Two road losses and a game that doesn't matter to me

So we are about two hours away from a Timberwolves game that doesn't matter to me one bit. 

There are people -- especially those in the Wolves marketing department -- who think that the Boston Celtics' only appearance of the season at Target Center is a big deal. I am not one of those people.

Why? First, I don't heart KG. Second, I truly don't care what happens tonight. And I don't think anyone should. The Celtics are in a far different stratosphere than the Timberwolves right now. They are shooting for 60 wins and a title. Aspirations here are quite different. I'd take 25 victories from the Wolves and run. I'd jump for joy for a 30-win season. The Wolves are young and inexperienced. The Celtics, well, aren't.

I expect that the Wolves will get dominated tonight. I think it will be much like last Friday night's game against Cleveland. I don't think it will be close. I don't think there will be a miracle. And I don't expect there to be anything of the sort. Now would I be thrilled if the Wolves made a game of this like OKC did last night against the Lakers? Certainly.

But I am more concerned about seeing improvement and seeing the Wolves win games that they could and/or should win. That's part of why the Phoenix-Clippers back-to-back was kind of disappointing. While I know that the Wolves best player still isn't 100 percent and their second-best player has a broken hand, I think they should have been able to win one of those two games. 

Phoenix has been one of the biggest surprises of the first week of the season to me. They are doing a nice job spreading the court and Channing Frye is a difficult matchup because of his ability to play on the perimeter. When he's out of the paint, that means teams either have to play off of him or Amare is left with more room to move inside. That is called damned if do, damned if don't. And then Nash is a total pick-and-roll freak with great vision. Like usual, Phoenix will struggle to defend teams that are bigger and stronger inside, but the boys in orange can run and score almost at will.

The best part of the loss to the Suns was the biggest letdown against the Clippers. Big Al was great -- especially early -- against Phoenix. He played big in the post, he wanted the ball, he looked like the Al of January 2009. He did almost anything he wanted.

While he scored 24 points a night later against the Clippers, he only grabbed four rebounds and Chris Kaman got 25 and 11. I know Kaman is better than most people know, but if Big Al is truly an elite big guy, he can't get outplayed by that guy. It just shouldn't happen.

Also, the Wolves shouldn't be outscored in three of four quarters by the Clippers. 

What does all of this mean? It means the Wolves will be 1-4 by the end of the night and Friday night's game against the Bucks is big. More about that later, but right now, I'm going to go watch a game that I don't really care about.  Because the Wolves have zero chance to win.