Bewerbungen » hard, too early more

MINNEAPOLIS -- The Minnesota Timberwolves are trying to find any sense of traction this season and will have yet another chance to win back-to-back games for the first time when they play at home Saturday night.Standing in Minnesotas way is just the team on the hottest streak in the NBA: the Houston Rockets.The Timberwolves (7-18) host Houston on Saturday night after the Rockets (20-7) won their ninth game in a row on Friday, beating the New Orleans Pelicans 122-100 in Houston.We came in today and had a different swagger about us, Minnesota center Karl-Anthony Towns told the Minneapolis Star Tribune a day after the Timberwolves 99-94 comeback win in Chicago. A different swagger that we have never had; an arrogance in a way that great teams have.Minnesota recovered from a 21-point deficit against the Bulls, the largest comeback in the NBA this season. The Timberwolves felt good about themselves and also had three days off before the Rockets come to town.But its a Minnesota team that hasnt won two games in a row all season. The Timberwolves hope something changed this time.I think, in Chicago, thats the first time we played team basketball, forward Gorgui Dieng told the Star Tribune.Minnesota can benefit from back-to-back practices as well, a rare occurrence rare in todays NBA. The young Timberwolves need the practice as much as anyone as they continue to learn the ways of new coach Tom Thibodeau.For us, practicing hard and practicing well is critical, Thibodeau told the Star Tribune. It is not punishment, but it is what we need to do to build habits. This is all about building habits and building a foundation.Tuesdays comeback was made possible because of defense. It was the first time in 10 games that Minnesota had held a team below 100 points. Chicago scored 56 total points in the final three quarters.Stopping the Rockets is a more daunting task.The Rockets entered Friday second in the league in scoring with 122.8 points per game. That was before Houston bombarded New Orleans.Houston hit 24 3-pointers in Fridays win against the Pelicans. The total broke a mark the 2013 Rockets shared with the 2009 Orlando Magic. They shot 61 3-pointers in the win, breaking another record they had set earlier this season when they shot 50 in a game.It was one of those nights where it didnt feel like we put up 60 3s, said forward Ryan Anderson, who was 2 of 8 from 3. They were in-motion shots, they were good shots.Eric Gordon was 7 of 12 on 3-point shots in scoring 29 points. James Harden was 6 of 12 from beyond the arc on the way to his sixth triple-double of the season with 29 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds. Trevor Ariza added five 3s and scored 20 points.We can still be better, Gordon said. I wouldnt doubt that before the season is over well break that record (for 3-pointers made) again.I think itll happen again for sure. A lot of teams like to load up trying to not let us get layups and it forces us to shoot 3s. Its like, Why not? I think well have that chance again.Harden also passed Hakeem Olajuwon with his 15th triple-double for Houston, the most in team history.The Rockets have played twice while the Timberwolves rested and practiced. Houston also put up 132 points in a win on Wednesday over Sacramento, which scored just 98 points in the game. Chauncey Billups Jersey . -- Three close looks at the bucket, three misses. Charlie Scott Jersey .ca NFL Power Rankings, overtaking the Denver Broncos and remaining ahead of NFC competition San Francisco, Carolina and New Orleans. https://www.cheapnuggets.com/487y-ty-lawson-jersey-nuggets.html . Louis. To which I would say two things: 1. Where there is smoke, there is or perhaps has been a little fire. Or, in other words, the two teams would appear to have at least spoken. And spoken is defined as one calling the other to inquire, no more, no less. Kiki VanDeWeghe Jersey . Rousey will put her perfect 8-0 record and hardware on the line against another undefeated fighter, 7-0 Sara McMann in the main event of UFC 170, which will be held at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas Nevada on February 22nd. Jamal Murray Jersey . Vaives lawyer Trevor Whiffen claims the former 50-goal man wasnt provided with a copy of the claim beforehand and that he would not have agreed to the allegations made against the NHL had he been asked to review its contents. Suppose you were to play Ronnie OSullivan in a frame of snooker. You would lose - you know this before you start; the only question being by how many points. The game simply requires too much sustained excellence - potting accuracy, cue-ball control, safety-play precision - for you to even contemplate an upset. Were you to play Ronnie at pool, however, and broke off by sinking one ball and spreading the rest, then provided you held your nerve, the chances are you could beat the greatest cueman the world has ever seen. Compression - potting eight consecutive balls on a table a quarter the size of a competition snooker table - provides opportunity.Does the same logic apply to cricket: the longer the game, the less chance of a giant-killing? Does T20 carry the greatest chance of a potential upset, followed by List A (or ODI), followed by first-class cricket (or Tests)?It was a discussion that surfaced in 2014, when Michael Vaughan floated the idea of an FA Cup-style domestic T20 competition - straight knockout, no seeding to protect the big clubs, with Minor Counties sides and others invited - to run on free-to-air TV alongside the existing NatWest Blast round-robin format. Of course, crickets thralldom to finance and need for guaranteed fixture lists rendered the idea a non-starter, but it was interesting to ponder whether such a tournament would provide a greater chance of an upset - Vaughan said 5% - than in the minor counties 41-year participation in the Gillette Cup and its successors, which produced ten giant-killings in 336 matches. (In the Benson & Hedges Cup, the Minor Counties representative XI won six games out of 139.)Does a shorter game really lower the odds, or on the contrary, has T20 engendered such a degree of specialisation that it would no longer be possible for the good amateur team - even bolstered by an overseas player or two, and playing on the poor club wickets on which most of those giant-killings took place - to contemplate an upset? Could it be that the skill set possessed by decent bowlers just below first-class level - shaping the red ball away, good accuracy, pace in the 75-80mph range - translate to white-ball T20 fodder? Is it only in the professional environment that players can hone the yorkers, slower balls, reverse sweeps, ramps and suchlike that are integral parts of the T20 repertoire nowadays?What if we scale up to international level, to battles between the lesser teams (who might in any case be fully professional, as with Ireland) and established powers - do the same principles hold, even with better pitches and more evenly balanced attacks? Or, to ask a closely related question: which format most lends itself to Associates being competitive with Full Members, thus encouraging and nurturing the spread of the game?Perhaps the recent self-interested reluctance of Full Members either to imbue Test cricket with more context in the form of the two-divisional structure, or to expand the game by providing more opportunity for Associates to participate in ICC global events - the next 50-over World Cup has been contracted from 14 teams to ten, and the format of the next World T20 is under discussion - renders this moot. Meanwhile Irelands and Afghanistans recent results provide ammunition for both the expansionist and pro-streamlining camps: the latter have won an ODI in Dhaka, beaten Zimbabwe 3-2 in ODI series and 2-0 in T20s both home (Sharjah) and away, and were, of course, the only team to beat West Indies in the recent T20 World Cup. Ireland, meanwhile, have suffered very heavy ODI defeats to Australia, South Africa and Pakistan in recent weeks, and slipped to 15th in the T20 rankings. Yet even if the question is increasingly hypothetical, its still worth considering which format offers the best chance of an upset.It is not inconceivable that ann Associate that produced one all-time great bowler (Richard Hadlee and Muttiah Muralitharan carried New Zealand and Sri Lanka at times), backed by solid batting and disciplined support bowling, might compete in Test matches.dddddddddddd Zimbabwe approached their first years as a Test-playing country by playing conservative cricket, hoping that taking the game deep would pile the pressure on opponents who were always expected to beat them.Restricting ourselves to the two white-ball formats, conventional wisdom would suggest both that the 50-over game gives a team more chances to recover from a wobble than T20, its greater ebb-and-flow potentially beneficial to an underdog, and that victory in the latter only requires one or two players - or fewer than in 50-over cricket, at least - to perform well. Evidence from World Cups in the two formats doesnt make an unambiguous case either way - and there are many different kinds of giant-killing, of course: low-ranked Full Member beats high-ranked Full Member; Associate beats low-ranked Full Member; Associate beats high-ranked Full Member in dead rubber; and the shockoholics favourite, Associate beats high-ranked Full Member in live game.There have been several victories by Associates over the high-ranked Full Members in the World Cup. Sri Lanka shocking India in 1979, Zimbabwe downing Australia in 1983 and England in 1992 (in a dead rubber), and Bangladesh beating Pakistan in 1999 all presaged their Full-Member status. Kenya beat West Indies in 1996, as well as Sri Lanka (and Bangladesh) in 2003. Ireland have, over the last three tournaments, beaten Pakistan, England and West Indies.As for the six World T20s, a total of 24 games pitting Associates against the Big Eight throws up only three major upsets: Afghanistans victory over West Indies, and Netherlands two wins over England. Perhaps this reflects the fact that T20 is crickets state of the art, the place where the resources and systems of crickets moneyed elite should be rendered swashbucklingly, bamboozlingly manifest.And yet, this convergence of imagination, technology, bowler-punishing playing regulations and intensive training increasingly pervades the 50-over game. The two formats are becoming largely indistinguishable, as Eoin Morgan acknowledged in the wake of Englands record-breaking 444. The knowledge that, in good batting conditions, 275 just wont be competitive pushes sides to recalibrate their risk-reward calculations, with the odd crash-and-burn 180 from going too hard, too early more than worth it for posting 300-plus and being competitive. It is this mentality as much as administrative tweaking that has all but killed the Boring Middle Overs.Nevertheless, it is logical that as the scores rise in ODI cricket, close games will be less likely, period, let alone between teams unevenly matched on paper. No room for spoilers and grinders here - at least, not on good pitches. In addition, five in the circle until over 41, plus the Associates general lack of bowling weaponry allows highly trained 360-degree batsmen longer to assert their supremacy. The chasm between amateurs and pros that T20 has opened up in English domestic cricket could be replicated by the T20-fication of the longer form of limited-overs cricket, creating a parallel chasm between Associates and Full Members.And if competitive advantage in T20 is, arguably, to be found less in top-line bowling - neutered as it is by leg-side wide rules, bouncer rules, effective boundary size and so forth - and more in power-hitting capacity, then does the greater likelihood of a guy playing out of his skin for 25 balls than for 125 mean that, after all, T20 offers the better chance of an upset? ' ' '