OK, so when did the Wolves lose this one?

At the end once again, when they led by nine points with 6:25 left and allowed the Nuggets a 21-6 closing run that included 11 unanswered points?

Or, as Randy Wittman contended, at the end of the third quarter, when the Wolves also led by nine with 2:51 left and surrendered a closing 9-2 run that pulled the Nuggets within a basket?

Now, the Wolves pushed that lead back to nine points, but afterward Wittman lamented the third’s closing stretch, when rookie Kevin Love missed two layups and at least two other shots down the stretch.

“We have to close a quarter out,” Wittman said. “It’s those little thing that you have to take care of. Kevin missed two point-blank layups. They go down and Chauncey (Billups) hits a pull-up three. Those baskets, you’ve got to have. You don’t make it, they do. That’s where it really changed. You keep the lead there and then you push it in the fourth and it’s 15, now it’s 16 and the pressure’s on them. We gave away seven points in two minutes. That’s where the tide turned on us a little bit.”

Said Love: “I just missed some easy buckets. I gave myself a couple chip shots, a layup. We let it get away a little bit in the third quarter. But we got it back up to nine, so you can’t blame it all on the third quarter.”

Somewhere in there, veteran Kevin Ollie approached Love, lifted his chin up and encouraged him.

“It’s kind of been that way the last three games or so, all my shots have been right there,” Love said. “He told me those shots will go. I know they will.”

Still, the Wolves squandered that last nine-point, fourth-quarter lead.  Al Jefferson’s technical foul for protesting a late call on him on Kenyon Martin’s missed dunk allowed the Nuggets to get three points closer with 5 1/2 minutes left. Then the Wolves let Nene picked up a missed Denver free throw off the floor and feed Carmelo Anthony for an emphatic go-ahead dunk with 2:27 left.

Billups — a former Timberwolf, dontcha know? — provided the punctuation point when he followed Jason Collins’ offensive foul for an illegal screen with a three-pointer that gave Denver a four-point lead with 50 seconds left. It was all over then.

Collins, as I noted in my pregame post, moved into the starting lineup Sunday with Ryan Gomes for Love and Corey Brewer. He played 17 minutes, scored two points, had five rebounds.

Wittman when asked if Jefferson’s technical had any effect on the game: “Nah, no, that’s an emotional deal. We got some tough calls down the stretch. Ryan played some pretty tough defense on Carmelo, Carmelo jumps into him and Ryan gets the foul. It’s hard when in a fast-break situation the referee at half-court makes the call.”

A couple other things:

BTW, the eight-game losing streak matches the longest from last year’s miserable season. That started Dec. 22 at New Orleans and continued until they beat Miami at home on Jan. 8.

Randy Foye’s 18 points were a season high. Sebastian Telfair started the game again, but this time played just 4:47 — he looked like such a little fella trying to guard the bigger, bulkier Billups — before Foye (and Kevin Ollie later) came on and played 39 minutes while Telfair sat the entire night until 18 seconds remained, and by then the outcome had been decided.

Mike Miller took just four shots (made three of them) in 34 minutes. Gomes took 10, Love nine, Foye 15, McCants eight in just 16 minutes. Even Craig Smith got up five. What’s up with that?

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