Three steps forward, one step back?

Kurt Rambis contended he had seen a lot to like in the Wolves’ successive losses to Phoenix, the L.A. Clippers and Boston this week.

And then comes Friday’s game against the Bucks.

Leading by nine points in the first quarter, by five at halftime, the Wolves wilted in the third quarter when the Bucks turned up the defensive pressure and outscored them 31-14.

That matchup of rookie point guards — Jonny Flynn and Brandon Jennings — fairly fizzled while Andrew Bogut asserted himself with a 17-point, 10-rebound, 4-assist game on a night when the Bucks denied Al Jefferson at every turn and the Wolves’ triangle offense stalled, perhaps trying too hard to get him the ball.

Al made just three of 12 shots and scored eight points (had eight rebounds, too).

Granted, it has only been six games, but the more I see of Rambis’ system, if you look way down the road, doesn’t it seem like Kevin Love fits this offense and Al’s game really doesn’t?

Two other things about tonight:

* Oleksiy Pechrov only scored 22 fewer points than he did Wednesday against the Celtics: He went 1-for-6 for two points after his 24-point, 8-rebound game against KG.

* The 72 points were the Wolves’ fewest since they scored 70 against the Cavs at Target Center last December.

Well, that’s it from Target Center for tonight.

Gotta pack for a flight tomorrow to Portland, where the Wolves take their five-game losing streak on Sunday against the Trail Blazers.

That’s a homecoming for both Love and David Kahn, but neither will play.

The Wolves and Bucks have reached  the second quarter with the Wolves leading 26-20 with 8:10 left before halftime. I’d say watch the point guard matchup — Flynn vs. Jennings — tonight, but if you’re not here at Target Center…well, it’s not on local TV.

The Bucks are playing without injured Michael Redd tonight.

On another matter, Kevin Love, after a conversation with Kurt Rambis, has toned down his talk from the other day that he could be cleared to return two weeks from today. That’s when he’ll get his broken hand X-rayed again.

He said he’s still hoping the X-ray will show then that the hand has heal sufficiently, but admitted he may have gotten ahead of himself hoping it will be ready.

That’d be as much as two weeks ahead of the six-to-eight week timetable set when he broke the hand in a preseason game at Chicago on Oct. 16.

The 1-4 Wolves worked out for about two hours today at Target Center the afternoon after Wednesday’s late loss to the Celtics.

A couple topics of interest today:

* The Wolves have hired former Wolves guard Darrick Martin for that player-personnel coach job that’s part of David Kahn’s plan to make the Wolves the league leaders in player development.

Martin was one of several candidates auditioned — former Wolves Tony Campbell and Chris Carr were among that group — and it’s probably no coincidence that the team ultimately chose a former point guard. Make sense with so much invested in Jonny Flynn, Ramon Sessions and Ricky Rubio.

The other part of that player development equation is the Dallas-based clinical psychologist Kahn has hired. Dr. Yolanda Brooks has been around the team quite a bit to observe its dynamics. Kahn hired her as a resource to help players with any off-court issues they might have.

* Rookie point guard Brandon Jennings comes to town tomorrow night in a meeting with Flynn, two of the top 10 players taken in last summer’s draft. They’ve already met twice in the preseason. Jennings’ regular season start has been, well, impressive. A work colleague and admitted Bucks fans texted me the other night after watching Jennings play Detroit and the essence of the text was “OMG.”

Here’s a point I’ve been thinking about: Kahn waited until August — more than six weeks after the draft and nearly three months after he was hired — to hire a coach because he said he wanted to be sure he wanted to be absolutely sure he was making the right call with such an important decision.

Isn’t a little incongruous that he took two point guards with those fifth and sixth picks and then hired a coach who runs an offense that, well, doesn’t minimize the point guard but certainly doesn’t entrust the ball in their hands and rely upon them to create.

I asked Sessions after practice today the difference between playing point guard for the Bucks’ system  and the Wolves and he basically said Scott Skiles was a point guard, Rambis was a big guy.

I’ve got a feeling some folks in time might start making comparisons between Jennings and Flynn simply using stats.

The comparison is obvious because they were four picks apart in the same draft class, but if there’s a discrepancy –and so far there has been — it might well be attributed to systems of play.

You look at all those Lakers and Bulls title teams that ran the triangle and none of them had a dynamic point guard. Can one thrive in such an offense?

Who’s not to say Flynn wouldn’t be putting up the same kind of numbers as Jennings — 22 points, 5.3 assists, 1.7 assists in three games — if he was playing in Skiles’ point-guard oriented offense rather than the triangle.

Your thoughts?

I thought I was joking when I tweeted before Wednesday night’s game, playfully mocking the night’s matchup that pitted Oleksiy Pecherov against Kevin Garnett.

Shows you what I know.

Two days after the Wolves declined to pick up his $2.3 million contract extension for 2010-11, Pecherov delivered the performance of a young career with a 24-point night that lapped KG’s mere 12 (although he did have 11 rebounds to Pech’s 8).

It wasn’t enough to keep the Celtics from overcoming a 10-point third quarter deficit with a fourth quarter in which the Wolves scored just twice in the final five minutes and starters Al Jefferson, Jonny Flynn and Ryan Gomes all went scoreless.

Garnett, of course, ultimately provided the winning play, tying up Corey Brewer for a jump call called by referee David Jones with 3.6 seconds left as Brewer drove toward the tying hoop.

Rajon Rondo knocked the jump-ball tap back over halfcourt and out of bounds, but only nine-tenths of a second remained and all the Wolves could get from there was Jefferson’s desperation three-point heave at the buzzer that was partially blocked.

Afterward, the normally mild mannered Brewer stood at midcourt and stared down Jones because he, his teammates and the Target Center announced near-sellout crowd that wasn’t wearing green No. 5 Garnett jersey were screaming for a foul call.

They never got it.

In the locker room, Flynn suggested he knows first hand about the league’s star treatment, although he did say one call does not win or lose a game.

The Wolves had their chances, with Pecherov and Brewer each trying to carry them down the stretch with efforts that were both bold and out of control. In an attempt to win, they each made decisions that Kurt Rambis later said caused him to bite his lip.

Btw, they call it shooting guard for a reason, don’t they?

Brewer shot the ball 16 times against the Celtics, one time fewer than Jefferson.

On Monday in L.A., he shot it 21 times, five more than Jefferson. On Sunday in Phoenix, he shot it 18 times.

That’s 55 times in three games.

He made 20 of them. That’s 36.3 percent, pretty close to his career shooting average.

Before the game, somebody asked Wolves coach Kurt Rambis if he likes Brewer shooting that much and if those shots are good shots.

“Most of them, yeah,” Rambis said. “Sometimes, I disagrees with the shots. But I don’t want to take away his aggressive nature.”

The Wolves now have lost four straight after winning their season opener against New Jersey. They’ll practice today at Target Center and play Milwaukee at home on Friday night.

One last thing: Kevin Love got his stitches out of his hand during halftime and remains hopeful an xray two weeks from Friday will show his surgically repaired hand has healed enough for him to start practicing again.

That would be well ahead of schedule. He was expected to miss six to eight weeks when he broke that left hand Oct. 16 in Chicago.

   

Kevin Garnett tonight  returns to Target Center for the third time — the second time to actually play — since the July 2007 trade with the Celtics.

Al Jefferson and Ryan Gomes remain Timberwolves from that deal.

Theo Ratliff, Gerald Green and Sebastian Telfair are long gone, waived or traded away in moves that have brought back salary-cap space, Houston’s second-round pick next summer and the Wolves’ own future first round pick that they had given the Celtics that Ricky Davis-Wally Szcezerbiak deal.

More than two years later, how do you think that deal looks? (Of course it looks good for the Celtics, who just might be favorites this season to win their second title in three years).

On another topic, Kevin Love says he will stitches removed from his fractured hand tomorrow and will have his hand x-rayed in a little more than two weeks from now. The results will be sent to the New York City doctor who performed the surgery and Love said he’s hopeful the hand will have healed sufficiently by then for him to resume practice.

That would be about Nov. 20 and certainly on the lower end of the six-to-eight week time frame estimated when he broke the hand Oct. 16 at Chicago. It’d take him some practice time to get into playing shape even if the OK comes on the 20th.

Kurt Rambis praised his bunch for being scrappy, but that wasn’t enough to beat a Clippers team that was winless in its first four games (the only NBA team to reach 0-4 so quickly) tonight at Staples Center.

Al Jefferson followed Sunday’s 21-point, 33-minute game at Phoenix by playing 34:33 tonight, a good sign in his first regular-season back-to-back games since he injured his knee last February. When he played back-to-back games in preseason, that’s when that Achilles problem flared.

He had 24 points tonight and this time made more shots than he missed (9 for 16) for the first time this season.

Corey Brewer got his contract extension for 2010-11 Monday, then went out and delivered a performance that was hyperactive on both ends of the floor. That brought him six assists and five steals as well as a 6-for-21 shooting night. With a shot like that, I don’t think you want him leading you in shots, taking five more than Big Al, do you?

Kurt Rambis played Brewer 37:18, most on the team, while for the second straight game he opted to go with Ramon Sessions over Jonny Flynn when he sought to get that triangle offense organized and running efficiently.

For the second straight night, Sessions played more than Flynn (26 minutes to 22, compared to Sunday’s 31 to 18), but it’s clear Rambis is using a firm hand with Flynn to try to get him to learn to run a team rather than rely on instincts and individual skills.

Rambis played Flynn and Sessions together for a bit in the fourth quarter in Phoenix, then yanked Flynn after he took a poor shot and sat him the rest of the night. Tonight, he sent Sessions into the game abruptly 90 seconds into the second half after Flynn committed a turnover.

“The effort’s there,” Rambis said of Flynn. “He loves the game. He wants to be terrific. I’m making it very difficult on him. I’m not letting him run the pick-and-roll all the time. That’s what he wants to do. That’s what he’s comfortable with. That’s what he did at Syracuse. I’m challenging him to step out of that zone.”

About taking Flynn out of the game in favor of Sessions’ steadiness, he said, “You get turnovers, you get bad decisions. That game at that point start to slip away from us. We have those poor decisions. I’ll him make a mistake or two. If he can’t correct himself, I have no choice.”

So Rambis has called upon Sessions, who at age 23 is a veritable veteran because of his nearly two seasons in the league.

“He has been in the league,” Rambis said. “He understands what his role is, what the job is. When things go awry out there on the floor, he knows if he does a good job of getting us organized and playing together, he’ll get time. He’s figured that out.”

Sessions has played 26 and 31 minutes in the last two games after playing 18 and 21 in the first two.

“This offense, it’s not easy,” Sessions said. “It’s going to take a while. It feels like game by game, I’m starting to get more comfortable out there. I’m just trying to run the team. That’s what Coach wants. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

The Wolves are staying overnight here in L.A. tonight and flying back home in the morning. They’re not expected to practice Tuesday and will play K.G. and the Celtics Wednesday night at Target Center.

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Not surprisingly, the Wolves picked up the 2010-11 contract options on Kevin Love and Corey Brewer. They did not pick up the 2010 option on F/C Oleksiy Pecherov, one of the players acquired in the draft-day trade with Washington that landed the Wolves Ricky Rubio and cost them Mike Miller and Randy Foye. Pecherov, who started Sunday night in Phoenix, will now become an unrestricted free agent next summer.

Jerry will be on later to update heading into tonight’s game in Los Angeles against the Clippers.

“We are happy to extend Kevin and Corey for next season,” said David Kahn, Timberwolves president of basketball operations. “All of us have been impressed with the determination displayed by both players this summer to make themselves better players through conditioning, hard work and skill development. I believe both have the drive and desire to be special players in this league.

“As for Oleksiy [Pecherov], I spoke to him this morning that he should not interpret this decision as if Coach Rambis and I believe he has no future with our organization. Far from it. Because of our cap flexibility next season, we could re-sign Oleksiy next summer if it is in our mutual interests. He is a young player with potential, who is just seeing significant playing time for the first time in his career.”

The Wolves now are 1-2 after tonight’s loss to a Suns team that is 3-0.

A couple of significant points about tonight and then a mention about tomorrow:

* Al Jefferson shows more than a glimpses of the player he was before that torn ACL last February. He started 5-for-8 for 11 points in the first quarter and then faced in efficiency but not activity. He finished with totals — 21 points on 9 for 23 shooting, 8 rebounds — closer to the guy who averaged 23 and 11 before he was hurt last season than the fella you saw in the team’s first two games.

* Kurt Rambis said he was encouraged because that triangle offense operated more efficiently tonight, and it do so after he flip-flopped playing time with point guards Jonny Flynn and Ramon Sessions. Sessions played 31 minutes off the bench, Flynn fewer than 19 after he had played nearly 2/3rds of the minutes in the first two games.

Afterward Rambis said Sessions was “exceptional” at organizing the offense, which means he delivered the ball from the right spots at the right time as the Wolves flowed into that triangle offense.

* Rambis juggled the starting lineup and moved Ryan Gomes back to his natural small forward spot, and Gomes responded by playing the part of Kevin Love and getting 15 rebounds (and 23 points), although he did play a good bit at power forward as well.

* Monday is the day David Kahn must decide whether to extend the contracts of Kevin Love, Corey Brewer and Oleksiy Pecherov for the 2010-11 season.

Love, of course, is a given. Kahn said during training camp that he “couldn’t fathom” not extending Brewer’s contract.

You’d think Pecherov certainly is a no, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Brewer’s wasn’t picked up, either. If you include Love’s extension, the Wolves are committed to six players and about only $27 million in 2010-11. That would leave, provided you can woo free agents without having to grossly overpay them, gobs of money to pay potentially multiple free agents, including one perhaps at a maximum deal.

Kahn thinks big and likes to do things boldly. Renewing only Love would maximum his options — and be a gamble, although he’d still be in the game to re-sign Brewer and Pecherov (who’d both be unrestricted free agents) next summer, quite possible at a cheaper price than if they guarantee them that 2010-11 season by Monday.

For some reason, my hunch is he only picks up Love’s contract.

That’s it for tonight from Phoenix.  Onto L.A. for a game Monday night against the Clippers, the league’s only 0-4 team. Of course, Blake Griffin won’t play at Staples Center, but former Wolves Craig Smith and Sebastian Telfair will.

Judging from the configurations at this morning’s shootaround, looks like Kurt Rambis is going to adjust his starting lineup from the first two games for tonight’s game at Phoenix: Oleksiy Pecherov was with starters Jefferson, Gomes, Brewer and Flynn and Damien Wilkins, who started the first two games, was with the second unit.

Rambis has said the lineup likely will fluctuate, depending on matchups, at least until Kevin Love gets back from that fractured hand. Tonight, the Suns are expected to start 6-11 Channing Frye and 6-10 Amare Stoudemire next to each other, so Rambis will counter with Pecherov’s 7-foot size next to Al.

There was no magic in the Wolves’ finish tonight.

Not by a long shot, and certainly not a surprise against a Cleveland team driven not to start the season 0-3.

TNT analyst Charles Barkley called the Cavs’ Friday night date with the Wolves an “elixir,” a comment on the network’s Thursday night postgame show that caused Kevin McHale to guffaw.

The Wolves stayed near for close to a half, but were no match for LeBron or for the Cavaliers’ nifty passing.

I’ve got a morning flight to Phoenix for Sunday’s game, so I’ll make this fairly quick tonight.

LeBron, obviously, wowed again, with a 24-point, 9-rebound, 6-assist game and he didn’t score in the fourth quarter at all.

Al Jefferson, meanwhile, has shown in the first two games that his full return from that February knee injury won’t come quickly or immediately.

Even though he lost those 30 pounds, he hasn’t regained the explosiveness or confidence that he showed all last season.

Jefferson has played 25 minutes in each of these first two games and still is trying to find the rhythm and assurance that made him one of the league’s best low-post scorers.

The same guy who averaged 23 points and 11 rebounds last season before he was injured is averaging 10.5 points on 30. 4 percent shooting on 30.4 percent shooting (7-for-23) and 5.5 rebounds in these two games as the Wolves head to Phoenix in the morning for games Sunday against Suns and Monday in L.A. vs. the Clippers.

“I think he just has to continue to be patient,” Wolves coach Kurt Rambis said. “He’s come back from knee surgeryand dealing with an Achilles. He’s probably a little frustrated.”

To be sure.

“My timing is still not there,” Jefferson said. “Every shot I took tonight, I’ve made those shots before. I didn’t make them tonight. I just have to keep working on my shot at practice and after practice.”