From Phil Miller, who covered tonight’s game at Target Center:

It’s hard for Kurt Rambis to get too angry, not when his players are so intent upon following his instructions. But one sequence in Friday’s chippy 89-77 loss to Dallas illustrated how much his team still has to learn.
Like, when to ignore him.
With roughly five minutes gone in the game, Mavericks foward Dirk Nowitzki caught a pass in front of the visitors’ bench, roughly 18 feet from the basket. As he faced the hoop, Rambis’ pregame scouting report kicked in, in the minds of Minnesota defenders: He wants to go left. Don’t let him.
Just one problem: Every Dallas player had shifted to the left side of the floor, taking the Wolves’ defense with it. Suddenly the right side was empty, way too tempting a path for Nowitzki to pass up. “He prefers to go left, but they cleared out the whole right side,” Rambis said. “Instead of our team recognizing that and adjusting, he just drives right in because there’s no defense there.”
Nowitzki’s easy layup might not have happened against a veteran defense. “Experienced teams, connected teams, would recognize that and change their game plan,” Rambis said. “We’re just not at that point.”
Rambis even made his players watch video of the play at halftime, a good teaching moment about when to chuck the scouting reports. “I freezed the fame and they actually got a little chuckle out of it, because there was such confusion and indecisiveness about how to handle the situation,” the coach said. “But that’s our inexperience. Those are the instantaneous decisions, and we’re so far from that right now.”

The Wolves are starting Nathan Jawai and Ryan Hollins — call ‘em power forward and center or vice versa, whatever you prefer — tonight with Al Jefferson gone for the next two games.

Jefferson is in Florida, where his grandmother — Annie Bell Randolph, 83 — died yesterday in Fort Lauderdale.

Jefferson is expected to rejoin the team on Monday.

The Wolves wilol start the game by putting Jawai on center Erick Dampier and asking Hollins to defend Dirk Nowitzki, just like he did in practice last year with the Mavs.

The Wolves are set to tip off against the Dallas Mavericks in a couple hours without either Al Jefferson or Kevin Love in the lineup.

If you can’t bear to watch what might happen in that one, you can check out Ricky Rubio playing for his Regal Barcelona team tomorrow at noon on NBA TV’s European game of the week (this one’s a legit broadcast) if you get the channel on your cable or satellite dish system.

Rubio’s team played hated Asvel B. Lyon Villeurbanne on Wednesday (not telling the result or Rubio’s line, but you can look it up yourself if you really want to), but NBA TV is broadcasting it tomorrow.

UPDATE (from Phil Miller):
The Timberwolves held an upbeat practice on Thursday, then locked themselves in a room and plotted the overthrow of their corporate masters.

OK, it wasn’t quite Norma Rae, but that doesn’t mean NBA players don’t have important union business to conduct. Their collective bargaining agreement expires after the 2010-11 season, and speculation is growing that NBA owners will insist upon major givebacks – perhaps an exception-free “hard” salary cap — in the next agreement.

So the Wolves’ 90-minute meeting Thursday with NBA Players Association executive director Billy Hunter was more than a simple hey-how-are-ya. The agenda was private, but it’s a good bet players were advised to prepare financially in case the 2011 season is disrupted.

“It’s important to stay informed, so it was a good meeting,” said rookie guard Jonny Flynn. “You never know, there could be a possible lockout. So (Hunter was) just keeping us up-to-date on what’s going on.”

The start of the 1998-99 season was delayed by three months when owners locked the players out, and the schedule was truncated to 50 games.

Earlier in the day, Phil Miller, subbing for Jerry Zgoda, reported that Al Jefferson will not play in games Friday night against Dallas at Target Center and Saturday in Memphis due to a family member’s illness in Florida. It’s expected he’ll return to the team early next week.

Jefferson, who missed the last 32 games of last season because of knee surgery, is still rounding back into shape. He was not present at Thursday’s practice.

The Wolves, in the midst of an eight-game losing streak, had not landed on a starting lineup, according to coach Kurt Rambis. The team did post a “probable starting lineup” on its media game notes that looked like this:
SF: Ryan Gomes
PF: Oleksiy Pecherov
C: Ryan Hollins
PG: Jonny Flynn
SG: Corey Brewer

After all that change, the Wolves are right back where they were this time last season when Randy Wittman was coach, David Kahn was home in Portland contemplating his future and Kurt Rambis was fairly reveling in the start of what would be another Lakers’ championship season:

1-8, with an eight-game losing streak.

This time, Rambis inserted Ryan Hollins into the starting lineup to counter LaMarcus Aldridge, a nightmare matchup for the Wolves at power forward. Hollins played 25 minutes and Aldridge was held to 11 points and four rebounds.

So the Blazers simply exploited the matchup at center, where Greg Oden went for 18 and 11 against undersized Al Jefferson there.

“That’s why you try to get a lot of talent on your ballclub,” Rambis said. “Not only are they talented, but they’re long, too. That length creates problems.”

At least this time the Wolves didn’t surrender 74 points in the first half, 111 by the end of three quarters and 146 for the game, as they did Monday in Golden State.

This time, Jefferson was introspective and expansive in his comments after the game, just two nights after he dressed so slowly and silently in Golden State.

Considering I’m going to probably write 60 or more game stories this season with the same storyline, here’s a little different take on a gamer, one I built around Jefferson’s nearly 10-minute address after tonight’s game for the paper and Web site:

http://www.startribune.com/sports/wolves/69803627.html

That’s all from Target Center tonight. The Wolves play Dallas here on Friday. Last season, the Wolves beat Philadelphia to end that eight-game losing streak.

Kurt Rambis is putting Ryan Hollins into the starting lineup tonight at “power forward,” hoping his “energy and length” will help solve a matchup problem the Wolves always seem to have with Blazers forward LaMarcus Aldridge.

Wayne Ellington comes of the starting five from the other night in Golden State and Ryan Gomes slides back down to small forward.

The Wolves’ normal 75-minuteish film session and shootaround this morning expanded to more than two hours because of that 146-105 loss to the Warriors.

They went over game film for more than an hour and didn’t take the practice floor until about 11 a.m., normally about the time they’re wrapping up.

OK, it’s late, even here in California tonight, but does that song Adam Sandler’s character sang in The Wedding Singer — the one after he had listened to The Cure too much — resonate with anyone else who watched the Wolves’ historic loss at Golden State?

That 146-105 loss tied franchise records for most points allowed — the Warriors had 74 by halftime, 111 by the end of three quarters — and largest margin of defeat.

The only other time the Wolves surrendered 146 points was  April 1, 1994 (no April’s Fools joke) right there at Golden State as well. New Wolves assistant coach Darrick Martin was  a rookie on that team that included J.R. Rider, Christian Laettner, Doug West, Sean Rooks, Winston Garland and too many other famous players to mention.

The only other time a Wolves team lost by 41 points was a March 1996 game at Miami, which was a 113-72 winner that night late in Kevin Garnett’s rookie season.

The Wolves committed 28 turnovers to 12 by the Warriors, who, btw, had only beaten Memphis in their first five games.

They gave up 66 points in the paint and trailed by as many 45 points in the fourth quarter.

The bare facts speak for themselves, so I’ll let what Kurt Rambis and a couple players in the locker room said afterward carry tonight’s posting for me.

Ryan Gomes: “I don’t think any of us have been beat this bad in any of our days of playing basketball. So it’s got to become personal. You have to do something about this individually and challenge ourselves individually, then the team ultimately will become better. We cannot let this happen again.”

This is what he said when someone asked how they put this one behind them: “Get on the plane and go back to Minnesota. Play Portland (Wednesday).”

Al Jefferson: “It’s an embarrassment. We just got embarrassed.”

I asked him if the players’ body language, particularly in the second half, said more than those 28 turnovers or point in the paint number ever could. He said, “Pretty much out of reach by then. We, thank God, tried to play hard for the most part throughout the whole game but every little mistake we made they took advantage of.”

Rambis on the big picture: “This is not something that’s not going to turn around in the first 10 games. We still don’t know who we are as a ballgame until Al Jefferson is back 100 percent, until Kevin Love is back, until we have an idea of a nice starting unit and a set rotation where guys can feel comfortable. Until then, we’ll probably continue to play up and down and be inconsistent.”

Rambis on the game: “They lost their fight. I don’t feel our guys competed in an aggressive manner, a nasty manner that they have to compete with. That’s one of the areas we have to significantly improve upon as a ballclub. They haven’t developed that.”

Rambis when I told him the loss tied franchise records for points allowed and margin of defeat: “Thank you for bringing that up. That’s excellent that you spent that time during the ball game to assess that.”

That’s all from Oakland/San Francisco tonight. The Wolves fly home in the morning and play Portland Wednesday night. Doesn’t this seem just like last season, when the Wolves eked out an opening-night victory over Sacramento and then lost eight consecutive games?

Rookie Wayne Ellington goes into the starting lineup tonight against Don Nelson’s “small ball” in Oakland.

Oleksiy Pecherov comes out and Ellington goes in to defend Monta Ellis in a lineup next to Jonny Flynn, Corey Brewer, Ryan Gomes and Al Jefferson.

“I don’t want to completely match up with them small on small,” Wolves coach Kurt Rambis said. “That’s their game, their style. I think they’re better playing that style of ball. That’s not how we practice. That’s not how we work. We still want to make them defend us inside.”

The Warriors play on tonight without center Andris Biedrins (lower back strain) and forward Ronny Turiaf (knee sprain) while Kevin Love (fractured hand), of course, remains out for the Wolves.

Brandon Roy only scored two points in this one, and still the Wolves never had a chance.

Trailing by nine after one quarter, by 19 just before halftime and by as many 28 in the second half, the Wolves lost their sixth straight after that comeback victory over New Jersey on opening night.

If they don’t win tonight in Oakland against Golden State — now 1-4 after Sunday’s loss at Sacramento — then when?

After the Warriors, the Wolves have Portland and Dallas at home, then play at Memphis Saturday.

OK, then Memphis then?

The most interesting development all night was, with the game getting out of hand, the time given to Nathan Jawai, who more than quadrupled his previous career highs in minutes and points with a team-high 16 points in 22:31.

All but two of those points came in the second half, and by then the game was well out of hand.

“Is it playing in a playoff game, Game 7?” Rambis asked. “Players have to get out on the floor and have the opportunity to see what works for them and what doesn’t work for them. He was doing a lot of good stuff against some very good defensive centers in this league.

“He has a very high basketball IQ. He has picked up things really, really, really quick. So we’ve been impressed with that. He’s very light on his feet. He can move. He understands the game.”

While Jawai played on, Rambis also scaled back Corey Brewer’s minutes, playing him 25:34 after he had been in the 36-39 minutes range every game except for opening night.

You also might find it interesting that the Blazers now start two point guards, Andre Miller and Steve Blake. David Kahn said his Wolves would play their two point guards together a good bit when he drafted Ricky Rubio and Jonny Flynn consecutively and then when he signed Ramon Sessions after Rubio decided to stay in Spain.

Flynn and Sessions played together for about four minutes in the fourth quarter tonight, and by then the Wolves trailed by 25.

Until now, Rambis said they haven’t played together much because he likes other options — Corey Brewer, Wayne Ellington among them — at that shooting guard spot.

But here’s something Rambis mentioned before the game that might be more the real reason: He says he’s trying to teach Flynn to play point guard the right way and if you put Sessions and Flynn out there together, Flynn is the more natural scorer of the two.

The implication is he doesn’t want Flynn to develop bad habits — think score first — by playing him with Sessions, although you could say he’s mostly been a scorer first (14.2 ppg average, just 22 assists now in 7 games) his assist totals (22 in 7 games) anyway while Rambis is trying to teach him how to play the point guard spot.

Al Jefferson had his first double-double of the season (12 points, 10 rebounds), but it sure looks like it’s going to take him some time to get his old game back and find his way (if he does) in this new offense.

Kevin Love sat and watched tonight in his hometown, and almost certainly will do so again when the Wolves make their second and final visit to Portland just 13 days from tonight.

They’re about to tip it off at the Rose Garden.

Of course, Kevin Love won’t play in his hometown. He likely will miss both games here this season since the Wolves return to play here in just 13 days.

The Wolves are going with the same lineup — Pecherov at power forward, Gomes at small forward, Big Al at center, Brewer at shooting guard and Flynn at point — while the Blazers are countering by going small with with LaMarcus Alridge, Greg Oden, Steve Blake, Andre Miller and, of course, Brandon Roy.