Go home: Wolves end 6-game road trip winless after 113-90 loss at Clippers

It's time to go home.

The Wolves sure played like they were thinking that, particularly in the final 78 seconds of the first half and all of the second half Monday night in L.A.

The Clippers won their third straight game after road victories at Detroit and Chicago by scoring the final six points of the first half to turn a four-point game into a 68-point first half and a 10-point lead that they turned into a 23-point bulge before it was all over.

Afterward, Kurt Rambis said simply, "The effort and focus was not there."

Maybe it wasn't there partly because Kevin Love got two quick fouls trying to defend Blake Griffin and never found the rhythm he latched onto with that 43-point, 17-rebound game Saturday in Denver.

He extended his streak of double-double games to 15 with 12 points and 10 rebounds, but his performance, Michael Beasley's 20 points (on 6 for 19 shooting) and Martell Webster's 18 points weren't nearly enought to counter Eric Gordon's decisive 36-point night or Griffin's 22-point, 10-rebound, 7-assist game that extended his own double-double streak to 16.

It wasn't nearly enough mainly because the Wolves didn't play a shred of defense all night, which might have been due to Darko Milicic deciding that ankle he sprained on the opening tap in Portland on Friday still is too sore and tight.

Without him back there to alter any shots, the Clippers got to the rim at will and then kicked the ball to the three-point line, where Gordon made five of the Clippers' seven threes.

They also -- with Milicic out and Love ineffective by his standards -- outrebounded the Wolves 56-33 and won the points in the paint battle 62-28.

Afterward, Love called the night "the worst game we played."

"That's the worst game we played, period," he said. "We didn't execute nothing, period. All of us. It wasn't just one person. It was the whole team. We played poorly.

"This is not the way you want to end an trip.

You can't blame all -- or most even -- of the Wolves' defensive woe on the absence of the league's second-best shot blocker.

But...

"We need Darko to play," Love said. " We need Darko for us to be the team that we're going to be and grow together as. We need Darko to play, plain and simple, period."

Rambis wouldn't pin this one on the absence of Darko -- or Nikola Pekovic, who sat out his second straight game with a sprained ankle as well, or Anthony Tolliver, who remains out -- or the fatigue of a long road trip and a tough schedule in which they've already played 17 of their 29 games on the road.

"We've got to play the guys who are out there on the floor," he said. "We have to do a much better job of everybody taking responsibility regardless of how many players are injured.

That's all I have from L.A.

Wolves fly home Tuesday morning and play Utah Wednesday at Target Center.

That's Big Al first game back at Target Center since last summer's trade.