Wolves subs get big minutes but meager results

As has happened so often this season, a strong across-the-board effort by Kevin Love was wasted in a difficult loss.

Love scored a game-high 36 points against Phoenix on Sunday afternoon at Target Center. He had 14 rebounds, nine assists, two steals in 38½ minutes of playing time.

Unfortunately for the Wolves, Love did need a rest.

It was with Love on the bench to start the fourth quarter that the Suns, down 10 to start the quarter, took over the game. Once again Love was forced to watch a lineup of mainly reserves squander a double-digit lead, an experience he termed "difficult."

"We were up 10 going into the fourth," Love said. "But we had Corey [Brewer] or [Shabazz Muhammad] at the four, which is tough for those guys."

Love was referring to coach Rick Adelman's decision to respond to the small lineup the Suns used to start the fourth quarter with a lineup that included starters Brewer and Ricky Rubio with Dante Cunningham, Muhammad and guard J.J. Barea. The strategy forced either Brewer or Muhammad to play slightly out of position.

The Suns opened the fourth with a 14-3 run.

Neither Love nor the rest of the Wolves were able to get their offensive rhythm back. Love was 2-for-8 (0-for-3 on three-pointers) in the final quarter, with a key turnover down the stretch. The Wolves as a team shot 5-for-21 in the final 12 minutes, missing their first eight shots in the quarter.

On the Wolves' flight home from Houston after Thursday's game — one in which Gorgui Dieng had 22 points and 21 rebounds starting in place of the injured Nikola Pekovic — Adelman sat down next to Pekovic.

"I asked him on the plane the other day if he'd ever heard of Wally Pipp," Adelman said. That's a reference to the New York Yankees first baseman who was given a day off and replaced by a youngster named Lou Gehrig in 1925. Gehrig went on to start the next 2,130 games at first for the Yankees.

Pekovic, who is European-born, didn't get the reference. "That was a big mistake," Adelman said. "Because he'd never heard of Wally Pipp, and he'd never heard of Lou Gehrig. So the lesson kind of lost its meaning."

Pekovic missed his fourth consecutive game because of ankle bursitis.