Thunder at Timberwolves: Pre-game primer

vs.

Thunder (19-50, 5-28 road) at Minnesota Timberwolves (20-49, 10-25 home)

TV: FS Oklahoma HD (Cox 37, HD 722)
Radio: WWLS The Sports Animal (98.1 FM, 640 AM)
Time: 2:30 CST

Offensive Rating: Thunder: 103.4 (28th), Minnesota: 106.3 (23rd)
Defensive Rating: Thunder: 109.2 (20th), Minnesota: 111.3 (26th)
Pace:Thunder: 93.6 (8th), Minnesota: 92.0 (14th)

What a big game – loser takes last place in the division, winner takes second to last place. Woowee, intense. The last time the Thunder visited Minnesota, they took a pretty good drubbing. The kind of drubbing where the game was over basically in the first eight minutes and you were just left watching to see how many threes Randy Foye might hit. It was a rough night for OKC as Minny rolled 129-87. And it wasn’t even that close.

But the Wolves are still without big man Al Jefferson and while Kevin Love has played well in his place, he’s no Al Jefferson. The Wolves aren’t great at home (10-25) but they have won two of three at the Target Center and OKC is tied for the league’s worst road record at 5-25. But hey, we’ve won two of five on the road. So it’s the league’s worst home record against one of the worst road records. Should be fun!

Last time these two teams tangled, the Wolves were having their best month of the season and the Thunder caught them in their hottest stretch. It seemed like it was an endless barrage of threes and the Thunder offense never got even close to getting on track. And while the Thunder defense has slipped a bit since Kevin Durant has returned (not really that much in all reality though), the offense hasn’t clicked that well. KD went a very un-KD-like 10-24 from the field against Utah and the supporting cast didn’t do a very good job to pick up the slack.

Tough to place any kind of expectations on this game because you never know what you’re going to get with the Thunder on the road. Heck, kind of hard to say what you’ll get any given night. I feel like it should be a win, but who knows. And plus, add in the fact that nobody will be watching so that takes the importance of this game to even a lower level. But I’ll still be watching… during commercials.

Tip is in, oh crap, an hour! Go Thunder.