This one went all the way down to Randy Foye’s three pointer at the buzzer that looked so good until it hit the back of the rim and bounded far away as time expiring, leaving the Wolves with their ninth consecutive loss and a season-sweep loss to Portland for the first time since 1995-96, Kevin Garnett’s rookie season.

Ultimately, Brandon Roy beat ‘em again, this time with 31 points, including a little floater with 1:02 that ended up being the winning points.

It didn’t hurt that the long and lively Blazers had 16 offensive rebounds, including Travis Outlaw’s outrageous, flying putback dunk over Kevin Love with 1:23 left that helped repelled a 9-2 Wolves run after the visitors trailed by nine points with a little more than five minutes left.

“That guy’s a freak, man,” Love said. “That’s all I can say. That was a great dunk.”

Ryan Gomes’ three pointer (the last of his season-high 28 points) got the Wolves within one with 10 seconds left. When Roy missed the second of two free throws with eight seconds left, the Wolves got the ball back, called timeout and purposely went for the three pointer for the win on the road. Foye’s shot looked good all the way but it the back of the rim.

“It felt so good,” Foye said.

Love struggled in all four games against the Blazers. He averaged just 4.5 points and 5.2 rebounds in those four and on Saturday fought foul trouble most of the night.Was he simply trying to hard all year against his hometown team or is it more due to the Blazers’ long and athletic frontcourt? I’ll vote for the latter.

Here’s the game story I wrote for the Web after all the Sunday print deadlines had passed:

http://www.startribune.com/sports/wolves/40910337.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUss

Also, here’s a note item I had on NBA commish David Stern scolding McHale and Glen Taylor after both candidly answered reporters questions last week about the league’s future in this failing economy. Both suggested big changes are coming when the current Collective Bargaining Agreement expires in 2011.

Stern called Taylor and told ‘em both to shut up.

http://www.startribune.com/sports/wolves/40916782.html?page=2&c=y

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