"There's no way you can not pay attention to it, but you don't take a team lightly because of their record," James said. "That's one thing that we don't do."

As evidenced by their record, the Cavs have done a good job of focusing on the task at hand, and James said they don't want a loss in a game they should have won to haunt them.

"There's certain teams that you want to play well (against) and if you do that, you should be able to win," he said. "Those are the games that we want to take care of because late in the (season) you don't want to look back and say if we had these couple games, we could have gone from a two seed to a one seed or a four seed to a two seed. There's things that you can control early in the season that you want to do it and get it over with."

James bent over backward to be respectful to the Wolves, but he laid it on a little thick when asked if they look any different since Kevin McHale took over as coach.

"He's definitely letting them get up and down a little bit more," James said. "It's going to be another get-back game for us. They've got a lot of high fliers and jumpers on this team. I think he's inspired these guys to play a little harder."

The Wolves took a 10-game losing streak into Wednesday's game, including an 0-5 mark under McHale.

Twist of fate: Zydrunas Ilgauskas is in his 10th season with the Cavs and recently became the team's all-time leading rebounder, but his career could have gone much differently.

McHale said the Wolves were prepared to select the 7-foot-3 center in the second round of the 1995 NBA draft until he broke his foot during a workout.

"Tough kid," McHale said. "I'm a big fan of Zydrunas. He broke his foot, and he was still practicing. He was working out and he said, 'My foot hurts a little bit.' ... After seeing it was a broken foot, I said that's a pretty tough dude."

The injury delayed Ilgauskas' entry into the NBA by a year, but he landed on his feet, going to the Cavs with the 20th pick.

According to McHale, it could have been much worse.

"All I do remember about that workout was we worked out downstairs one day and the cameraman dropped a tripod and missed Zydrunas by about six inches," he said. "It would have killed him. That would have been worse than the broken foot."

Ilgauskas sat out Wednesday's game because of a sprained ankle, but he and McHale obviously go way back.

As McHale quipped, "I knew him so long ago, he used to have hair."

Brewer has surgery: Forward Corey Brewer had surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee.

Brewer suffered the season-ending injury in a Nov. 29 game against Denver.

Toughen up: After the Wolves' 118-103 loss at Sacramento on Monday night, McHale attributed his team's listless performance to playing its fifth game in seven nights.

After Wednesday's morning shootaround, he put it more strongly.

"We gave in," McHale said. "It got tough and we gave in. That's what we can't do. That's what this team's got to get better at."

Style points: McHale said the Cavaliers are a prime example of a team with a playing style that fits its talent, as he's trying to do with the Wolves.

"Magic Johnson was the size of a power forward, but they played him at point guard," he said. "Charles Barkley was the size of an off guard and they played him at forward. But they played to their strengths and everybody learned how to play off of that. That's where we've got to get to with the strengths of our team. Al (Jefferson) being in the post, our perimeter guys being able to handle the ball and do stuff, good shooters spreading the court and playing into those guys getting repeatable shots."

Quote to note: McHale, on coaching in the NBA: "This job, man, is like dog years. I'm like 50, but I'm 350."