Minnesota Timberwolves 109 - Los Angeles Clippers 97

"A match up between the two most improved teams in the whole NBA"

That was how last night's contest was being billed by the Los Angeles announcers...hard to argue I suppose.

This was a night where the Clippers would ask big minutes of Chris Paul (37.10), Blake Griffin (37.17), and DeAndre Jordan (36.10) and the Twolves would get a team high 29.54 minutes from....wait for it....Michael Beasley.

This was a night when one mythological creature was  fairly quiet but a beast of a different kind was waiting to spring from its lair.......wow!

yeah....wow!


We caught a glimpse of what Derrick Williams is capable of in the final quarter of the Utah game prior to the All-Star break. Having been to Orlando for a four day junket doesn't seem to have affected his focus....last night the lion roared....right when it was needed.

K-Love was a husk of the player that we have become accustomed to watching....he looked tired, everything was off and his stat line was, for him, laughable....in short he wasn't K-Love and when he took a cheap shot to the ribs deep in the third it gave Rick Adelman the perfect excuse to allow him to have a seat for the rest of the night.....D-Will alongside B-easy was really THAT good in this game.

The LA Clippers must have wondered what they had to do to shake off the Twolves last night...every time the scored bulged for the home team, back would come Minnesota. This pattern continued all the way through three quarters last night until Griffin, Jordan and Paul could carry the weight no more and the strain that the Twolves bench had placed upon them finally paid off, in the fourth.....In this quarter the Twolves were brilliant.

The starters for the final twelve minutes were as follows....

Barea, Webster, Beasley, Williams and Milicic.

Yes you read that correctly. Darko Milicic played more minutes than Wes Johnson last night and although he wasn't a factor in the scoring column he made a good fist of defending of Blake Griffin. Over the course of the evening Rick Adelman had thrown Love, Pekovic and Williams at Griffin all in a bid to slow him down...Darko has that length and as we went into the fourth, with Griffin undoubtedly tiring, Darko disrupted him all over the place...solid effort by the big guy....this is not to de-value Pek's contribution in any way, he made some very tough plays in his 22 mins and more than once conjured points out of nothing.....if Darko could morph into a serviceable back-up for Pek that would, indeed, be manna.....he had 5 assists!!!

JJ Barea (Jose "Juan Lucky Guy" Barea - liked that, that was funny!) did a great job of annoying Chris Paul in this final period. JJ has been much more like his old self on either side of the All Star game...he's being much more selective and looking to use the likes of Williams and Beasley more often...he's creating space and finding the open man.

Martell Webster steadily moved into his groove in this game. He was an efficient 5-7 from the floor for 11 points and played good, hard defense alongside JJ.

Michael Beasley was nothing short of sensational...this was even better than the Houston game...this was flat-out deadly. When Minnesota moved into a 90-82 lead Vinnie Del Negro called for a time out to reassemble his team. Coming out of that huddle Beasley killed the Clips again and again and again from every conceivable angle...he looked unbelievably smooth....the ol' B-Easy that everyone knows is lurking in the recesses. I sincerely hope, because Michael Beasley is my guy, that this is the start of something big for him. To be fair to Michael he's been playing well within himself since coming back from injury....he's adapting to the Rick Adelman set up....okay, so last night, you could argue, occurred due to a strange set of circumstances and Bease isn't going to find himself in this position all the time but if he's needed and he's ready I don't see why Minnesota would want to trade this young man...I really don't.

Turning lastly to Derrick Williams. He was sensational all the way through his 27 minutes of play. It seemed like he would never miss a shot and was part of everything that was good, on the night, for the Twolves. Above, I mentioned B-Easy taking over the scoring from 90-82...well, you don't have to look very far to find the player who pushed us into that lead. With a shade under 9 minutes left D-Will went on a mini-rampage scoring 10 straight points, silencing the Staples Center crowd in the process....I would imagine it takes a lot to silence Billy Crystal. Phenomenal performance from Williams. All augers well for the future if he keeps this kind of production up.

54 points from the twin headed Wolf, Beasley and Williams (27 apiece).....if Love and Pek are Plan "A" then we may just have been given a tantalizing glimpse of what a plan "B" could look like.....In the immortal words of Ralph Lawler....

"BINGO!"