his chain of Jianlian's Beach Shops, and as predicted the drunks weaved their primer-colored pickups over the St. Croix to waveringly yell "Yeeeeeee!!!" every time he touched the ball until beer sales were cut off in the fourth quarter. Frankly I thought Yi was uninspiring, although he did score 13 points off the bench mainly by drawing fouls, and contribute six rebounds and a couple blocked shots, maybe because at one point Craig Smith, a bruiser who gives up seven inches to Yi but has some nasty moves to hang with taller forwards, got a shot off over him and this made Yi look like a tourist: he may be hot stuff in Guangdong, but for a soft player with a scoring touch cracking the NBA is harder than dubbing Nicholas Cage into Cantonese. Yi punished Smith for trying that move again by blocking his shot, but despite his obvious ability, Yi is going to have to do more to intimidate in a league where Yao Ming still hasn't made it out of the first round*. Frankly I'm not all that familiar with most everybody else who plays for the Bucks these days, and their atrocious shooting tonight (including 4-19 from behind the 3-point line) didn't make me scour my program for details...I don't even want to know the idiot was who threw up the lazy alley-oop that Corey Brewer snatched out of the air while the intended target went flying behind him with a hurt look on his face.
On the Wolves side, after a couple games I think Al Jefferson is the real thing, and a fitting crown jewel in the pile of players the Wolves got for Kevin Garnett. The backdoor plays the Wolves ran with him tonight were a treat, and his 9-12 night contributed to blistering 61.2% shooting for the Wolves, as did Rashad McCants going 8-8. (McCants improved his shooting percentage by throwing the ball away so often he didn't have to take many low percentage shots.) 24 points and 12 rebounds in 30 minutes is a nice game from Jefferson, and Theo Ratliff surprised me by showing some moves, after years of sleepy looking stiffs from Stojko Vrankovic to Mark Blount made me forget there are active centers in the NBA. Corey Brewer, our top draft pick out of Florida, did start out a little rough, and obviously has a lot to learn about the NBA, but he made up for some of his shortcomings looking for rebounds and blocked shots trying to use those long arms to contribute. The two people who really stood out to me tonight though were Ryan Gomes and Sebastian Telfair, other pieces of the Garnett trade. Gomes pulled out some sharp passes in traffic to make things happen, and was just generally a force for the Wolves, as was Telfair, who was surprisingly sharp running the offense. There are some good players on this team, and the level of hustle they show going for rebounds and taking chances looking to create scoring opportunities for each other makes them a blast to watch, and while tougher opposition than the Milwaukee Bucks is likely to prove beyond their reach, the future is bright.
*-Okay, I'll admit I'm just bitter because when I tried to ask Yi for an autograph, all he said was, "比 Nicholas Cage 讲的广东闭合的嘴走开, 您是恼人的对我!" (I can't read or write Chinese so he wrote it down for me before giving me the finger.)
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