The key number from Wednesday night’s loss in Salt Lake City that determined by the Jazz’s overwhelming third quarter:

15.6.

That’s the percentage chances of getting the No. 1 overall pick in May’s draft lottery after the Wolves moved all alone into third place in that “race” Wednesday. That’s when they lost to the Jazz and Memphis beat the dysfunctional New York Knicks, soon to be less so now that the Knicks have hired Donnie Walsh from Indiana and Isaiah Thomas presumably is headed out the door.

Watch out, though: The Knicks now are looming with just one more victory, tied with Memphis with 20 each. The 19-win Wolves still play Memphis twice, including Sunday at home, play at Charlotte and finish with unpredictable Milwaukee at home. Miami won the race long ago and Seattle, with 17 victories, looks like it has runner-up all but wrapped up. The Sonics have lost 15 of their 16 games, including Wednesday night to the L.A. Clippers. If they can’t beat the Clips, they’re not beating anybody.

The Wolves fought the good fight for the first half Wednesday, trailing by three at intermission before Mehmet Okur, the big 6-11 Turk, put on a three-point shooting display in a telling 20-5 third quarter run. Afterward, Wolves coach Randy Wittman lamented his team’s body language for the first time in weeks, suggesting they had quit playing when the big guy started firing threes through the air.

“I told them, `We have two weeks left in the season and we can’t do that anymore,’ ” Wittman said.

The Wolves flew to Phoenix after the game and on Friday play the Suns for the first time since they made the big deal to land the big deal, Shaquille O’Neal.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 at 12:53 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.