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He's back. Forty-two points and 10 rebounds were the official announcement.
That looked about right for Kevin Love, maybe even something to applaud. Maybe. In a season when double-doubles have become routine and 30-point nights are met with a blase, "Well, that's Kevin," the Timberwolves forward lurched back to life on Saturday night in his first notable game since before the All-Star break, helping his team defeat the Trail Blazers, 122-110.
In the three games Love has played in since Feb. 21, he's averaged just 10.8 points, a far cry from his season average of 24.5. The Timberwolves went 2-2 over that stretch, which included the game he missed against the Lakers on Wednesday, though they managed to win on Feb. 22 and Feb. 28 despite his two 10-point nights.
What Love's recent performance proved is that the Timberwolves will struggle to win without him -- shock value of that statement: zero -- but that they can get by with diminished offense from him every once in a while. Saturday night, then, stated the obvious: When Love plays the way he did, the team can overcome nearly anything.
Only one other starter besides Love, Luke Ridnour, scored more than 10 points, and he finished with just 11. The other three starters -- Ricky Rubio, Nikola Pekovic and Wes Johnson -- combined for just 21 points. Martell Webster and Derrick Williams came off the bench and had 21 and 15 points, respectively. They were Love's biggest help, but even so, the two didn't even combine to score as many points as the power forward.
"He was really active," Timberwolves coach Rick Adelman said of Love. "He shot, obviously. He had four threes in the first half. I think he had a lot of energy tonight."
In plenty of instances, a 42-point night from one player might be enough for a win. But on Saturday, that win was never guaranteed until the game's final minutes. Although the Timberwolves scored 40 first-quarter points, their most this season, they turned around and gave up 32 to Portland in the second quarter.
"We acted like the game was over with," Adelman said of his team's play in the second quarter. "We got very casual. I think they kind of woke us up."
It was an offensive battle, and it took the Timberwolves' highest score of the season to seal the win. In the end, that 19th victory was a direct result of Minnesota being able to sustain its offense longer than Portland could.
For Love, it's always about the team. He seems truly happy when it wins in spite of him, or even without him. But Saturday night was about Love, and in the realm of personal records and glory, it might have been a necessary boost. The 23-year-old is on pace to break Kevin Garnett's club record of 24.2 points per game, set in 2003-2004. He also has a shot to average 25-plus points and 14-plus rebounds on the season, and if he were to do so, he'd be just the 11th player in league history to achieve that mark. And though that's all a long way off -- 28 games, to be precise -- to achieve one or both of those marks would say a lot not only about Love, but about the future of the franchise.
With the win, the Timberwolves head back to Minnesota for a brief reprieve from their month of road games. And after facing the Clippers, Lakers, Suns and Trail Blazers this week, the team got a taste of just what it's up against in the Western Conference, a manic preview of that the second half of the season has in store.
"That's just the way it is," Timberwolves coach Rick Adelman said of the schedule. "Nothing matters. It doesn't make any difference what I think. It's just a little strange here in March, you haven't seen these guys, and then you have to play them twice in five days."
The Timberwolves went into the four-game trip with a .500 record, and they'll return home having clawed back to that point. They arrived in Los Angeles knowing that perhaps the most grueling week of the season awaited them, and when their plane touches down in Minneapolis Sunday, the relief of having the past five days behind them will be tempered by what they face going forward.
In the next week, the Timberwolves will face the two teams they defeated this week once again, the Clippers and the Trail Blazers. But they'll also get another dose of the Lakers, against whom they're 0-2 so far this season, on Saturday and then again on March 16. It may not sound ideal, but if this is a team that's going to be a legitimate contender for one of the final Western Conference spots, there's no better warmup than this month.
"The biggest thing about it is the teams that we're playing are good, and we're going to have to play well to win," Adelman said.
It might just be as simple as that.
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