After halftime wait, Wolves withstand Warriors, win 97-93

A night of celebration sure turned strange Monday in Oakland.

Former teammates, former coach Don Nelson and Warriors greats came out for the retirement of Hall of Fame forward Chris Mullin's No. 17 jersey number at Oracle Arena and a 25-minute halftime ceremony turned int a 38-minute plus intermission after the hometown fans repeatedly booed Golden State owner Joe Lacob when he stood at center court and tried to praise Mullin.

Upset at last week's trade that sent Monta Ellis to Milwaukee for injured center Andrew Bogut for one thing, passionate, knowledgeable Warriors fans turned the evening stupid with their reactions. Warriors great Rick Barry and then Mullin himself stepped to the microphone to persuade the crowd, but no doing.

Here's the last version of tonight's game story with locker-room video attached, which suggests those fans might be as wise and knowledgeable as Mullin had said earlier in the halftime ceremony.

After the long break, their team rallied from a 14-point halftime deficit into the lead with three minutes still left in the third quarter before Kevin Love reversed the momentum back in the Wolves' favor with a huge banked three that ended the third quarter and by scoring 12 of his 36 points in the fourth quarter on a night when he had his eighth 30-15 game with a 36-point, 17-rebound night.

He has eight 30-15 games now this season.

The rest of the NBA has six combined.

A couple other things:

* Rick Adelman played Luke Ridnour and J.J. Barea together for the first real time together since Ricky Rubio went down with that injury nine days earlier, sticking them together for the game's final eight minutes.

He did so in an attempt to improve the ball handling and minimize the turnovers that cost the Wolves so dearly in Sunday's loss at Sacramento.

The game was tied when Ridnour went back in the game to join Barea and in the next six minutes the Wolves scored 13 of the next 19 points to turn the game.

"I pretty much made up my mind tonight I was going to do it," Adelman said, "especially if it was tight. I wanted those two guys on the floor."

Ridnour and Barea each finished with 10 assists.

That's just the fifth time in Timberwolves history that two players have had 10 assists in a game, and the first time it has happened since Terrell Brandon had 12 and Kevin Garnett had 10 in an April 2000 playoff game.

The list of that five:

Mar 19, 2012     at Golden State        Ridnour 10         Barea 10         W 97- 93
Apr 30, 2000      vs Portland*              Brandon 12       Garnett 10       W 94- 87
Apr 23, 2000      at Portland*               Brandon 12       Garnett 11       L 88- 91
Jan 27, 1993      vs Phoenix                Williams 15       Person 10       L116-117 OT
Jan  2, 1991        vs Dallas                  Richardson 11 Corbin 10         W115- 95
* Playoff game

* Nikola Pekovic and Michael Beasley each tried to play with their injuries but didn't last long.

Pekovic started the game and the second half, but was quickly replaced by Derrick Williams. The second time, Pek went to the locker room, done for the night because of those two injured ankles that are bothering him.

Beasley played 10:29 in the first half, none in the second half after coming down hard on that toe again in pain.

We'll see if they're both sat down for multiple games in an attempt to get them healthy rather than keep aggravagating the injuries over and over.

* Love, btw, continues to lead the NBA in scoring in March with a 30.3 point average.

He's also on pace to become the 14th player in NBA to average 25 points and 13 rebounds in a season if he keeps this up.

The others and how many times they did that in their careers:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (8), Elgin Baylor (3), Walt Bellamy (3), Wilt Chamberlain (7), Billy Cunningham, Elvin Hayes (4), Bob Lanier, Moses Malone (3), Bob McAdoo (2), George Mikan, Shaquille O'Neal (2), Hakeem Olajuwon and Bob Pettit (7).

The only guy on that list who hasn't yet been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Shaq.

* The Wolves got back within a game of .500 (23-24) and are back within 1.5 games of No. 8 Houston.

That's all from Golden State tonight.

The Wolves fly in the morning to San Antonio, where they will finish this 7-game trip with games against the West's best, the Spurs on Wednesday and Oklahoma City on Friday.

Good night from Oakland. Blog at you later.