Los Angeles v. Minnesota 2 Day Grudge Match

2 days, 3 games, only 1 city can prevail: it’s the Los Angeles vs. Minnesota 2 day grudge match bash 2012.

Tuesday the LA Kings faced off against the Minnesota Wild in Minnesota. Hours later, the Los Angeles Clippers in their powdery blue retro jerseys faced up at home against T-Wolves, or as their retro jersey suggests the “Muskies.” Wednseday the Lakers have a shot to take the victory home for the city of Angels, and send the T-Wolves to scour back over their land of a thousand (frozen) lakes.

Round 1

The Kings gave All Star goaltender Jonathan Quick the night off, and the Jonathan Bernier anchored Kings team finally got the goals to go with their shut out. Justin Williams scored less than a minute into the game, followed by goals later in the period from youngster Dwight King and Anze Kopitar. The damage was done, but Jordan Nolan scored the final goal of the game five minutes into the second period. The trade bait from earlier in the week stayed hot and involved with two assists and three hits. Bernier stopped all of the 26 shots that came his way.

The Kings getting offense early seems to make all the difference. The pucks start bouncing the right way, and then they play so much looser. That is how the game went against the Blackhawks at home on Saturday. Rather than pressing, which leads to impatience and unimaginative offense, they just play hockey. They stop worrying about the standings, and recent results and their repercussions, and they get back to the basics that win hockey games.

Round 2

The Clippers All Star duo was matched up against their power forward and point guard foils, Kevin Love and Ricky Rubio. Watching the game, the similarities between the two teams in who position by position was supposed to give production astonished me. Both point guards known for their passing first, not their scoring; the two power forwards are the two best in the game today and carry the scoring and rebounding load; athletic small forwards that do everything at least moderately well; undersized shooting guards who can also play the point; and centers not known for their scoring.

But the Clippers weren’t beat 109-97 by Love and Rubio, but by the area the Clippers lack the most—the bench. The D Williams in the box score wasn’t named Deron, but Derrick. And the La Mirada high school star, U of A standout, and number 2 overall pick in this year’s draft torched the Clippers on 9 of 10 shooting for 27 points. He proved to his hometown crowd that not only is he an athlete, but he has outside range as well. The oft troublesome Michael Beasley also came off the Minnesota bench to drop 27 on the Clippers as well.

The Clipper bench only combined for 11 points. Mo Williams provides scoring off the bench, but after Chauncey’s injury and Randy Foye’s insertion into the starting lineup, the bench’s production is very inconsistent. There is a lot made of “the second unit” in today’s NBA. Minnesota showed why on Tuesday as “the second unit” played almost the whole last 15 minutes of the game. They pulled the game even early in the fourth, pulled away later in the quarter, and even sealed the victory.

The T-Wolves, wearing their retro “Muskies” jerseys evened up the 2 day grudge match bash 2012 with Los Angeles. Now its up to the former Minneapolis Lakers to hold up the city of angels right and just place at the top of the steel cage of movie stars and muskies (which apparently is a really large, ugly fresh water fish) against the current Minneapolis NBA franchise in round 3. The good news for the Lakers is that Kevin Love is missing tonight’s contest. The one and done Bruin is out with the flu. Minnesota’s counter punches with the Lakers super villain JJ Barea.