Somebody asked Randy Wittman before Wednesday night’s season opener — and it wasn’t the first time he has been asked this — when he thought Kevin Love would earn his way into the starting lineup.

Wittman went into a mini-rant, wondering why everybody is in such a rush to make the rookie a starter.

Well, there’s the curiosity factor to see one of college basketball’s most acclaimed players a season ago. Then there’s the investement the team made by trading the rights to O.J. Mayo to Memphis for Love and Mike Miller in that eight-player deal.

And then there is Wednesday’s “plus-minus” ratings, the statistic the NBA borrowed from the NHL.

Love played fewer than 19 minutes in his NBA debut, yet he was instrumental in two game-changing runs in the seocnd and fourth quarters. He scored 12 points and had nine rebounds — one rebound shy of becoming the third Wolf ever to get a double-double in his team debut (Al Jefferson and Tom Gugliotta are the only two to do so — but most telling what that plus-minus number.

Plus-20.

That was seven better than the next Wolf, Kevin Ollie’s plus-13.

At the other end of the spectrum, Ryan Gomes, Wednesday night’s starting power forward, was minus-19 and Randy Foye was minus-10.

Now, you can argue what plus-minus really means in basketball, but it sure said something Wednesday.

Wittman took Love out with 3:40 left in the game, he said because the Kings went small by moving John Salmons to a really small power forward. At that point, the Wolves led 95-86. They got outscored 10-3 the rest of the way and clutched victory when Kevin Martin’s jumper and Salmons’ follow just before the final buzzer both missed.

Ollie’s efficient play caused Wittman to play him most of the fourth quarter. He stayed with Ollie mostly down the stretch, removing him in favor of Foye with 2:28 left and then putting him back on the floor with Foye for the final 33 seconds. Wittman said it simply was a matter of sticking with who was playing well and in the locker room after the game Foye (12 points, three assists, three steals, four turnovers) concurred, saying he didn’t care that he sat for an extended period because he’s all about winning.

Some other bits:

*The Wolves missed as many free throws — 11 — as they made and were darn lucky their 11-for-22 night didn’t cost them the game. The night started with Foye missing a pair and ended with Mike Miller going 1-for-2 with 25 seconds left when he could have extended the lead to three points. Miller scored 11 points, had a team-high six assists and went 3-for-6 from the line in his Wolves debut.

*Al Jefferson scored 18 of his 21 points before halftime.

*Corey Brewer gets my MVP for holding (with some help from Rodney Carney) Kevin Martin to a 5-for-19 shooting night. Martin’s 17 points were 16 fewer than the 33 he averaged in four games against the Wolves last season.

*You couldn’t tell defense was training camp’s overwhelming point of emphasis, until those final 25 seconds when they forced Martin into a tough shot but allowed the offensive rebound.

*The Wolves committed 11 turnovers, more than a third of them by their starting point guard.

*And if you’re watching boxscores, O.J. Mayo needed 20 shots to score 10 points, and went 0 for 7 on threes in a loss to Houston.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 30th, 2008 at 3:12 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.