Lack of trust plagues Wolves in loss

The team can't find a way to overcome Dallas, leading Randy Wittman to lament his players' trust of one another.

By JERRY ZGODA, Star Tribune

Last update: November 2, 2008 - 10:56 AM

Love was in the air and on the new Target Center court Saturday night. Missing in the Timberwolves' 95-85 loss to Dallas, though, was trust.

At least that's the way coach Randy Wittman saw it in the season's second game, when his Wolves trailed by 11 points after one quarter, led by one not long before halftime and ultimately succumbed in the second half to a gifted Mavericks team that made the Wolves look like they hadn't spent all of October obsessing on their team defense.

Rookie Kevin Love, as he had done in Wednesday's season-opening victory over Sacramento, provided the energy for the team's second-quarter turnabout with a performance that caused Wittman to call upon him earlier in the second half and that led the Target Center sound system, for the first time this season, to blare the obvious after he made a basket: strains of the Beatles' classic, "All You Need Is Love."

Now, love is all well and good, but what is any relationship without trust?

"The problem with tonight's game at both ends of the floor is we don't have that trust factor," Wittman said. "It's not a matter of effort, not a matter of trying. We did a lot of good things tonight too. When we're trusting each other at both ends of the floor, we're pretty good and when we don't, we look really bad."

Maybe that's because it's the second game for a team that added three new faces to its lineup since last season. Or maybe that's because they were playing a Dallas team that has averaged 57 victories the past eight seasons.

"They're the most talented team we've played so far," Love said.

Still, the Wolves were within 90-85 with less than two minutes remaining, but they could get no closer. This came on a night when they made the free throws they missed in the opener -- a 22-for-24 performance after Wednesday's 11-for-22 -- but again relied on too many jump shots and never really got Al Jefferson going. They scored 44 points from the paint, a number that would have been higher if they hadn't missed numerous additional opportunities near the rim.

The Wolves shot only 1-for-12 from three-point range, and Jefferson labored through a 5-for-15 shooting night because he was forced to take too many outside shots and got trapped in too many double teams. For the second consecutive game, Wittman also sat down starting point guard Randy Foye for a period.

In the opener, Wittman went with veteran Kevin Ollie for most of the fourth quarter. On Saturday, he yanked Foye from the game in the third after Foye hoisted a three-pointer that missed. Foye looked toward the scorer's table while play progressed, saw Ollie sitting waiting to check in and looked exasperated.

"We've got to get better play there, no question," Wittman said of a point-guard position missing suspended Sebastian Telfair. "We've got guys struggling. Randy, he's got to get better. But that's not what cost us the game."

Trust, or the lack of it, apparently did.

"If we just trust each other ..." Wittman said. "We've got enough good players on this team that if they want to handle it that way, then we're going to do this. Trust me."

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