--The Wolves activated newly acquired Bobby Brown for Sunday's game, but only so the rookie point guard could sit in uniform on the bench and learn the team's ways.
Brown and forward Shelden Williams did not practice Saturday because Thursday's trade with Sacramento was not completed until about four hours later, when the Kings finished physical examinations of Rashad McCants and Calvin Booth. So neither played Sunday against the Lakers. Williams was inactive. He wore a suit and watch the game from a seat behind the team's bench.
"It's vastly unfair not to have a guy practice and then throw him out in a game against the Lakers," Wolves coach Kevin McHale said. "I don't think that'd be a prudent thing to do."
They both are expected to make their debuts Tuesday night against Toronto.
--Lakers coach Phil Jackson has his own way of describing the new-look Wolves now that they're figuring out how to play without injured star Al Jefferson.
He calls them a "loose-net team."
That's a reference to an NBA tactic of years past when home teams that wanted to run supposedly had loose nets through which the ball would speed so one of their players could grab it immediately after a made basket and get started back the other way.
"They want to get it to Telfair and Foye, get the ball up the court and find some shots," Jackson said, referring to the starting backcourt tandem of Sebastian Telfair and Randy Foye.
Those two ball-handling guards combined for 36 points and 11 assists in Sunday's loss to the Lakers.
QUOTE TO NOTE: "Just tried to Pink Panther my way through there." -- Big Wolves forward Craig Smith said, without the sneaking movie theme music, after he slipped through seams in the Lakers' defense Sunday to score 19 points off the bench.
