My eyes are still burning - watching Timberwolves is painful indeed

MINNEAPOLIS -- Two friends from Cedar Rapids and I somehow thought it would be a good way to kill a couple hours. Buy cheap seats to the Phoenix Suns-Minnesota Timberwolves game and kick it. You know, old-school.

I don't know what that means.

Anyway, it was a grievous mistake. Sure, it was good to see Steve Nash ply his trade. His command of the game hasn't lessened to my untrained eye. And he has some talented teammates, like Amare Stoudemire and Jason Richardson. Grant Hill still has some game.

The Timberwolves, alas, have none.

We walked into the Target Center Friday night with Phoenix up 17-14. By the time we settled in our seats, bought for $10 each across the street from the arena, it was 24-14.

It didn't get any closer. Phoenix won, 120-95. I have no idea how the Woofies got that close.

They stink. This was their 15th-straight loss. They opened the season with a win over the New Jersey Nets. They haven't won since. But their 1-15 mark isn't the NBA's worst, because the Nets are 0-16.

When they have their rematch in New Jersey, the Meadowlands will be even more toxic than usual.

I follow sports, as a rule. It's kind of my job, in fact. But many of the Woofies were strangers to me. Oleksiy Pecherov and Nathan Jawai, Wayne Ellington and Damien Wilkins. All I know about any of them today is they play for a bad team, and they aren't starters.

I did recognize bald Woofie Brian Cardinal, who played at Purdue about 30 years ago. He's actually 32 years old. I'm sure

 he has a lot of money stashed from being in the NBA for almost a decade, so he's a winner. But he's in his second year with the Woofies after four seasons with the Memphis Grizzlies. How much losing can a human endure? Brian Cardinal surely knows.

Someone named Earl Clark played the whole fourth quarter for the Suns. He was the 14th pick in the 2009 NBA draft. He made all six of his field goal tries and had 14 points. He is one of the last Suns off the bench, and he looked like he'd be the third-best scoring option on the Woofies.

"Everybody is coming in here kind of full throttle to put us away," said Woofies rookie guard Jonny Flynn, who is pretty good but stuck in a bad place. "We have to do some soul-searching. We have to go out there and really have pride."

It was Rambis Night at the Target Center. The dancing girls and other assorted hire help wore dark glasses like Minnesota Coach Kurt Rambis wore as a player with the Los Angeles Lakers. Rambis needs a fake nose and moustache to go with the glasses these days. As things stand, he's in grave danger of being recognized as a part of this mess.

I should have gone to the Metrodome instead. The Minnesota Class 5A prep title game was played there Friday night. Cretin-Derham Hall, quarterbacked by Mark Alt, the son of former University of Iowa star offensive lineman Jon Alt,  beat Eden Prairie, 18-5.

Alt passed for 210 yards and two touchdown passes, and kicked a field goal for the winners.