Greetings for one last time tonight. Hope they get all the snow cleared at the airport because I have an early flight back into the Twin Cities.
There was a lot of disappointment in the locker room Friday. And not just because of the loss. The Wolves were upset, perhaps even a little embarrassed, that a young team that had won the night before could come out with such a lack of energy the following night.
Love said there was no excuse. Beasley said the team has to learn how to stick to the game plan on offense when things aren't going well.
Just think how bad this might have been had it not been for Love's 23-point, 15-rebound performance. He got 15 of the Wolves 36 rebounds. He scored 23 of their 82 points. As it was the Wolves were out-rebounded by 17, turned the ball over 21 times and played defense badly enough that the Bulls were able to hit on 10 of 17 three-point shot.
It just shows how fragile this young team still is. The Wolves missed a lot of makeable shots in the start of the game, then quickly tossed the game plan out and started playing one-on-one basketball, with predictable results.
That said, I believe the Bulls are a team on the rise. They improved to 14-8 with their fifth straight win. This was my first chance to watch Derrick Rose in person, and he's brilliant. He had the knack Friday for hitting the killer shots -- the three-pointer at the end of the third quarter, the three-pointer that helped turn back a mini-charge by the Wolves to start the third quarter. He hit on 8 of 10 shots, on 5 of 6 three-pointers and had seven assists in less than 30 minutes of play.
That's about it for tonight. I'll be at practice tomorrow.
