This season is only 23 games old, but already the Wolves have done something they didn’t do all last season, when they won just 22 times and lost 60:

They’ve lost nine consecutive games.

The Wolves’ longest streak last season was eight.

The Wolves haven’t won since Mike Miller’s buzzer-beater won at Oklahoma City on Nov. 28.

That was 17 days and, of course, nine games ago.

This time, the Wolves were undone by their poor shooting (36 percent), 17 turnovers and a 14-5 Lakers run — featuring not Kobe Bryant or Pau Gasol or Lamar Odom, but Jordan Farmar — that ended the third quarter, began the fourth and turned a tied score at 57 into a 71-62 lead the Lakers never relinquished.

Afterward, Kevin McHale said his team is not yet mentally or physically prepared to push the ball the way he wants them to play. He wants them to push the ball at every chance not in an attempt to become a fast-break scoring team but rather to get into the ball to Al Jefferson in the post and get into their offense with, say, 18 seconds left on the shot clock rather than eight.

“We’re not sprinting it down to shoot it, we’re sprinting it down to play inside-out,”McHale said. “If you drop it inside with Al, they double team. If you have 18 seconds, you can really do some stuff. If you have eight, you don’t have much time.”

About the only break in a tough schedule that has included games against Denver, San Antonio and the Lakers in the last three and Cleveland upcoming on Wednesday is Monday’s game at Sacramento.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 15th, 2008 at 12:55 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.