Timberwolves forward Al Jefferson recorded 49 double-double games in his 67 games this season. In the last nine, he has had two, a disparity his coach attributes perhaps to the toll of carrying a team on his broad shoulders for an entire 82-game season.

Jefferson took just one shot in the first half of Sunday’s loss to Memphis at Target Center and still finished with 18 points and eight rebounds, a drop-off in offensive production that began to show in mid-March.

That’s about the same he began to show interest in developing, at coach Randy Wittman’s urging, his defensive and playmaking skills. In the second half Sunday, Wittman saw what he considered the real offensive Al Jefferson.

“That was his doing,” Wittman said of Jefferson’s two points in the first half. “He was catching the ball 18 or 20 feet from the basket. We’re not going to throw him the ball there. The second half was the first time in a while that he’s really attacked and been Al Jefferson. He demanded the ball.”

Jefferson remains on pace to play every game for the first time in his career. Until this season, the most he has played is 71 games in his rookie season, 2004-2005.

“I think a little bit of it is fatigue,” Wittman said. “But you’ve gotta learn to play through that. This is the first time he’s played this many games. We’ve

Wittman said the fatigue of playing every game might be showing.

“But you’ve gotta learn to play through that,” Wittman said. “This is the first time he’s played this many games. To play 82 games, we had a guy here for a long time who did. The good ones do it a lot if they’re lucky enough not to have injuries. He’s striving to do that, but I think he’s seeing what it takes to play 82 games.”

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