--Hours before the Wolves were obliterated by Golden State before an expanse of empty Target Center seats, Wolves owner Glen Taylor announced the team will reduce the price of 95 percent of its season tickets for 2009-2010 -- most from between $4 to $15 a game -- if bought by July 1 and guarantee a refund of unused tickets for anyone who loses their job by Jan. 1, 2010.
Upper-level season tickets will cost as little as $5 a game. Lower-level season tickets will start at $15 a game. Fans also can pay for any season ticket over nine months without interest.
Lower-level season tickets have been cut by 11.4 percent, a differential Taylor said he hopes to cover by selling at least 11 percent more season tickets at reduced prices.
"These are very difficult economic times," Taylor said. "We don't know what's going to happen over this next year in our country, no matter what anyone says."
Taylor said his team is not one of 17 teams dipping into a supplemental $175 million loan the NBA has secured to help franchises cover operating losses.
"I have never done that because personally in my other businesses and with the Timberwolves, we deal with the local banks," he said. "I'm a Minnesotan and I'd just as soon deal with that.
"If I need borrowing, I'd just as soon go downtown in our community and talk to the people I know. That's always worked for me. I think in the future if we needed additional resources, that's what we'll do."
QUOTE TO NOTE: "Feels a lot better than my heart." -- Wolves veteran Mike Miller, when asked about his back, which he hurt in a fall Tuesday, after a 24-point home loss to Golden State.
