Well, that was easy.

Admit it, fans of the Wolves. The team was coming off a 2-5 road trip, had played a two-overtime game in OKC to finish it, Nikola Pekovic and J.J. Barea were hurt and Denver was in town.

Did you expect this?

Greetings. Kent Youngblood here. I covered today's game. Jerry will be at practice tomorrow, and I will be with the team in Memphis and Charlotte.

This was a pretty gutty win for the Wolves, who won going away, thanks to a 39-9 run that started in the first quarter and ended in the second; the Wolves played great defense early, holding the Nuggets without a point for the first four minutes of the second quarter.

And now the Wolves are 2 1/2 games behind No. 8 Houston in the West. Denver and Phoenix are also ahead of the Wolves. But, given that Denver has opened it's own seven-game road trip with two losses, I'm thinking they could be playing themselves out of the playoff picture before long.

We'll see.

Here are some notes and thoughts from today's game:

--This was the Wolves second victory in 19 meetings with Denver. The win broke and eight-game home losing streak to the Nuggets.

--20,032 fans watched it, making this the ninth sellout of the season and the fourth in five games. it is also the first time in franchise history that 20,000-plus fans have attended three straight home games.

--Kevin Love (ho, hum) was, of course, incredible again. One game after scoring a franchise-high 51 points in OKC, he had his third 30-20 game of the season and the seventh of his career. He also had his ninth 30-15 game of the season, one more than the rest of the league combined.

--The Wolves, 28-point third quarter lead was their biggest of the season.

--Both Luke Ridnour (25) and Wayne Ellington (17) had season highs in scoring today.

--Minnesota's 68 first-half points were a season-high for a half this season.

That's about it for now. Jerry will get back to you tomorrow.