Who else would I see at a Minnesota Timberwolves season-opening game but Jordan sports boosters Connie Crimi and Gregg Busch?

"They're not as bad as we thought they were going to be," I said to Busch as we headed toward our respective exits after a 99-91 loss to the Denver Nuggets at Target Center in Minneapolis.

"Nope," Busch said. "They're still young."

True. If you don't count Theo Ratliff.

I'll see a lot more of these guys this season, as I bought tickets to six more games. I'll try to blog about the games I go to see. Here are my musings on tonight's game:

- The starters were Ratliff, Rashad McCants, Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, and Sebastian Telfair. 

- After a season without him, I had forgotten how good McCants really is. He scored 23 points, despite sitting for a substantial amount of time due to foul trouble.

- Dunks by McCants and Ratliff got the crowd into the game early on in the first quarter. But the best dunk was a second-quarter Allen-Iverson-to-Carmelo-Anthony fast break alley-oop -- wowee!

- Telfair ran the offense well. I like the play in which the guard passes to the post and swoops down the baseline behind the hoop for a handoff from the post and a reverse layup by the guard. Slick.

- Telfair and Greg Buckner guarded Iverson well, although you can't expect them to keep AI from putting up 24 points, 15 of those on free throws.

- It will be nice to have Randy Foye back. He gave a nice, little speech at the beginning of the game to the effect of: Thanks for coming, we need you, so be a loud crowd tonight.

- Nobody could stop Anthony. Gomes corralled him for a little bit in the first quarter, but then Anthony lit up, finishing with 33 points. At one point in the fourth quarter, Corey Brewer matched up with the Nuggets star and was sorely outdone. To me, that's a coaching miscue.

- I've never liked Marko Jaric. Never will. Iverson ran our guy all over the court. Jaric played no semblance of defense on the Nuggets ballhog.

- More playing time for Craig Smith please.

- I wish Antoine Walker would jump when he shoots "jump" shots. The former All-Star threw up some ugly bricks. On the other hand, he's clearly playing the encourager role. As each starter hit the floor, he pounded fists with and hugged them.

- We might be able to count on Jefferson, christened the Wolves' new star, to put up frequent double-doubles. He had 16 points and 13 rebounds. They're not Kevin Garnett numbers, but that's still good.

- The Wolves stayed ahead of the Nuggets for much of the game, although there were eight lead changes and 10 tied scores. My team fell apart in the final quarter, though, outscored by the Nuggets 25-14.

So yeah, I guess I'll go back to watch these guys again. They were exciting. The run game is on. And they can hit 3's. Some of them can rebound. There were few turnovers. Go Wolves.