Continued: For Collins and Wolves, all a matter of mix

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Timberwolves veteran center Jason Collins started his seventh consecutive game in Saturday night's home loss to Denver. He played 17 minutes, took three shots, scored two points, had two assists, a blocked shot and no rebounds.

Those are modest numbers not that far off his season averages in eight games since he returned in the season's eighth game after September surgery that repaired an elbow tendon ruptured in a golf-cart accident.

Those numbers have kept him in the starting lineup mostly because his presence enables coach Randy Wittman to start Al Jefferson at his natural power-forward position and Ryan Gomes at his natural small-forward position.

"I like the kind of starts we're getting," said Wittman, who was troubled by his team's starts in the season's opening games. "It's just one of those things. We're a little solid defensively."

On Saturday, the Denver Nuggets initially put their biggest starter, Nene, on Jefferson defensively. They switched to power forward Kenyon Martin, whom Jefferson defended on the other end, after a 9-0 Wolves start that was a 19-16 lead when Craig Smith came in for Collins with four minutes left in the first quarter.

"Defensively, it has helped me a lot," Jefferson said. "Jason's got my back. We do a good job of talking. He got to the NBA Finals twice. He knows what it takes to win."

The combination keeps Gomes, 6-8, away from defensive mismatches at power forward and he says allows him the offensive option, depending on matchups, of attacking the backboards against smaller small forwards or getting out to run the floor quicker in transition.

"I think it's working out for us," Gomes said. "It gives us another big body like Jason, a big, smart defender. It helps us all get in our spots quicker and trust he'll be there for us on our backside. It helps Al get going a little better. Then you move him over to the '5' [center position] and bring Craig or Kevin [Love] in and he's already into the game and going without doing a lot more work than usual [at center]."

The Wolves seemingly committed to playing Jefferson and Love -- two similarly sized players with different kinds of games -- together long term when they traded O.J. Mayo to Memphis last summer for Love and Mike Miller.

For now, Love is back coming off the bench after a four-game trial as a starter. Wittman's starting five puts Jefferson and Gomes where they say they feel most comfortable and has brought more consistency to Wittman's playing rotations.

The Wolves are 3-3 in their past six games -- 3-4 with Collins as starting center -- after a 1-8 start. They will begin a three-game Eastern Conference swing tonight at Charlotte.

"Right now, we're in a good rhythm, a good rotation pattern," Collins said. "Guys know what the rotation is going to be, depending on different games, different matchups, different situations. We've been in almost every single game, except for the third quarter of the Boston game. We're doing a good job and we need to keep that going."

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