Continued: Love takes his first steps in Jefferson's big shoes

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Timberwolves players still felt sorry for injured teammate Al Jefferson on Tuesday, but coach Kevin McHale urged that the time had passed for them to feel sorry about themselves and preached that Jefferson's season-ending knee injury means only opportunity for others.

And nobody more so than rookie Kevin Love.

Love started at Jefferson's center spot Tuesday against Toronto and scored his team's first six points on the first night of the rest of his season where McHale promises he'll now get all the playing time and opportunity he can handle.

McHale said he will ask Love to handle the ball more on the perimeter as well as give him some of the low-post touches that previously were almost exclusively Jefferson's. More than anything, McHale wants to see if Love can continue to do "all those little things" he has been doing at 35 or 36 minutes a game as he had playing 23 minutes a night.

"I tell our guys the first things that go are those little things," McHale said. "You still rebound, but your weakside help, coming out that extra four or five feet, the extra sprint early, all that stuff starts sliding a bit. You always ask me why he doesn't play more. Once you get that ingrained in you playing 23 minutes a night, you'll do it more often when you're playing 36.

"I can cite you 20 guys in the league right now who played a lot of minutes when they were young, and they don't do that and now their coach is really frustrated with them. I'd rather have that ingrained early and let the minutes come later. We've got 32 games left. He has a whole college season still ahead of him."

Asked if Jefferson's injury in the big picture could provide him extra room to grow and develop in his rookie season, Love said, "You never wish an injury on anybody. ... Absolutely, it could be. I'm hoping for the chance to develop a little bit more, get rid of some of my bad habits, step my game out a bit to the 15- or 17-foot range. Al told me yesterday that now's the time for me to step up."

Love finished with 15 points and 11 rebounds in a season-high 38 minutes Tuesday night.

Roster exemption sought

McHale said he will ask the league if there's an exemption for season-ending injuries that would allow them to sign a NBA Development League player even though they have a full but battered 15-man roster.

"There are a couple guys in the D League we like," said McHale, whose team also could waive veteran Calvin Booth (two months left on an expiring $1.1 million contract) and sign a player.

He's back

Jason Collins played his first minutes since McHale became coach two months ago.

Collins showed he hadn't played in a while when he tried to pick up a rebound off the floor, stumbled, fell on the ball and called timeout.

"They'll be ready," McHale said. "I'm not silly enough to think there won't be rust on their games. Ready and rust are two separate things. They're going to have rust. They're vets. The one thing about being a veteran player is you understand what you can and cannot do."

Course for recovery

McHale said the team and Jefferson still must decide where Jefferson's surgery will be performed and who will do it in the next week to 10 days.

He will spend most of the next month after that rehabbing here and will spend most of the summer in Minneapolis as well, working to get ready for next season.

"The good news is he can rehab with Brew," McHale said, referring to injured Corey Brewer. "They have the same injury. I don't know if I've seen a team have two ACLs in the same year."

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