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MINNEAPOLIS -- The alarm rings at 4:30 a.m., but only for a split-second. Tom Thibodeau has been wide awake for the last eight minutes, waiting for the buzzer to go off.He unplugs himself from the matrix, where he has spent the last four hours downloading video of Rick Carlisles push offense, all 722 of Russell Westbrooks pick-and-rolls last season and diagrams of Gregg Popovichs plays after a timeout straight into his brain.Or so goes the caricature of the NBAs ultimate grinder, a reputation that has morphed from reality to apocryphal over Thibodeaus three decades in the league. The snarling, growling, basketball savant so consumed by the game there seems to be little room for anything else in his life.I think thats sort of the way it is today, Thibodeau said with a hearty laugh. You get put in some type of box. Im like everybody else. There are a lot of other things that I enjoy doing also.Thibodeau insists hes more than the basketball junkie that people cast him to be. In addition to visiting teams during his sabbatical last year, he also saw his family over the holidays for the first time in recent memory, took trips to Napa and St. Thomas and watched the occasional movie. He loves U2 and Bruce Springsteen and relishes a great meal with good company.But now that the season is here, its time to work.The Timberwolves brought him back to Minnesota -- the place his NBA coaching career began 27 years ago -- with the hope he can galvanize a promising young roster and end an interminable 12-year playoff drought. He arrived in Minneapolis in 1989 as a mullet-wearing, 31-year-old making the jump from Harvard. He returns as a 58-year-old coaching veteran, empowered by owner Glen Taylor as coach and president of basketball operations.Im never going to apologize for working hard, Thibodeau said. I just dont believe in that. I believe that when you make a commitment to do something, put everything you have into it every single day and then you let the chips fall where they may. Its worked well for me.His ability to balance the patience it takes to construct the long-term vision he has for the organization with the win-at-all-costs mentality that made him a success with the Chicago Bulls will be crucial to the downtrodden franchises ability to pull out of the abyss.In some ways this is similar to when I took over in Chicago, when Derrick (Rose) was 22 and Joakim (Noah) was 25, he said. But how you pace the team, I think thats one of the biggest challenges for a head coach.That Bulls team went 62-20 -- a 21-game improvement over the previous season -- and lost in the Eastern Conference finals. In Minnesota, he takes over a team that won just 29 games, but boasts a treasure trove of young talent including Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins and Zach LaVine.I think hes going to be great for the city, great for these young guys, said Memphis Grizzlies coach David Fizdale, who along with Thibodeau is among the 10 new coaches in the league this season. Hes going to make them into a serious threat in the West.In his first month coaching this team, there have been signs of the old and new Thibodeau. His practices are long and intense, but he has granted several days off for rest and even gave the entire starting lineup the night off on the second night of a back-to-back last weekend.He is hilariously profane while storming up and down the sideline, but also laughs uncontrollably and cracks jokes while presiding as judge and jury over a competitive shooting drill in practice.Hes tough. But at the end of the day, this is our job. This is our profession, said guard John Lucas III, who played for Thibodeau in Chicago. This is what we do. All he asks of you is give him 100 percent. Take no possessions off. Help each other. Leave nobody on an island. Have your teammates back. And thats the culture were trying to build here.Its an all-business culture cultivated by Thibodeau and GM Scott Layden. The demands made of players here in the past -- meeting with corporate sponsors or season ticket holders to try to spur interest in the team -- have been significantly reduced to allow them to focus on basketball.Hotels on the road have been upgraded and trips home in between spaced-out road games have been eliminated to give the team more bonding time.And after a messy exit from Chicago plagued by mistrust between the coaching staff and front office, Thibodeau has established a unified management front in Minnesota. During big news conferences, he and Layden sit side by side. And Thibodeau has followed the lead of several other head coaches around the league by not permitting his assistants to do interviews with the media, an effort to make sure there is one message being delivered.Its all part of his mission to build a championship foundation in an organization that has advanced out of the first round of the playoffs one time in its 28-year history.I love the game so its not work to me, he said. I enjoy being part of a group and the camaraderie of being with a team. And I love the competition.---Follow Jon Krawczynski on Twitter: http://twitter.com/APKrawczynskiChina Jerseys Stitched . -- Ohio States Urban Meyer has never had any issue acclimating to the biggest stages in college football. China Jerseys Wholesale . The next step is a better finish. Bae played bogey-free Friday on another gorgeous day at Riviera for a 5-under 66, giving him a one-shot lead over Aaron Baddeley and Robert Garrigus going into the weekend. https://www.chinajerseyscheap.us/ . LeBron James and Chris Bosh didnt need any more. Williams scored 11 points in 10 minutes, Alan Anderson scored 17 points, and the Brooklyn Nets finished the exhibition season with a 108-87 win over the Miami Heat on Friday night. China Jerseys Cheap .J. -- Marshawn Lynch said Thursday it will be good to get back to football after the Seattle quiet talking running back wrapped up his final mandatory media session of Super Bowl week. Fake China Jerseys .ca. Hey Kerry, big fan of yours, just finished reading your book. I think that we all saw the Canucks/Flames line brawl just after puck drop. It was obvious that something was about to happen, even to the referees because the fourth lines were on to start.Lords, 1982. Pakistans target to win the Test is a simple 76. Pakistan dont do simple. They do complex and unfathomable. Its the final session of the Test and rain clouds rush towards St Johns Wood. Pakistan last won a Test in England 28 years earlier - Fazal Mahmoods match at The Oval. This win can shape history, be a catalyst for Imran Khans new age. A win at Lords, to follow humiliation in 1978 - and if there is one thing Imran cant stomach, its humiliation. His every cell has pride stamped on it. This win will be a manifesto for pride-branded cricket. Yet the rain clouds are gathering and only 15 overs remain.Pakistans opener Mudassar Nazar holds the record for the slowest Test hundred. He doesnt appear, left in the pavilion to be satisfied with his surprise six wickets in the second innings. Imran places history in the hands of Mohsin Khan, to follow his dashing double-hundred in the first innings, and Javed Miandad. The rain clouds are in a rush, but Miandad and Mohsin are more urgent, scampering singles and thrashing boundaries. Pakistan win by ten wickets. Javed kisses the turf and runs for the pavilion. We are in the time of pitch invasions, and where better to sprint in triumph than at Lords? Imran smiles for his statement victory.England are back at full strength at Headingley to narrowly take the series. But nothing takes the edge off that first win at Lords. Nothing. Lords is the home of cricket and the ground to make history for Englands opponents. Pakistan will never look back.****A decade later, another chase at Lords. It is important. Pakistan are the ODI world champions. Winners over England at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in March, an iconic final in the history of one-day cricket. Wasim Akrams final, where he scores quick runs and conjures incredible wickets, blowing a hole in Englands soul. In these undifferentiated days, the status of world champions in one-day cricket somehow implies superiority in Test cricket too. Pakistan feel the pressure of tackling their vanquished rivals so soon, of defending their world standing. In any case, this is England. And this is the home of cricket. Thats pressure enough. Pakistans captain, Miandad, knows all this and he has his pride too. The pride of Karachi, of never taking a backward step.Pakistan hunt a second series win in England, after winning their first in 1987. An unlikely alliance of Headingley and Saleem Malik, backed up by Imrans ten wickets, delivered that series. But Imran is now gone, a victim of age and a feud about the World Cup spoils. Miandad is captain on the team sheet rather than by proxy. Its the fourth day and Pakistan require a simple 138 to win. Nothing is simple in Pakistan cricket. They find themselves at 95 for 8, with Wasim and Waqar Younis at the crease. The two Ws believe theyd won the match once, sharing 13 wickets as we fall in love with reverse swing - and England possess the might of Gooch, Stewart, Hick, Smith, Lamb and Botham. Now the two Ws must win the game again, with the bat this time. Loves labours lost. This match decides nothing except first blood in the series. But every match for a former colony at Lords is a judgement, on how we are and how far weve come. And weve come down to this, 43 required with two wickets in hand. Only Aaqib Javed to come. At the ground, people are frozen rigid in their seats. At home, people are sucked into their televisions. The fate of the world hangs on this, at least it seems to. Pakistan dont lose another wicket. Pakistan dont lose. Wasim crashes a lavish four to the cover boundary, grabs a stump and sprints for the pavilion. Hes met halfway by team-mates, and ecstatic fans, carried aloft like the King of Lords.England play a perfect game at Headingley, but Pakistan decide the series at The Oval. Pakistan almost win by an innings and no Pakistani scores more than 59. Fifteen wickets to the lords of reverse swing. Pakistan arent just world one-day champions. They are more than that - and Lords plays its part.****By 1996, England are no longer feared. It is Pakistan who are feared, with their world-class opening bowlers and mystery spinners. They can bat too. This is the most complete Test team Pakistan cricket have ever known. Nothing is simple, for sure. They are successful but not quite as successful as they might be. And there are reasons, some that only emerge later, for why the chaos keeps boiling over, why the genie loves to escape the lamp.The fiirst Test is at Lords and Pakistan dominate.dddddddddddd Inzamam-ul-Haq and Saeed Anwar are formidable in a team at its peak. Nothing is simple, though, for Pakistan cricket. They dominate at Lords but the result is in doubt. England are holding on, rather too easily, at 168 for 1 on the final day chasing 408, with Michael Atherton and Alec Stewart at the crease. The game is a draw, a nailed-on draw.And then it happens, the deep magic fills the ground. Waqar charges down the slope, Mushtaq Ahmed skips and twirls his variations. Extreme pace from one end, swinging in at the stumps, a legspinner casting his spell at the other, the battle rhythm of Pakistan cricket is scattering Englands senses. With each wicket, Waqar charges in faster, bowls it quicker, swinging it more and later. Each war cry from him is louder and more victorious. The stumps are his. England are gone for 243 and Pakistan win again at Lords, this time by 164 runs.The Oval seals the series. A fine win by nine wickets. This Pakistan is too strong for this England. And Lords played its part, settling the mood, making it three wins out of four for the men of Pakistan.****Two decades later, the world is changed. The revolution a distant memory. The heroes gone; 2001, 2006 and 2010, the intervening England tours, produce no wins at Lords, and only a decline in standards. The year 2001 is the twilight of the idols, a drawn series through luck and the weight of history. Then 2006 brings a team that can bat in parts but betrays its bowling traditions. It also brings the rule of Inzamam, with the assistance of the Bob. It brings The Oval and Darrell Hair and the forfeit. But 2010 is worse. A batting side of horrible inexperience, a camp of distinct immaturity, and the scandal of no-balls. Cricket is finished in Pakistan, perhaps Pakistan cricket is finished? Yet this is Pakistan, and nothing is simple or easily fathomable. Pakistan is not weak. This Pakistan team is strong, save for its openers. The strongest, hungriest Pakistan team to visit England since 1996. The most complete Pakistan team to visit England except that team of 1996. How they did it is written in these pages. The will of Misbah-ul-Haq and the grit and guile of Younis Khan. The discovery of Asad Shafiq and Sarfraz Ahmed, two of Pakistans most accomplished players in their respective positions. The pace of Wahab Riaz, that wild, raging power that summons the magic of reverse swing. The revelation of Yasir Shah, a legspinner in the tradition of Abdul Qadir and Mushtaq, perhaps better than both, and in tandem with the pace bowlers beating the battle rhythm of Pakistan cricket to scatter Englands senses. And then at Lords, the resurrection of Mohammad Amir, the bearer of the flame, the next great Pakistan fast bowler.Nothing is simple in Pakistan cricket. This isnt the wild, electric, ill-disciplined Pakistan of yore. This is a new Pakistan, a second revolution. This is a revolution of patience and discipline, of dot balls and boot camps. A Pakistan that stokes wildfire and electricity but confines them within a calm embrace.This is Pakistans fourth Test win at Lords. Each win is the stuff of legend, but that is the nature of Lords. It would be too simple to say each win matters as much as the others. Nothing is so simple in Pakistan cricket. Up until now, Imrans 1982 victory was the greatest, but it was coming, Pakistan were a team whose moment was about to arrive. In 2016, 34 years later, Pakistan cricket has given us unparalleled highs and bottomless lows. No series victory in England for 20 years. So many bad times that the good times were almost forgotten and unimaginable. A Pakistan team has never approached a Lords Test under such scrutiny, this unsure of its worth outside Asia, and against an opponent flying so high. What to expect was hard to fathom. Yet Pakistan mastered the pressure. They mastered the circumstances. They delivered the greatest Lords win, but they didnt sprint off the pitch. They paused in front of the pavilion for a salute and press-ups to pay respect to their country and their countrymen.This is a second revolution in Pakistan cricket. A revolution of pace and fire. A revolution of mesmeric spin and dedicated batting. A revolution of deep magic and battle rhythms. Above all, this is a revolution of respect. ' ' '