NBA playoffs 2024 - Timberwolves fan Craig Kilborn is loving the West finals against the Mavs - ESPN

IT'S THE NIGHT before the Minnesota Timberwolves' biggest game to date in 20 years — hosting the defending champion Denver Nuggets with a chance to go up 3-1 in the conference semifinals on May 12 — and sitting at a corner booth at The Lexington supper club in St. Paul is one of Minnesota's native sons back doing some hosting of his own.

Dressed in a navy three-piece suit and tortoiseshell-framed glasses, Craig Kilborn has a captive audience.

He shares stories, cracks jokes and revels in an evening that typifies what the 61-year-old — whose autographed photo hangs on the wall along the corridor to the men's restroom — refers to as, The Life Gorgeous. It's a phrase the former ESPN anchor and late-night host defines as, «Living the right way, enjoying the simple things in life… It's elevated taste, yet being down-to-earth.»

Entertaining his friends Charlie and Jim, Kilborn opens his monologue to the Lexington staff.

«Someone would like a vodka martini,» Kilborn says to the restaurant attendant before ordering his shaken, with Chopin Vodka and three blue cheese-stuffed olives.

«I bruise the vodka,» he says to his tablemates after drink orders have been taken, revealing a wry smile. Once the entrees arrive, Kilborn breaks out a version of his old, reliable bit, «5 Questions,» going around the table to ask for each diner's five favorite movies.

Kilborn, who during a 12-year run in the 1990s through the early aughts hosted «SportsCenter'' on ESPN, „The Daily Show“ on Comedy Central and „The Late Late Show“ on CBS, is visiting near his hometown of Hastings, Minnesota, because of his Timberwolves.

Kilborn fell in love with basketball because of his father, Hiram, a New York transplant in the Midwest. „My favorite player was Walt