The WGOM

A Meeting of the Deerhoof Fan Club

November 22nd, 2008 by SBG

Last year, citizen E-6 contacted me about going to a Timberwolves game. I hadn't met our guy E-6 at that time, so I was pretty excited about that, but due to circumstances, we just couldn't make it work. I was delighted to get a message here about a week or two ago, inviting me to go to the Timberwolves game Friday night against the World Champion Boston Celtics. E-6 has a line on some good tickets and although I'm not surprised that they might be relatively easy to get this year -- I was surprised that they were available for this game. But, they were, and so we were able to go.

We met up for a pre-game meal at The Local. The joint was packed, but we were eating, so we got a spot in back and ordered a couple of beers. We had a decent meal, a couple of drinks and had a good visit, discussing the merits of Deerhoof, the whereabouts of Rifding Hokme, and whether I should ban a certain California bureaucrat from the site for enticing other citizens to send him free beer for no real reason.

There's really only so much you can say about those topics and there was a game to be played a few blocks away, so we headed out towards 600 First Avenue North. E-6's ducats were at Will Call (what lines! It was obvious that this was the biggest night of the season over there.) Then, we got our tickets and we laughed. This is the 20th anniversary of the Wolves and whose face was on the ticket? Have a look.

Seriously, this franchise is so pathetic that they put J.R. Rider's picture on its tickets, at least for this game. If it was my club, I'd be pretending that he never played in a Timberwolves uniform. I'd categorically deny even knowing of the guy. But, no. This idiot's face is on the ticket. Oy.

We got to the arena just in time to see KG being introduced. KG was introduced first for the Celtics and the Target Center crowd was cheering pretty strongly, but the Wolves PA announcer cut that off by announcing Paul Pierce almost immediately. E-6 and I headed over to the beer stand and missed the over-the-top Wolves introduction. The lady working the stand was friendly, but she mentioned that she'd been working since 6AM. She tipped over one of our Summits before she could pour it, so she grabbed another. She said that if Big Brother wasn't watching, she'd have spilled the rest of that one into our cups. Nice lady, working hard, tough day. Fuck you, Big Brother.

The first half was pretty sloppy. The Celtics started slow and had a tough time controlling the ball. Rajon Rondo was by far the fastest guy on the floor -- Randy Foye couldn't stay anywhere close to him, but Rondo wasn't doing much to finish. Plus, the Celtics piled up a ton of turnovers. Somewhere early in the second quarter I looked up and the Celtics had 11 turnovers already. Ugly. It kind of reminded me of the Detroit game the night before -- start slow early. I've heard that that has been happening a lot this season.

At halftime, the score was 39-36 Minnesota. I was pretty sure, though, that this wasn't going to be some sort of huge upset. The Celtics hadn't really played yet. They did in the third quarter. The result was devastating. It seemed like the Celtics always had the ball in the third, were always scoring and even if they weren't they were stopping the Wolves. At the end of the third, Rondo hit a buzzer beating three, KG made a fist pump right in front of the Wolves bench (apparently right in front of Glen Taylor) and the destruction was complete. It was 71-49 after three. That's right, the Celtics outscored the Wolves 35-10 in the third quarter. I turned to E-6 and said, "KG's done for the night." I looked up and the Wolves were shooting 23% for the night at that point. It was devastating. As Reusse said:

He played 11 minutes in the third quarter and it could serve as an instructional tape titled "The KG Way to Play Basketball." He scored, kept balls alive off the backboard for teammates, made passes, set screens and played magnificent defense.

And yes, there it was. KG basketball. It's not just scoring, although he led the Celtics on Friday night. It's the whole game. True, he doesn't fill the stat sheet anymore -- primarily because he's no longer the sole focus on offense. He still provides offensive punch, but his primary value is on the other end of the court. The Wolves practically suffocated in the third quarter, and #5 had both of his hands around their collective neck. You read Reusse and Top Jimmy this week kind of admitting that hey, old #5 is pretty good and you wonder why they were practically joyous when he got traded. Yep, I resigned myself to the idea that he had to leave -- not because the Wolves needed to rebuild -- hell, they are lost in a forest of those pine trees that adorn their logo. No, he had to be traded because it just wasn't right to see him be brought down by this club anymore.

Yep, he's made $250 million playing fucking basketball. I understand that that's more than a little crazy. But, if you forget about the money for a second and think about the game, it was just criminal to watch him being stuck with Mark Blount and Rickey Davis and all the other idiots with which McHale surrounded him. If there is a Basketball Jesus, KG needed to be relieved of that burden. And, you know, anything is possible. KG could get out. Those of us who understood that he deserved more in the basketball sense weren't dancing on his T-Wolves grave. We weren't saying things like KG's an ass or stupid or whatever the sludge that Reusse and Top Jimmy were shoveling. Because we don't really care about all that. Because fans of the game see KG straining and pressing and trying so hard every night. Yep, he's not the best fourth quarter scorer ever. But, no one plays as goddamned hard as he does every night. And in the end, that's what basketball is all about. Playing defense. Playing team basketball.

You hear about how Kobe Bryant is playing team basketball now. Well, Bryant is an ass because he was playing with the most dominating center ever and he pouted about his stature and in the process probably threw about three rings away. Meanwhile, ol' KG busted his hump every night along side the Blounts and Davises of the world. If he finally got pissed off about that and got surly, who's to blame him?

Last night was a nice cold dish of revenge. KG owned that place. He was cheered on every made hoop. They say a couple of things about revenge: it's a dish best served cold (as I mentioned oh, about three sentences back) and that the best revenge is living well. Well, a year and a half after being traded, after hearing the owner say that he tanked a season, KG came home and stuck it to the old club, hard. And I hear he's living well, both in a personal sense and in a basketball sense. Yesterday it was mentioned in the paper that last year in a little jawing match, BAJ mentioned to KG that they both have the same number of rings. BAJ said yesterday that he needs to learn to shut up. I like BAJ, but he's not getting any championships in this town, either. It remains to be determined how many KG gets, but the answer is definitely more than zero.

I certainly enjoyed hanging out with E-6. He's an interesting guy to talk with, as you might imagine. The game itself was not really all that exciting and by the end we had both a Brian Cardinal sighting and a Mark Madsen sighting. Sad. But, you know, I'm glad I was there. I'm glad that I got to see the final chapter of the KG/Wolves story. Because that's what Friday night was. The story is over. Perhaps the Wolves will remake the front office, draft smart this year, and begin to put a product on the floor that people will actually want to watch. I hope they do, because I enjoyed the team when they had a product worth watching. And lest anyone ever get confused, it was always that hump busting KG that was the Product Worth Watching. Thanks, E-6, for giving me an opportunity to see it one last time.

Tags: E-6, Kevin Garnett, Minnesota Timberwolves, NBA

This entry was posted by SBG on Saturday, November 22nd, 2008 at 7:49 am and is filed under Featured Articles. It is one of 2471 entries by the author. Feel free to write a letter to the editor if you are a registered SBG Nation Citizen. If you are not a Citizen, you can register here.