Sam Cassell puts on a display for the ages as he saves the Wovles’ season.
Time continued to tick of the clock of a second-round playoff game. With each passing second, the knot in my stomach twisted a little bit tighter. It seemed inevitable – we were going to lose. I’d watched my team play with the season on the line so many times before, and had come to expect collapses like this. But unlike years past, this one was especially difficult to bear. This season, it was supposed to be different. We had an MVP-caliber player at the helm. We had a core of grizzled veterans who understood what it would take to bring this franchise to heights it had never before reached. And so as the game clock marched on, I could do nothing watch my dreams fall apart once more. It’s at moments like this one, where you lose the ability to let the frustration out. You’re beyond emotion. And so you just sit in shock and hope the end comes quickly.
I sat there watching, not knowing that this dark hour would ultimately become our finest moment. Although I and my fellow fans had conceded the loss, our leader would not give up. He and his teammates had come too far, and fought too long to quietly fail. And so the MVP put the weight of the franchise upon his shoulders once again and led his team into battle. One by one, the fans were brought back from despair by the fearless heroics of their leader. And then in the final seconds an aged assassin with ice in his veins put the winning points on the board. The team that was once “as good as dead” was now more alive than ever, and on it’s way to a championship.
That was my version of the New England Patriots “Snow Game” back in 2002. What team did you think I was talking about? But in all honesty, there is an amazing amount of similarities between the Pats’ victory over the Raiders and the Wolves recent triumph over the Kings in Game 2. As I sat watching the game on Saturday night, down ten with four minutes to play, there was only one thought going through my mind. “This feels exactly like the “Snow Game”. As much as I thought our season was practically over, there was that part of me that just couldn’t believe we weren’t going to win the whole thing. Even though I couldn’t possibly imagine them coming back the way they were playing, I had equal difficulty imagining this whole thing being over. I’m telling you, there’s something to this whole “Can You Feel It?” idea. I really believe that when your team’s time comes, you know it. And Saturday night gave me a little more proof.
There’s something that separates the good teams from the great teams, the pretenders from contenders. It’s not something tangible that you can easily point out, it’s something deeper. It’s something that makes a team play above its talent level. It’s something that allows a team to win no matter what circumstances may occur. Some people might chalk it up to chemistry or confidence. Some people may call it luck. But no matter what, I know this – The Minnesota Timberwolves have it. They’ve shown flashes of it throughout the season, but in Game 2 it was on display for all the world to see. In their most dire hour, the reached within themselves and harnessed that element. The result was undoubtedly the finest minutes in Timberwolves history. The jail doors swung open and all the frustrations of the past were set free. After years of falling down to the mat, the Minnesota Timberwolves finally showed that they could take a knock-out punch and stay standing. And now it’s going to take a whole lot more than a right hook to take them down.
The destiny of a team always comes down to one moment. There is always a matter of seconds that determines which teams fade into the shadows and which teams go down as legends. I think we witnessed those seconds on Saturday night. The Timberwolves have finally taken their game to the next level. They have reached a new pinnacle of excellence. And now all that stands between themselves and the championship… is time.
