: POS MIN FGM-A 3PM-A FTM-A +/- OFF DEF TOT AST PF ST TO BS BA PTS : R. Gomes F 08:13 1-3 0-0 0-0 - 1 0 2 2 0 2 0 1 1 0 2 : 推 crazycloub:Gomes leaves game with knee/ankle injury....... 12/13 14:36 The Timberwolves’ remaining faithful gathered indoors on a fine June evening last summer for the team’s annual NBA draft and erupted with joyous noise and spontaneous song when the Sacramento Kings bypassed Spanish teen sensation Ricky Rubio and instead selected Memphis freshman Tyreke Evans with the fourth overall selection that night. Six months later — long after those lilting “Olé, olé, olé” chants quickly faded into the good night — Rubio remains out of sight and mind in Spain for at least the next two seasons while Evans is making steady push to surpass Milwaukee’s Brandon Jennings as the early clubhouse leader for Rookie of the Year. Evans made his latest case in the Kings’ 120-100 rout of the Wolves at Arco Arena on Saturday, one night after the Wolves so gamely pushed the NBA champion Lakers until late in the third quarter in Los Angeles. After expending so much physically and perhaps emotionally during coach Kurt Rambis’ first game against the Lakers on Friday, the Wolves on Saturday curiously tried to play the Kings at the hometown team’s preferred breakneck speed. The result was a tired team that got run out of the building by a Kings team that scored 64 points in the first half alone and 97 through three quarters. The Wolves now have lost four consecutive games and their 3-21 season start matches the 2007-08 team — the first post-Kevin Garnett season — for worst record after 24 games in franchise history. “A young team has to understand how to play the proper way,” Rambis said. “ We got caught in trying to play too fast. Any time we organized our offense and move the ball, we got quality looks. That’s the way we are supposed to play. …We lost our focus and attention to detail.” Evans and Kings second-year forward Jason Thompson had a little something to do with it as well. Evans’ 18-point, five-rebound, five-assist performance helped the Kings build a 29-point, second-half lead on a night when the Wolves lost starting forward Ryan Gomes to an injured ankle in the second quarter. Gomes twisted his ankle in a second-quarter fall that left him sprawled on the court while play progressed down the floor and back before action stopped. An X-ray taken at the arena was negative, but he did not return to the game. The team listed his condition as the always-popular “day to day.” NBA scouts last summer knew the 6-foot-6 Evans was big, strong and physical for a guard. That much he proved at a pre-draft workout at Target Center attended by almost every top point guard except for Rubio and Stephen Curry. They just didn’t know if the guy who handled the ball so much for John Calipari’s Memphis college team was truly a point guard or a shooting guard. Apparently, it doesn’t matter. Turns out he’s both. He demonstrated as much by playing some of each guard position — and a little small forward to boot — Saturday against a Wolves team that clearly ran out of energy and inspiration in losing its fourth consecutive game and the 21st in the first 24 this season. “He’s a big, strong guard, crafty, always has scoring on his mind,” said rookie point guard Jonny Flynn, whom the Wolves drafted partly because of how he defended the much bigger Evans in that predraft workout. “I think if they put the right lineup out there, he could probably play power forward, too. Not center, but maybe power forward. He’s just so big for a guard. He’s going to be a great player.” At his current pace, and admittedly it’s still very early, Evans is on pace to join LeBron James, Michael Jordan and Oscar Robertson as the only NBA players to average 20 points, five rebounds and five assists in their rookie seasons. The Kings now are 10-12 and, despite playing without star Kevin Martin since the season’s fifth game, clearly have become one more youthful Western Conference team that has surpassed the Wolves on the road to rebuilding and reclamation. Just add the Kings — young and stocked with size and athleticism — to a list that already included Portland, Oklahoma City for sure and the Los Angeles Clippers, Memphis and Golden State perhaps. “They’re a really good, young team,” Flynn said. “They play a fun style, running and gunning. They did well tonight.” Those Kings had knocked the Wolves into submission by the end of three quarters, when they led 97-77. That was when Wolves forward Kevin Love collapsed on his back after the quarter buzzer and laid there in frustration after a failed scoring attempt until Kings guard Beno Udrih — a Timberwolf for only the briefest of moments two autumns ago — and a Sacramento assistant coach lifted him up off the court. As the Wolves trudged back to their bench, assistant coach Bill Laimbeer implored them by shouting, “Let’s keep fighting.” They were words that only caused Love to smile and shake his head as he walked slowly to the team’s huddle. “I was frustrated,” said Love, who made five of 14 shots Saturday. “Last night, I had good opportunities to score, good shots. Tonight, a lot of shots came out of rhythm. That shot there [at the end of the third quarter], I tried to throw it off the board. Tough shot for me. I don’t know what I shot, but it couldn’t have been too good. “I was just frustrated. I was mad and exhausted and didn’t know what to think after that shot. It threw me off, and the team was thrown off, too.” --

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