Kevin McHale wants the Wolves to play faster now that Al Jefferson is done for the season.

Just not this fast…

The Wolves led by 16 in the second quarter, then got overrun by a Raptors team that plays decidedly different than the last time these teams met, two weeks ago at Target Center.

The Raptors wore out the Wolves in that one with low-post presence of Jermaine O’Neal, who wore out Kevin Love in the fourth quarter on a night when Chris Bosh didn’t play because of a knee injury that kept him out of the All-Star Game.

This time, K-Love didn’t play a second in the fourth quarter for the second consecutive game because McHale matched Toronto’s small lineup with one of his own.

The Wolves still didn’t have an answer for Bosh or Andrea Bargnani, the Raptors’ nighmare of a matchup at center. Heck, they didn’t have an answer for Anthony Parker — new Wolf Shelden Williams’ brother-in-law — for that matter.

Bosh scored and Bargnani each scored 26,  Parker had 24.

Afterward, McHale lamented that he played Mike Miller, Randy Foye, Ryan Gomes and Sebastian Telfair all 35 minutes or more and that he might have to find a way to cut down their minutes if he wants them to play at a fast pace and still have the energy to get back on defense.

“Scoring isn’t a problem,” he said. “Our defense was the problem.”

Love scored 11 points in the first eight minutes, after which the Wolves led 28-18. He played just 15 minutes more and scored just four more points the rest of the night because of foul trouble and because he sat the whole fourth quarter while McHale and the Wolves went small with Foye, Gomes, Miller, Rodney Carney and either Telfair or Kevin Ollie.

“Just coincidence, matchups and different things,” McHale said when asked about Love sitting the fourth quarter Sunday against the Lakers while he went with Jason Collins and then again tonight. “Nothing to be alarmed about. Kevin played 23 minutes. I thought I should have got him in the fourth quarter, but we had a little more luck when we went small. We didn’t get up too many offensive rebounds. It was like rebounds was a real issue.”

Said Love: “I don’t make those decisions. The coaches do. I’m not bitter about it.”

Other things:

-The Wolves now have lost three straight, eight of nine and 10 of 12. They are 1-5 without Jefferson.

-Bobby Brown made his debut, with five second-quarter minutes in which he scored two points (1 for 3 shooting) and had an assist. Shelden Williams didn’t play.

-Brian Cardinal got under the skin of both Bosh and the Toronto crowd. The two players each got a technical foul after Bosh reacted strongly to Cardinal’s hard foul late in the first quarter. When Cardinal returned to the game in the second quarter, those normally polite Canucks booed him lustily.

Afterward, McHale was asked about the “altercation.”

“In our league, if two guys aren’t kissing it’s an altercation now,” he said. “There’s no altercations. Go back 30 years and you’ll see some altercations.”

- The Wolves flew home after tonight’s game and play Utah, with Carlos Boozer back after three months and 44 games away, Wednesday night at Target Center.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 at 12:34 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.