Wolves' loss could help them win

The Timberwolves' 113-101 loss to Memphis that maybe concerned only those 16,764 people inside Target Center on Sunday evening -- certainly few fans back on Beale Street were focused on this basketball game -- conjured a scene from a sports movie released when Al Jefferson was 7 years old.

In it, a girlfriend mystifies Billy Hoyle, a down-on-his-luck street-ball player, when she tells him, "Sometimes when you win, you really lose, and sometimes when you lose, you really win, and sometimes when you win or lose, you actually tie."

Huh?

Billy found out the lesson at the end of the movie when he won the playground game of his life and came home to find his gal had left him for good.

The Wolves might discover it only if a franchise that for two decades has found none finally receives some NBA draft-lottery love on May 20.

Wolves coach Randy Wittman lamented his team's lack of concentration and toughness after it trailed its lottery-bound brethren by 11 points in the first quarter, then pulled ahead late in the second quarter only to succumb to the inside-out combination of Rudy Gay and Mike Miller. Together, they scored 57 points, including 23 in the Grizzlies' decisive 32-20 fourth quarter.

Wittman's disappointment was compounded by the fact that he had challenged his team to consider Sunday's outing "our own little playoff run" because they started the day one victory behind Memphis in the standings.

"They were the next guys ahead of us," Wittman said. "We had two games with the Grizzlies [they play Saturday in Memphis] and one game to catch and pass this team."

Fact is, Sunday's loss combined with New York's upset victory over Orlando leaves the Wolves with the league's third-worst record -- and thus the third-best chance (15.6 percent to win the first pick) in the lottery. With 19 victories, the Timberwolves have two fewer than both the Grizzlies and Knicks with nine days remaining in the season.

That's the race that loyal Wolves fans who have watched the NCAA tournament and envisioned Memphis guard Derrick Rose or Kansas State's Michael Beasley in a black and blue uniform are following closely.

On Sunday, the Wolves held Memphis without a basket for nearly nine minutes -- almost the final six minutes of the third quarter and the first three of the fourth -- and still lost by 12 points thanks to the Grizzlies' closing 11-2 run that featured Miller's outside shooting and Gay's unmatchable athleticism just for punctuation.

Miller made a season-high eight three-pointers and Gay exploited a matchup at power forward with Ryan Gomes on an evening when the Wolves squabbled at officials (Marko Jaric and Rashad McCants received technicals in succession in the second quarter) and sometimes at each other.

Afterward, Wolves forward Kirk Snyder pondered his team's poor communication: Sometimes the lack of it, sometimes just the wrong kind.

"I don't want to say we're dysfunctional," he said. "But we need to be more functional."

Notes

• Wittman called Jefferson's one first-half shot attempt "his doing."

Said Wittman: "The second half was the first time in a while that he's really attacked and been Al Jefferson."

• Wittman on Miller's three-point shooting:

"We let him get his rhythm and when he gets his rhythm, he feels like he can make it from anywhere. He damn near made it from half-court tonight."