O.J. Mayo, the former Timberwolf for about four hours, came to town Monday night for the first time and played at Target Center, a place that someone earlier in the day reminded him could have been all his.

“Could have been,” he said with a smile.

Instead, he arrived with the young, promising Memphis Grizzlies on a night when Al Jefferson and Kevin Love finally played together for the entire fourth quarter and all but the final 10 seconds of overtime and the Wolves prevailed because of Jefferson’s 38-point, 16-rebound night and Love’s most energetic performance (and 17 points and seven rebounds) in weeks.

Until tonight, Love had scored just 21 points in his last eight games. Tonight, Kevin McHale actually called a couple of plays for Love, who issued a challenge to Mayo by scoring consecutive baskets that Mayo answered by scoring seven Memphis points.

Ultimately, Jefferson was too much for a Memphis team that is 8-8 at home but 2-13 on the road. Jefferson scored 19 points in the fourth quarter and overtime and he scored as many by himself as the Grizzlies did in that 19-9 overtime.

“Al Jefferson is pretty tough for our rookies to handle,” said Memphis coach Mike Iavaroni, who starts three of them.

The Wolves now are 6-24 and have won two of three since Friday’s victory at New York.

A couple other tidbits:

– Craig Smith matched a career high for assists with five, and had all of them by the end of the first quarter.

– The Wolves somehow won despite setting a franchise record for fewest field goals in a quarter with just one, in a second quarter when they shot 1 for 16.

“Well, we sent basketball back to about 1952 in that second quarter,” said Wolves coach Kevin McHale, whose team was outscored 20-8 in the quarter. “That was just terrible.”

– The Wolves also made just one 1 of 15 three-point shots after going 21 for 37 in their previous two games. Brian Cardinal missed three of them in just six minutes in the second quarter alone. Think that was the game plan going in?’

– The Wolves flew to Dallas after tonight’s game and play the Mavs there tomorrow night.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 30th, 2008 at 12:56 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.