Breaking the cycle

I've heard the phrase "24 hour news cycle" at different times, about different circumstances but in today's internet world, with instant access to so many different news sources and facts I don't think it is a 24 hour cycle anymore. I think it's more apt to call it a breaking news cycle with the latest headline being all that matters.

Well I have to go back 2 full days for this but can't skip out on giving my 10 cents on a certain subject that I'm sure you've all heard about by now but may not have given much thought about.

Let me start from the beginning. Two nights ago the Minnesota Timberwolves played against the Golden State Warriors, out in California. Being a weeknight game, out on the West Coast and having to be up early for work, made it so that I couldn't stay up to see the game but I watched the first half and took a close look at the box score in the morning.

Early in the game, Minnesota got down as much as 17 points. By the end of the first half they closed the gap to nine points and by the end of the fourth were able to knot it up and force overtime. In OT they out scored the Warriors by 7 and pulled off the biggest win of the year.

I'm not going to over blow the significance of the win, but I also don't want to under rate it. So an attempt at sports related balance and more after the break.
The over used adage is that the Timberwolves are a young team. It is accurate - excluding KG and Tayshaun and the average age of the team is 24 but is still too easy of a crutch.

They've played together and have made progress this year - see this win and the win over OKC a couple weeks ago, if you don't believe me. But they're still well below .500 and have a roster in need of more talent.

But this isn't supposed to be a memorandum on the teams issues. They got a big win against the reign NBA champs. Only the second team all season to beat them at their house. So good for the kids!

And one in particular.

In a game featuring Stephen Curry, Andrew Wiggins, Karl - Anthony Towns, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Ricky Rubio, Gorgui Dieng, Harrison Barnes or Andre Iguadala there were a whole bunch of players who could potentially post a stat line of 75% shooting while going 15 of 17 from the charity stripe.

But none of those guys did it. One Shabazz Muhammad lead all scorers with 35 points on that stat line.

It may very well be the best game of his career, which would be a blip on the radar but it's quite a blip.

I never heard a word of recognition for the work that he did in the game so I'm giving it to him now. It took every point to get the win and he came up huge.

It's the kind of game that can be the spring board for the young guys. Will it guarantee future results? No.

But it's indicative of what is possible in the future for this squad.

So for Shabazz and for the whole team, just a little bit more recognition for the biggest win of the year. To start breaking the cycle of being too positive or negative or just ignoring it. In a breaking news cycle, I'm throwing it back a couple days so that we can keep using it as the positive building block that it can be. A single block to next year and beyond, lets break the cycle's together!