Ryan Gomes has a Christmas dream.
"Hopefully, one day, of course not this year but maybe next year, we'll be one of the teams playing," the Timberwolves' starting forward said Tuesday night after Minnesota's 99-93 loss at San Antonio. "The good thing about the teams that are playing on Christmas is, they're the only teams playing. There's a reason for that because they're in that elite bunch. ... "Maybe one day we'll get there, but for now we have to go home and spend time with our families."
That was about the only consolation for the Wolves, who fell to 4-23 this season with their 13th consecutive loss, three shy of the team record set in 1992 and equaled in 1994.
As much as they could use the practice, coach Kevin McHale opted to give the players two days off before Friday's game at New York.
"It is the holidays, and the guys have family and stuff," he said. "They've got to recharge their motors and stuff, too."
The Wolves didn't go down easily, cutting a 16-point Spurs lead entering the final period to three with 2:36 to play, only to come up short.
Center Al Jefferson said coming close doesn't make losing any less frustrating.
"The last couple of games, we've been in it and had a great chance to pull them out against great teams," he said. "The thing that frustrates me is, when we play against teams not as good as the teams we've played the last two games, we don't give it our all. When we play against the great teams, we want to just come out and fight. We've got to do that every night.''
Jefferson scored 28 points at San Antonio, and guard Randy Foye added 26 and set a team record for guards with 16 rebounds. Foye said he sees signs of progress in this team, even if it's hard to look past the losing streak.
"I don't know if you guys can tell, but I just see, like, a growth," Foye said. "Before, we played (the Spurs) and they beat us. We went down, and they buried us. Tonight, we went down and we came back and brought it to three. We had a chance and a lot of shots. We've . . . just got to keep working hard and keep believing."
Traveling man: With no practice Wednesday or today, rookie forward Kevin Love said he would fly to New York early to be with friends and relatives.
Going home to Oregon really wasn't an option.
"I didn't want to go all the way back to the West Coast and then have to make the trip, red-eye all the way back to the East Coast," he said. "It would have just been too much."
Holiday travel is an occupational hazard for NBA players, but Love isn't complaining.
"I just look at it like, hey, we might not get holidays off during the holiday season," he said, "but we get a three- to five-month offseason where we can pretty much do what we like."
