By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

These days, beating the Minnesota Timberwolves – coached in an ever-more-bizarre manner by Kevin McHale in the absence of lone star Al Jefferson – falls somewhere on the degree-of-difficulty scale between “clubbing baby seals to death” and “blasting .300 Win Mag rounds into wolves from a helicopter.”

But just because this was a game the Warriors should have won doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be rewarded for actually, you know, winning it.

Their 42 defensive rebounds were a season-high, a mark made more impressive by the fact that the Timberwolves (with Jefferson at least) are a top-10 team in terms of their offensive rebounding. Minnesota grabbed a combined 37 offensive boards in two earlier meetings with the Warriors this year; last night, that number was 12.

Golden State should get extra credit for that, because even though Minnesota plumped up the Warriors’ DREB opportunities by shooting 35.9 percent, a large chunk of those misses (almost a third — 19 out of 59) came off of 3-pointers, which generate the long bounces that become prime OREB territory.

The Sit-The-Veterans Experiment schedule was thrown off when Ronny Turiaf came up legitimately unable to play due to illness, so Corey Maggette did not get a night of rest and instead came off the bench to make sure the Warriors’ didn’t threaten their season best for turnovers (six in 28 minutes; the rest of the team had combined totals of five in 212).

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By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

As the rift between the Warriors coach Don Nelson and rookie forward Anthony Randolph continues to widen unabated, with the teenager effectively serving an unofficial and open-ended suspension, it’s funny to think about who might have salvaged this relationship:

Chris Mullin.

Randolph was a Mullin pick; Nelson wanted Jason Thompson but came around eventually to Mullin’s way of thinking, which was to take a potential superstar if one was available at No. 14 — and Randolph fit that bill.

It stands to figure that Mullin would be the guy best equipped to keep Randolph’s emotions in check when he would get yanked by Nelson’s short leash. After all, Mullin was the guy who served as Monta Ellis’ biggest champion during a rookie season in which coach Mike Montgomery derided his talents and kept him mostly glued to the bench until Baron Davis shut it down in March.

But Mullin has been persona non grata for a while now, unseen at practice or even at shootarounds, where he used to be a constant presence. He’s been on the road scouting college games, which should give him some great insights (on the Warriors’ dime) when he goes to work for another NBA team next season, but that’s a whole other problem.

Much has been made of the shot Randolph delivered to fellow rookie forward Rob Kurz in practice last weekend; the obvious inference to be drawn from Stephen Jackson’s reaction is that Randolph deliberately nailed Kurz.

I don’t think he would have wanted to cause serious injury, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Randolph, having reached the height of his frustration, lined up Kurz’s chin and clocked him as a stand-in for Nelson.

Nelson has been almost unremittingly critical of Randolph this season. The coach’s biggest compliment — that Randolph had passed Brandan Wright on the team’s depth chart way back in preseason — turned out to be totally false, just a motivational tool to light a fire under Wright.

On the other hand, Nelson has been effusive in his praise of Kurz from Day 1, all but pouting when Kurz was cut on Mullin’s order and then campaigning hard to get him back once Ellis was placed on the suspended list.

I’m not saying definitively that that’s what happened. But I can certainly see Kurz being the epitome of everything that’s going wrong for Randolph — at least in Randolph’s eyes — and Randolph snapping after three months…

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

The Warriors zoned. The Timberwolves just zoned out.

Thanks to a 9-0 run at the end of regulation — fueled by a 2-3 zone that took Minnesota star Al Jefferson completely out of the game — Golden State managed to come back Tuesday for a 113-110 victory.

After surging ahead by double-digits in the second half behind a frontline featuring three of the players expected to carry them into the next decade — 22-year-old Andris Biedrins, 21-year-old Brandan Wright and 19-year-old Anthony Randolph — the Warriors squandered that lead and then some in allowing the one-win Timberwolves to take command in the fourth quarter.

But with Minnesota holding a nine-point lead and less than four minutes remaining, Golden State clamped down with a zone that was designed to keep Jefferson in check.

Jefferson never even touched the ball. The Timberwolves missed their last eight shots. And perhaps most importantly, Minnesota — which had 20 offensive rebounds on the evening — only got one during the final 4:30, and that was on an ineffectual tip from Craig Smith with 30 seconds left.

Wright finally secured that rebound, fed the ball to C.J. Watson, who zipped a cross court lead pass to Stephen Jackson, who tallied the game-tying layup with 22.2 seconds left, part of his season-high 30 points.

“It was kind of hard for Jefferson to get the ball and make plays when we collapsed on him in the zone,” Jackson said. “We got rebounds, got out and ran, so I think the zone was very successful tonight.”

** This was the first time all season that the Biedrins-Wright-Randolph trio was on the floor together. The unit had stints in each of the first three quarters. The first was a move made out of desperation; Randolph came on in place of an ineffective Watson and Jackson took over at the point.

But the last one was a deliberate choice on the part of coach Don Nelson, who sent them out to start the third quarter together. That group helped Golden State reel off a 9-4 run to build an 11-point lead 3 minutes into the half.

“There are so many young guys on the floor, but it’s kind of fun because everybody is playing with such energy,” Biedrins said. “Everybody is running, defending, blocking shots.”

The Warriors were able to make the big and young lineup work because the Timberwolves weren’t equipped with the kind of point guard who…