Breakdown

• Point Guard - Tony has a difficult game last night, playing well in stretches but with too much energy and trying too hard to finish in spectacular ways. As in the past, that led to TOs. On a night in which Manu finally cured his TOtitis (only 1 for him), Parker picked up the slack, and it was a bit painful to see. Still, he's so much better than Secret Agent Randy Foye that this matchup is a joke. And Foye's the punchline.
• Off Guard - Mike Miller can shoot, but he's battling an injury and is listed as day-to-day. Also, he's not Manu, so he has that working against him. (I swear I'm open to picking someone other than Manu, but it's difficult to find someone that can rival Manu's magic. ...Or is it?)
• Center - Huge Al is a huge player, and he has huge games against us. He's another guy I've got a bit of a crush on - don't judge me. You Spurs fans want Bosh? Really? I want Al. I love Timmy too much to pick someone over him, though, so this is a tie.
• Power Forward - Matt's Night of Horror is firmly in the past, so I'm giving this matchup to him. Don't let me down, Matty! Remember that my doghouse is much worse than Pop's.
  
• Small Forward - Finley shot well last night. ...Still, when Finley plays against Gomes, everybody loses.
• Bench - A bench that has someone named McCANTS as its best player can't beat the magical combo of Hill and Mason. Hell, I'm pretty sure they can't beat the Mad Eye - Fatality combo. In fact, I think they couldn't beat JV teaming up with Horry's ghost.
• Coach - McHale just might be able to beat Pop at HORSE.
  
• Intangibles - The Wolves are trying to avoid reaching an all time record in consecutive loses, and their streak is at 12 loses already. Meanwhile, the Spurs listened to me last night (PTR's power is infinite) and finished their FIGABABA in 3 quarters, letting Pop rest our key players. So it's desperation vs. rested professionals. ...Wolves' edge?
  
• Mojo - I don't understand why all the teams we're playing lately have fired their coaches - oh, right, they all suck. Regardless, as I've said before I think that's an instant -10 in the karma column.
  
• Winner - We won in a thrilling double overtime rollercoaster of a game against the Wolves back in November (remember?), then we beat them again 10 days ago after a 3rd quarter run, now with Manu and Tony playing. I like to think we've improved since them, so WE GOT THIS SHIT. (Copyright goes to CMoney.)
  

Keys to the game

• Suckitude - Is it possible to suck when you're playing the very worst of this league? I say "suck till proven otherwise".
  
• Softness - There was no softness to witness last night against the Kings. Beno played badly for most of the game, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Or at least I enjoyed it, and I like to think Tony was smiling on the inside. (Somewhere, Rasho sheads a tear.)
• Hill - He's always the key.
  

Some other reading

The Wolves fans sure are resilient. Here's a list of the blogs I found, each one of them full of suffering but steadfast fans:

Other things of possible interest

Did I mention that tomorrow's my birthday? And that I had to hand in a project today at work? Sorry, guys, no time to find something interesting to link. I'll just leave you with the latest round of Manu's replies to questions from the fans, and be on my way. (Only for those of you who know Spanish - they aren't translated yet.)

Here comes Malik.

I had to edit the post because ptruser pointed out I'd gotten the title wrong (I'm an idiot). Here're his very interesting fact about Malik:

The 6-6 Hairston was allocated to Austin before this season after participating in training camp with the San Antonio Spurs. An All-PAC 10 player at Oregon, Hairston was selected by Phoenix in the second round (48th overall) of the 2008 NBA Draft before being traded to San Antonio. This season he is averaging 19.5 points and 5.9 rebounds in 11 games for Austin.
[nba.com]

Game feeds

ATDHE.net
PPNBA
MyP2P

Recap: Spurchief has this one, but if anyone wants to do the Sacramento recap, these are the guidelines.