How'd they do that?: Wolves win 105-90 at Dallas

The Wolves played with just 8 1/2 healthy players -- Wes Johnson, coming back from a bout with pneumonia, counts as the half -- and just two guards and still beat Dallas for the second time in as many games this season anyway.

It wasn't much of a celebration for the Mavericks, who opened the evening with that championship-ring ceremony in which Wolves guard J.J. Barea got his.

By the time the evening was over, it was the Wolves who were celebrating, even if Kevin Love did so by soaking his feet his ice after his third 30-point game (31) in the last six and Johnson did so by taking oxygen after he played 17 minutes, including the final six on a night when he arrived at the arena looking like he just wanted to go back to bed.

It's been a long, long day covering the Kevin Love signing and then losing a long blog post I mistakenly didn't write in a Word document and lost in our web publishing system.

So...I'll just leave you tonight with these this:

* Here's the game story from tonight's game, when Ricky Rubio and Wayne Ellington started in the backcourt because those were Rick Adelman's only choices.

* Here's the short notebook with the main item about Barea going to back to Dallas.

* Darko! entered Wednesday's game with 15 blocked shots in 17 games and then goes and ties and a career high with seven tonight in fewer than 24 minutes.

Rick Adelman went with him early in the game, and then stayed with Nikola Pekovic late after the shorthanded Wolves started in hum in a second half and outscored a Mavs team missing Dirk Nowitzki 53-36 after halftime.

* Love reached his 17th double-double in 18 games this season, with 31 points and 10 rebounds. That 31-point game followed Monday's season-high 39 against Houston.

* Rubio continues to struggle with his shooting -- 4 for 16 Wednesday, less than 30 percent now in eight games as a starter -- but it doesn't seem to matter much.

He still was effective and instrumental Wednesday with a 17-point, 12-assist, 7-rebound, 4-steal, 7-turnover night.

This was Rubio's eighth double-digit assist game and he now has three or more steals in five consecutive games after getting four tonight.

Sorry, that's all I got tonight.

The Wolves flew home after the game and Adelman has given most of the fellas the day off tomorrow.

They play San Antonio -- the good teams just keep coming -- at home on Friday and the Lakers on deck for Sunday.

Kent Youngblood has got the Spurs game and I'm sure he'll be blogging in after the morning shootaround on Friday.