Whatta night!: Love, Rubio lead and Wolves defeat L.A. on buzzer beater

It's been a long month to start this shortened NBA season, a long week and a long night tonight in Los Angeles, where the Wolves came back from 15 down in the first half, from 12 down in the fourth and from three down in the final minute to win on two clutch three-pointers

One came from Ricky Rubio with 20 seconds left after he had missed his first 10 shots of the game.

The other, of course, came from Kevin Love, a 27-footer about as pure as you can get just before the final buzzer.

The dramatic turnabout forced me to throw away a "Clippers win" story sent BEFORE deadline and write a new version for the final paper edition in 13 minutes.

Then I chased down Love as he was leaving Staples Center and rewrote an epic -- well, at least really long -- new game story from an epic game shown nationwide on ESPN.

Pretty good week for buzzer-beating shots in the NBA's national TV games.

You'll find the really long game story encompassing everything I could think of right here.

He barely got a mention in the game, but...quite a game from beleaguered ol' Darko!

Rick Adelman threw the Clippers a bit of a twist, putting Milicic on springy Blake Griffin most of the night and asking Love to defend big DeAndre Jordan.

Milicic made Griffin work for everything he got (21 and 10), blocked a couple of his shots and outscored the All Star himself, with 22 that included nary a finesse little flip shot that he loves so much and four -- count 'em four -- dunks.

While writing the final gamer linked to above, I spit out a quick line saying that if he hadn't guaranteed it before, Love's shot might have gotten him that 5-year maximum contract by Wednesday.

The more I think about it, maybe it got him the 4-year instead.

After tonight, playing with Rubio for a long time might be something of its own reward.

The Wolves now are 7-8 -- and probably should be 8-7 or maybe at least 9-6 -- and looking at reaching .500 nearly a month into the season as they headed to Utah late tonight.

Well, that's all I got.

If you missed it, here's a big feature I wrote for Friday's paper on the rise of the Clippers to prominence in L.A. (yes, there really are two teams here).

You'll find that story here.