Rand: Weekend revelations from around the Twin Cities

Garnett is giving away 1,000 free tickets to Wolves fans for Monday night's home game against the Clippers. Presumably — hopefully — he will stick around for all four quarters of this one.

Garnett on Saturday picked up two technical fouls and the ejection that comes with that penalty. The first was in the first half for chirping about a call, and the second came early in the second half for spiking the basketball in frustration.

We can quibble about whether the technical fouls — particularly the second — were fully earned, but the bottom line is that KG put himself in the position where a judgment call could determine his fate.

And it showed the fine line between fierce competitor (which Garnett always is, and which the Wolves hope rubs off on young players) and over-the-top hothead (which Garnett occasionally is, and which the Wolves should hope young players learn as a lesson in what not to do).

Getting tossed out of a game, as a player, is among the most selfish things you can do because you place your own frustration ahead of the good of the team. The Wolves could have used Garnett down the stretch of a tight game. Instead, he was long gone and had nobody but himself to blame.

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The Wild is still jockeying for a playoff spot and every game is still important, but we've seen enough to believe this: Minnesota, barring an injury to Devan Dubnyk, will make the playoffs. And we should all buckle up for what has the potential to be a long postseason run.

The Gophers women's basketball team has had an impressive, if uneven, season. Its bid in the NCAA tournament should be secure, but the answers to two big questions going into postseason play will determine how far they go: Can they defend enough in a tight game? And can they adjust if all-world center Amanda Zahui B. is swarmed by defenders?

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Between 2004 and 2013, the Twins were among the top 10 MLB teams eight times in terms of percentage of would-be opposing base-stealers they caught. That strength became a glaring deficiency in 2014, when the Twins ranked 29th.

Part of it is because Joe Mauer — who had many excellent years throwing out runners — moved to first base. But part of it is because pitchers were poor at holding runners on. It's nice to see new manager Paul Molitor putting an emphasis on that (and begs the question of why it wasn't more of a priority last season).

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