Wolves fall 105-101 in season opener to Memphis

MEMPHIS – Before Wednesday's game, the Flip Saunders who calls himself the Timberwolves' basketball operations boss said his team's season won't be defined as much by victories and losses as it will by its young players' development.

After a season-opening 105-101 loss to Memphis, the same guy who calls himself coach couldn't help but lament a game that got away late.

"This is a game that we were right there," he said.

Of course, the Wolves coach said that many times last season, when Rick Adelman's team went 6-13 in games decided by four points or fewer.

This time, the Wolves introduced a remade team after last summer's blockbuster trade involved three-time All-Star Kevin Love and once again lost a game by four points, but in ways both foreign and familiar to a year ago.

They committed 23 turnovers — seven of them by point guard Ricky Rubio — and Saunders noted his team couldn't transition from playing frenetic defense in time to play offensively without rushing. Included was one turnover with 2 minutes, 20 seconds left that the Wolves argued vehemently never should have been, an officials' call that ruled the ball out of bounds off Rubio near the beginning of a 7-0 Memphis run that won the game.

Costly turnovers and an opponent's closing run, you've heard that before.

That defense part is new, if you're scoring at home.

Also nearly nonexistent a season ago, the Wolves' bench outscored their Memphis counterparts 46-10 — believed to be the most lopsided margin in their favor since at least the 1996-97 season — and relied upon their defense primarily to push a bruising team that reached the 2013 Western Conference finals down to the final seconds.

Veteran Mo Williams scored 18 of those points and Muhammad added another 13, and the Wolves outrebounded the physical Grizzlies 47-33. Muhammad bulled his way to seven of those, enough hard work that Memphis stuck big Zach Randolph on him in an attempt to slow him down.

"I would have thought if we outrebounded them by 14, we'd win the game," Saunders said.

New Wolves starter Thaddeus Young exactly matched Love's missing average scoring with a 26-point game in a return home to Memphis. His team didn't win because it couldn't stop the scoring of Marc Gasol (32 points) and Randolph (25) all night. It didn't help that the Wolves started the game without injured backup center Ronny Turiaf (hip soreness) and then Gorgui Dieng left the game in the second quarter because of a bruised thumb that initially looked much worse than it was.

"I was more concerned it was going to be longer than 20 minutes," Saunders said. "I was happy it was only 20 minutes."

Dieng returned to be part of a second unit that turned a nine-point deficit with 11:40 left into an 87-85 lead with seven minutes left. They were still ahead — 96-94 — with fewer than three minutes left when Memphis delivered that telling 7-0 run.

The Wolves argued loudly that a ball had gone off Randolph, not Rubio with the score tied at 96. The Grizzlies took the lead on that next possession, then Mo Williams flagrantly fouled Mike Conley in a five-point swing that was all but the game.

"I don't know, there was a lot that impacted the game," Williams said when asked about his flagrant foul. "It was a frustration foul on my part. Maybe it was a bonehead play, but it was a decision I had to make on the fly. … You just move on. That's the beauty of the NBA. That's the lesson the young guys learned tonight. In college, you have to wait a few days. We go back to it tomorrow and put the day behind us."