Miller's shot beats clock, lifts Wolves over Thunder

The victory is the third in five games for Minnesota and avenged an earlier loss to Oklahoma City.

By JERRY ZGODA, Star Tribune

Last update: November 29, 2008 - 8:52 AM

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WOLVES 105, OKLAHOMA CITY 103

Up next: vs. Denver • 7 tonight • Target Center • No TV (1130-AM)

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OKLAHOMA CITY - Lightning didn't strike twice, not even those Timberwolves, because Mike Miller did instead Friday night at a loud Ford Center.

And maybe because, after all, this is the Thunder.

Miller's winning shot from the corner with one-tenth of a second remaining provided a 105-103 victory and avenged the Wolves' Ford Center loss nearly a month ago, the last and only time Oklahoma City's newly transplanted team won a game.

Twenty-seven days -- and now 14 consecutive Thunder losses -- ago, the Wolves led by 10 points late in the third quarter and lost by three after they scored just 12 fourth-quarter points.

On Friday, they led 79-70 entering the final quarter and, down the stretch, answered just enough an opponent that lost by 32 points at Cleveland on Wednesday. They won for the third time in their past five games by reversing the Thunder's overwhelming advantage on the offensive backboards the last time the two teams played and by getting the game's final shot.

"Mike shot that a little too soon," Wolves coach Randy Wittman said wryly. "One-tenth of a second left."

To Wolves reserve forward Craig Smith, that shot -- and the final 3.3 seconds -- lasted forever on a night when Wittman proudly said his team had "persevered."

The Wolves trailed by a point with 65 seconds left and then again with 15.7 seconds left. They led by two with 8.8 seconds remaining only to watch Kevin Durant, the league's reigning Rookie of the Year, tie the score with an uncontested dunk with 3.3 seconds to play.

Enter Miller, who ended up with the ball after Smith set a screen to free Randy Foye and Miller set a screen to free Smith and Al Jefferson set a screen that freed Miller in a sequence that Wittman termed a "chain reaction."

Miller faked a defender into the air -- just as assistant coach Jerry Sichting reminded him to do as the team came out of a timeout -- stepped inside the three-point line and made the open shot.

"Automatic," Smith said of Miller's shooting skill, "but it takes too dang long. It's textbook -- pump-fake, one dribble, knock the shot down -- but it was like in slow motion."

Smith scored 23 points -- 11 of them on a career-high 15 free-throw attempts -- and grabbed eight rebounds off the bench on a night when Wittman shortened his bench by leaving Rashad McCants there all night and by employing Smith and Kevin Love to combat a smallish Thunder team that outrebounded the Wolves 19-9 on the offensive backboards the last time but got beaten there 13-7 on Friday.

The Thunder, one-point losers to Phoenix at home on Tuesday, lost for the 16th time in 17 games.

"Our goal isn't to worry about who we lose to," Miller said. "It's about winning games. We don't want to lose to anybody. This one is huge because we're so close in a lot of areas, we just have to find ways to win games."

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