I might have mentioned last time out that the Timberwolves were hurting for personnel, but I’m pretty sure I also suggested that they weren’t going to roll over and die. Which they didn’t. The Thunder kept running up the score on Minnesota, and Minnesota kept coming back: it was 34-31 after the first quarter, 59-58 at the half, and with 15 seconds left, 112-110. Russell Westbrook, who’d helped enable the last Wolves rally with two last-minute fouls, subsequently drew two fouls himself and cashed in three of four free throws to put the poor growlers out of their misery, 115-110.

Worse yet for the Wolves, they’d outshot the Thunder, hitting an even 50 percent from the floor, though they were outrebounded 52-39. J. J. Barea, always a threat, racked up 24 points and 10 assists; Nikola Peković also double-doubled with 14 points and 13 rebounds. And the two mainstays of the Minnesota bench, Michael Beasley and Anthony Randolph, rolled up 26 and 22 points respectively; Randolph also picked up 11 boards. (Weird plus/minus statistic: the Wolves starters were all minus, the reserves all plus; the exact reverse was true of Oklahoma City.)

The usual suspects weighed in for OKC: Westbrook finished with 35, and Kevin Durant wound up with 43, twenty in the fourth quarter despite being in foul trouble for most of it. James Harden did return as predicted, but he was off his game, shooting 1-11, though he did hit all four of his free throws. The bigs reeled in their share of boards: Serge Ibaka had 12, Kendrick Perkins 10, Nick Collison 8. Collison also dropped in 10 points to lead the bench.

You could look at this and say “Big deal, we swept the Wolves. We swept ‘em last year.” Which is true; but at no point in those two seasons did the Wolves act like a team you could beat seven times in a row. It is, as the local broadcast crew said, never easy against Minnesota. Nor is it easy against the Clippers, next on the schedule, Monday night in Los Angeles.

As Wayne and Garth would then interject: NOT! A hundred twenty-four points were scored in the first 24 minutes, and things hardly slowed down in the second half: with 28 seconds left, it was tied at 113-all. The Thunder worked almost every last bit of the shot clock before Kevin Durant sank a 26-footer to put OKC up by three; Kevin Love fired one from the corner over Russell Westbrook to tie it at 116 with one second left. Durant clanked one at the buzzer, and overtime ensued. With 36 seconds left, Rick Adelman’s new and improved Timberwolves had forged a five-point lead; Westbrook and then Durant erased that, a J. J. Barea long-ball fell short, and the second overtime ensued. There would not be a third. “An absolute epic,” said radio guy Matt Pinto, and Game 48 ends with a 149-140 (!) Thunder win. (Telltale statistic comes early: OKC got 22 points in the twelve-minute fourth quarter, and 20 points in the five-minute second overtime. This is called getting it done, finally.)

There was reason to think it might actually be impossible to stop Kevin Love. He singlehandedly kept the Wolves in the first overtime, and finished with 51 points: 16-27 from the floor, 7-11 from beyond the arc, 12-16 from the stripe, and, oh, fourteen rebounds. Calling this a double-double is almost an insult. And J. J. Barea had a triple-double: 25 points, 10 boards, 14 assists. Six Wolves finished in double figures. You have to wonder what might have happened had Ricky Rubio (out for the season), Nikola Peković and Michael Beasley (lesser injuries) been able to play.

Or maybe you don’t. The Thunder made 60 of 113 shots for 53 percent, missed only one of 20 free throws, and Westbrook, like his old college chum Love, hit a career high: 45 points on 17-28 shooting. Durant put up 40 points (15-26) and grabbed 17 rebounds, the latter one short of a career high. James Harden, as ever, led the bench with 25. Incredibly, Scott Brooks played only nine men tonight: evidently he didn’t see anyone worn out and/or didn’t want to mess with the flow.

And here’s a number to conjure with: 63. That’s the number of 3-pointers attempted tonight. The Wolves made 14 of 36 (39 percent); the Thunder, 10 of 27 (37 percent.) Any more than that and they’ll have to cover the seats, not with T-shirts, but with flak jackets.

The Heat had little trouble with the Pistons tonight, so when they get here Sunday they should be in something resembling top form. Will this game be on national television? I’d bet Newt Gingrich is having it beamed to the lunar colony.

After the Orlando game, I said something to the effect that “the T-Wolves don’t figure to be the patsies they were last year.” And they didn’t; Minnesota was never out of this game — “a grinder from the start,” said radio guy Matt Pinto — until 0:03, when Kendrick Perkins put the kibosh on a Michael Beasley jumper and then calmly sank two free throws to put it just out of reach, 104-100.

This was Ricky Rubio’s debut, and whatever the Wolves wound up paying for him, it was worth it: the man is harder to track than the Higgs boson. He didn’t score a lot in 26 minutes — six points — but he served up six assists and pulled in five rebounds, eluding Thunder defenders all over the court. And while the Minnesota long-ball game was largely thwarted, Beasley and Kevin Love simply switched to shorter shots and rolled up 46 points between them. With this much going on, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook were going to have to switch to Batman and Robin mode.

Which they did. KD had 33 points, Westbrook 28, and they drew fouls from all over, sinking all 15 of their free throws. Which is a good thing, because fouls were being called left and right all night — except when they weren’t. (Dallas expat J. J. Barea evidently is going for Best Supporting Actor.)

But look at this by quarter:

OKC  23  29  26  26  104
MIN  24  22  26  28  100

Nobody had time to dominate anyone else, not even the Dynamic Duos on both sides.

One night off, and then another back-to-back: at Memphis Wednesday, and at home against the Mavericks on Thursday. Here’s where we find out if last year’s Grizzlies were a fluke. (Hint: They weren’t.)

Minnesota forward Kevin Love, who accumulates double-doubles as effortlessly as Charlie Sheen accumulates TMZ headlines, didn’t make the trip to Oklahoma City; he’s suffering from a strain to the groin. His absence, however, didn’t daunt the young Wolves, who kept coming back through three quarters, and the Thunder had to crank up the defense in the fourth. The Thunder reserves kept the Wolves at bay for almost six minutes, holding them to three points; the starters finished the job, 111-103, as OKC swept Minnesota for the second year in a row.

In Love’s absence, Anthony Randolph has been getting the start, and he’s definitely been earning his keep: tonight he led all scorers with 24 and all rebounders with 15. His career high is 31, which he got last night against Dallas. Michael Beasley added 20. (All five starting Wolves finished in double figures.) Overall, Minnesota was generally competitive, hitting 47.6 percent from the floor and six of ten treys; rebounds were tied at 40. But in that last frame, they hit only a third of their shots and turned the ball over eight times, undoing a lot of their good work.

All twelve active Thunder players got some playing time, and seven of them landed in double figures. The one double-double belonged to Serge Ibaka, with 12 points and 10 boards. The Durant-Westbrook combine managed 42 (23 + 19). OKC shot 52.4 percent for the night, though their free-throw numbers are off. (Kendrick Perkins, who’s doing well to get 60 percent of his freebies, went 1-6, though he hit all six of his field-goal tries.) And this statistic is startling: sixteen steals, five by Russell Westbrook alone. Add seven blocked shots, four by Thabo Sefolosha, and you start to wonder how the Wolves managed to get 103 points.

But no matter. It’s the last we’ll see of them this year, and it is a measure of something, I’m not quite sure what, that the Big Sideways Wheel will fill up even if you bring in a team that was mathematically eliminated from the playoffs a week ago. And there’s no time to linger over the thought anyway, since the Trail Blazers will be here Sunday.

Thunder at Timberwolves, somewhere in the second half, turned into Kevin vs. Kevin: both the Wolves’ Kevin Love and OKC’s Kevin Durant put on a heck of a show in the fourth quarter, and the lead went back and forth, back and forth, right up until the very end of regulation, which ended with a 110-110 tie. At this point, Love had 31 points and 19 rebounds; Durant had 43 points and 16 rebounds.

The five minutes of what radio guy Matt Pinto calls “bonus basketball” proved to be just as wild and woolly. It was 118-116 Thunder at the 7.6-second mark when Corey Brewer drew a foul; Brewer sank one of the two free throws, there was a mad scramble for the miss, and OKC came up with it at the horn to escape with a one-point win.

Love went scoreless in the extra frame, though he hauled in two more rebounds. Durant also picked up two more boards, giving him a career high of 18, and four more points, for a total of 47, which ties his career high.

Numbers were mostly pretty even, though Minnesota went plus-10 on the boards; both teams shot in the mid-40s, in the high 30s from beyond the arc. The Thunder’s charity-stripe prowess paid off: OKC hit 26 of 27, while the Wolves managed 18 of 25. Which leaves one other not-exactly-intangible: how was Jeff Green? Uncle Jeff was just fine, with 19 points and eight rebounds. But here’s the clincher on how close this game really was: Durant/Westbrook had 63 points; Love/Beasley had 61.

John Wall and the Wizards will show up at At Least It’s Not The 5320 Arena Friday night, followed by a Sunday matinee against Miami’s Wynken, Blynken and Bosh.

What the hell was going on at the Target Center? The Timberwolves led after the first quarter, 40-22? Kevin Durant actually fouled out?

What happened, apparently, was that at some point in the second quarter, someone, probably Scott Brooks, said the word “defense,” and the little light bulbs lit up over various Thunder heads. After 40 points in 12 minutes, the Timberwolves were held to 63 points in 36, as Oklahoma City pulled out a 111-103 win that no one had imagined an hour and a half before.

But actually, the answer may have been a different word: “Ibaka.” Captain Congo blocked eight shots, a record for the team since arriving in OKC, and committed only two fouls; Durant took up the hand-in-the-face slack, and exited in the waning moments, 30 points and 11 rebounds in hand. Heck, even Thabo Sefolosha (13 points) got a trey.

And they needed every bit of that defense to curb Michael Beasley (26 points) and Kevin Love (22 points, 21 boards), although the Wolves were Darko-less for the evening. Minnesota was hitting everything in the first quarter; thereafter, they were effectively shut down and wound up with only 41.9 percent shooting, 10 percent behind the Thunder.

The third game on this road trip is Friday night at New Orleans. The Hornets are streaky this year. Then again, so are the Thunder.

First, a quote from Scott Brooks:

“Every minute he’s on the floor he’s going to give his best. But like all of our guys, it’s not going to always look great.”

Brooks was talking about Serge Ibaka, but he could have extended the description to the entire Thunder squad tonight: the allegedly-lowly Minnesota Timberwolves managed to have their way much of the evening before being dispatched from Insert Name Here Arena, 117-107, by the combination of a Jeff Green trey, two Ibaka free throws, four Kevin Durant free throws, two Russell Westbrook free throws, and two Green free throws in the last minute, during which time the Wolves got exactly one bucket.

Underestimating the opposition? Darko Miličić (21 points) and Kevin Love (24 points, 17 rebounds) did a tremendous amount of damage, and of four Minnesota reserves who saw playing time, three scored in double figures. The Wolves edged the Thunder on the boards, 39-38, and shot a respectable 50 percent; even scarier, they were able to get off 15 more shots than the home team.

But after two games without Green and Durant, a game with Green and Durant had to be won somehow. Durant had 28 points, Green 24, and Westbrook 20 (with 14 assists); Thabo Sefolosha had 13 points and 11 boards, and Ibaka, back on the bench, still scored 10.

So once again OKC gets the job done when they have to, and they’re now 10-4. Through 14 games last year they were 7-7. Extrapolation beyond that requires a braver soul than I, especially since the Mavericks are due in here Wednesday.

It does not pay to take any team lightly, even the bottom-dwelling Timberwolves: the Thunder ran up a 25-point lead against Minnesota (43 points in the first quarter!), only to see it dwindle to six during the second half. I’m not quite sure exactly at which point they shifted back into Taking Care of Business mode, and as radio guy Matt Pinto said, it wasn’t the most aesthetically-pleasing win, but when you’ve got seven games to play and a playoff seeding at stake, you take any W you can get. OKC 116, Minnesota 108, and that’s a 4-0 sweep of the growlers from Targetland.

In the third quarter, the Wolves ran right at the rim, and while they didn’t connect on all the shots, they drew lots of fouls, resulting in 32 foul shots, 28 of which they made. All the Minnesota starters except Ryan Hollins, who got into foul trouble early on, scored in double figures, as did reserve guard Damien Wilkins, who has been lots of trouble for his former OKC teammates. Ryan Gomes (22 points) wielded a mean long-ball (four of seven); the Wolves shot a respectable 47.4 percent.

The Thunder were inconsistent on the boards, though they did win the rebounding battle, 47-34. Russell Westbrook served up 16 dimes, a new career high, and scored 10; Jeff Green had 16 points and 10 boards; Serge Ibaka had 14 and 9. And that Durant fellow sank two free throws in the waning moments to bring his total to, um, 40.

OKC (48-28) remains in sixth, for now; the Spurs (47-29) beat the Lakers and stayed one game back. The Blazers (47-30) are off until Wednesday. Meanwhile, that logjam right behind the Lakers — four teams knotted at 50-27 — is still in place. If the Thunder are only a game and a half out of eighth, they’re only two games out of second. For now, anyway. Anything can happen in the next few days, and it starts with a trip to Utah on Tuesday.

In two previous games at the Target Center, the Thunder beat the Timberwolves by a total of four points. This sort of non-dominance apparently was deemed inadequate for Loud City; OKC never trailed tonight and won it going away, 109-92.

This game also marked the debut of Serge Ibaka, Sharpshooter: the rookie hit 7 of 9 (apologies to Harry Kim). And Russell Westbrook had a whole roll of dimes, serving up 15 assists, a career high, along with 18 points. Besides those two, five other Thundermen showed up in double figures, led by (of course) Kevin Durant, back at the 25-point mark after one night away. The Thunder shot an impressive 54.3 percent, though they were hopeless from beyond the mark (two of 11).

The T-Wolves weren’t much better from downtown, hitting only three of 18; they didn’t climb above 40-percent shooting until garbage time. Still, Kevin Love scarfed up 19 points from off the bench, and they missed only two free throws all night, one fewer than James Harden.

OKC is now 7-2 against the Northwest, which may be a factor if the West continues to be knotted tight. (At this writing, only 9½ games separate second-place Denver from 11th-place Houston.) The Raptors will be here Sunday, the first time we’ve seen the Ragin’ Canadians all season; they’re in fifth place in the East. Then again, the Thunder is 17-6 against the East.

In passing: Shaun Livingston, seen earlier this year in Thunder blue, has signed a 10-day deal with the Wizards. Nice to see him getting another shot.

The not-so-lowly Minnesota Timberwolves always seem to play harder against the Thunder, and I’m starting to think the X factor here is Damien Wilkins, who was glued to Oklahoma City’s bench last season and then was dealt to the T-Wolves last summer. Wilkins definitely seemed to be enjoying himself giving the Thunder fits; the Wolves, who trailed through three quarters, actually got the lead early in the fourth, and at no point did they ever throw in the towel. In fact, Wilkins fouled Kevin Durant with three seconds and a hair left, and after KD sank both free throws to put OKC up by five, Jonny Flynn sent up a trey at the buzzer. Dribble it out? Not a chance.

So the Thunder escaped, 109-107, after being outscored 56-47 in the second half. And Wilkins wasn’t the only Wolf who had something to prove: the legendary Darko Miličić, who had been languishing in New York, landed in Minnesota and put up eight points and eight boards in 19 minutes. Nobody broke 20, but both Flynn and Kevin Love had 19 (Love adding 14 rebounds), and Wilkins and Corey Brewer (who fouled out in the last minute) had 18; the Wolves’ bench was good for 52 points, offsetting a bad night for Ryan Gomes, who missed all nine of his shots.

Russell Westbrook, who’d been flirting with a triple-double all season, finally rang it up: 22 points, 14 assists, 10 rebounds. Jeff Green added 17 points and 14 boards; KD’s 32 gave him 28 in a row with 25 or more. Shooting percentages were close: 47.1 for OKC, 45.7 for Minnesota.

We’ll have to see these Wolves a third time next Friday, and once more in April. I don’t think they’ll be any easier then.

You corner them, and they’ll come back at you. Minnesota’s Timberwolves kept coming back all night; every time the Thunder made a run, the T-Wolves had an answer for it; with about 45 seconds left, they finished off a 6-0 run to close to within two points, and that’s where it was with 2.2 seconds left. Jonny Flynn put up a trey at the buzzer which fell just short, enabling Oklahoma City to escape with the win, 94-92.

I was most interested here in Thunder castoff Damien Wilkins, who started tonight for the Wolves; he made six of eight shots and 15 points. Sounds motivated to me. Corey Brewer led the team with 25 points; Al Jefferson added twenty more. Minnesota shot a decent 47.1 percent, though they had little luck from distance (three of 11). The Wolves did pull off ten steals, five by Brewer. And considering they were working without Kevin Love, they put on one hell of a show.

Only eight in the Thunder rotation tonight, with Nick Collison still recovering from a blow to the head; OKC shot 45.9 percent and got eight of 17 treys to fall. Jeff Green, who came up with the big score against Atlanta, came up with the big stop tonight, denying the Wolves on that last possession and forcing Flynn into that desperation shot. Uncle Jeff had 15 points and nine rebounds. Russell Westbrook’s line: nine points, nine assists, seven turnovers. As for Kevin Durant, he did his usual thing: 31 points, including 11 free throws, and this time ten rebounds for the double-double. James Harden led the bench with 12.

Scott Brooks will no doubt have a few pointed remarks for the Thunder, which put together several substantial runs, including a 15-0 spree in the third quarter, but still struggled to pull this one out of the fire. The Grizzlies, up next, will present a tougher test yet, and following them, LeBron and the Cavs.

Last time the Thunder were in Minneapolis, they got blown away to the tune of 129-87, and they remembered it; they came out swinging this time around, and in three quarters, ran up an 84-53 lead.

But the Wolves are dangerous when they’re backed against a wall, and they put together one of the best comebacks I’ve seen all year; Oklahoma City was lucky to escape with a 97-90 win.

And that late run was almost entirely the work of the Minnesota reserves: the starters scored only 35. Craig Smith had a double-double off the bench, with 19 points and 10 rebounds; Kevin Love was the only starter in double figures, with 10.

Telling statistic: the Thunder had one turnover in the first half, eight in the second. And things deteriorated so quickly in the fourth quarter that a couple of the starters had to be summoned from the bench to save the day. Neither team shot especially well, the Thunder 44.6 percent, the Wolves 43.0. Russell Westbrook was held to 7 points, though he did come up with eight boards and 10 assists; Kevin Durant finished with 30, five of them late in the fourth; Jeff Green got 17 points and a poke in the eye from Sebastian Telfair.

So the series ends in a 2-2 tie, and the Wolves and the Thunder are now in a tie for fourth in the Northwest at 20-50, and a tie for 11th in the West, with twelve games to go. Historians will note that last year’s Seattle SuperSonics won their twentieth game on the last day of the season. I don’t think it’s likely the Thunder will go 0-12 the rest of the way, but the next four are against the Lakers, the Raptors, the Celtics and the Spurs, and they’ll presumably be hard-pressed to break even.

It began with Milwaukee Bucks forward Charlie Villanueva, who posted to Twitter from the locker room during halftime of a Bucks-Celtics game. (Here’s the tweet.) Bucks coach Scott Skiles was not amused, and ordered CV31 to cease and desist, at least during actual game hours.

Not all the NBA brass are aware of this sort of thing, it appears. For example, here’s Timberwolves coach Kevin McHale:

“I heard someone say Charlie Villanueva was tweeting,” McHale said, “and I thought it meant he went in to take a leak at halftime. I guess that wasn’t it. I have no idea what they’re doing these days. I’m just glad I can get my computer to five or six sites, one political and four sports ones.”

McHale, for the record, is four years younger than I.

The NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves want to sell more season tickets, but the faltering economy makes that something of a crapshoot.

The Wolves respond by cutting the crap:

We realize that the future can be uncertain and financial decisions are more difficult during unstable economic times. The Minnesota Timberwolves No-Risk Pledge is a protection plan extended to our full Season Ticket Holders wherein should an involuntary loss of employment occur in 2009, a refund will be issued for all games that have not yet been played.

What’s more, they’ve cut prices on most seats: nosebleed-area seats will be available around the $5 level — $215 for the 41-game season — and most other areas in the Target Center will see at least some reduction.

(Via Henry Abbott.)

I mean, the freaking wheels came off, or something. I don’t know what’s happened to the formerly-lowly Timberwolves, but McHale’s Navy came on like gangbusters tonight, opening up a 42-24 lead after the first quarter and then expanding on it in the following stanzas, thrashing the Thunder, 129-87. This is, I think, the first time I’ve ever seen garbage time starting in the third quarter.

And Minnesota could do no wrong: Randy Foye got 26 of his 32 points in the first half, five other Wolves scored in double figures, and twelve of 28 treys fell their way. They owned the boards (57 rebounds, including 18 off the offensive glass), and they capitalized on the usual 15 Oklahoma City turnovers.

It seems almost irrelevant to mention the two double-doubles in Thunderdom: Russell Westbrook (16 points, 12 assists) and Nick Collison (17 points, 10 rebounds). The Thunder shot 39.8 percent, and Kevin Durant would love to have been that effective: he was 3 for 13 with a mere 9 points. We did, however, see the debut of Nenad Krstić, who played 14 minutes, scoring 6 and rebounding 5.

Chucky Atkins must be wondering what the hell he’s getting into. In the meantime, there’s a long flight home, and the arrival of the Houston Rockets on Friday.

Well, it was a close one, anyway: Kevin Durant dunked with 3.3 seconds left to tie it, but Mike Miller — the “archnemesis,” said radio guy Matt Pinto — sank a jumper at the 0.1-second mark to give the Timberwolves the win by two, 105 to 103.

Yes, there was rather a lot of scoring. A lot of long-distance scoring, in fact: Minnesota drained eight treys in fourteen attempts, while Oklahoma City hit seven of sixteen. The Thunder even shot 50 percent from the floor. What wasn’t happening for the Thunder was rebounding: the T-Wolves got 43 boards, 13 offensive, versus 33 and 7.

And for all his archnemesisness, Miller was only the fourth-leading scorer for the Wolves, with 16; sixth man Craig Smith plunked down 23 and hauled in eight boards, and Al Jefferson was good for 19 and nine.

Of the guys in white, Durant and Jeff Green had 22 apiece, and Chris Wilcox, who fouled out in the last minute of the game, had 21 more. And count 15 for Russell Westbrook, who ran the offense most of the night. The Thunder picked off six steals and were robbed themselves only once, which had to make Scott Brooks at least slightly happy.

More to the point, they were never out of this one: at no point did either team have more than a ten-point lead. In the standings, though, it counts the same as a blowout.

Off to Memphis tomorrow, where the Griz are in something of a slump. A road victory would be very sweet right about now, especially since the Thunder won’t be back at the Ford until the 8th of December, and in the interim they must face the Bobcats, the Magic and the Heat.