And so the former Boston Celtics Basketball god attempted to breathe life into the nostrils of the Timberwolves. That's certainly a long-winded task. We're talking gale-force winds.

After McHale detected a pulse, faint as it was, he tried to nurture his guys back to life. He was all gentle and kind as he tried to keep everyone feeling groovy.

It worked, too. Well, for the most part. Remember, these still are the Timberwolves. They blew a seven-point lead in the final 2:55 to lose 99-96. Yet they looked pretty good until then. It must have been the new positive approach to player-coach relations.

"Yeah, it's not about the mistakes you make," said Rashad McCants, who made his share. "It's about the next good thing you're going to do."

McHale was so paternal on the bench that he should have been wearing a sweater and smoking a pipe. This was quite a contrast to the rather stern Randy Wittman.

So 48 minutes into this grand, new era of Wolves Basketball, here are the differences between McHale and Wittman on the sideline:

McHale smiled more than Kevin Garnett on his way out of Minneapolis. He made it a point not to frown because that scares the players. Wittman almost always wore a scowl. Grrrrrrr. And the guys trembled.

McHale patted fannies and slapped palms when players came back to the bench, no matter how horrid their performance. For example, he greeted McCants lovingly, as if he hadn't just played miserably. Wittman used to keep his hands in his pockets, as if he were afraid he might strangle somebody when they returned to the bench.

McHale interacted with his players, strolling the length of the bench as if he didn't have a care in the world and tossing out comments. Wittman often looked as if he might throw up when talking to his reserves. I mean, that's understandable but not really a good public relations move.

Afterward, though, McHale had that same sad look that Wittman used to display after a loss.

"It was right there for us to take," McHale said. "We just couldn't do it. We did everything, but we just didn't finish them off."

I think I might have heard that before.

McHale went on to say that he promised his players he would learn to be a better coach. In other words, he was accepting a good portion of the blame. The players love that.

"He just wanted us to play loose," said Kevin Love, who tightened up at the foul line with the game on the line, going 0 for 4 with the outcome in the balance.

"I'm a man; I'll step up and take the blame," he said.

Ahhh, forget it, kid. Who am I to be non-nurturing?

Except for the outcome, which is a rather large detail, it wasn't such a bad effort.

At first, the Target Center, ahem, crowd was resistant. The small gathering booed McHale when he was announced as head coach. But there weren't enough of them to cause much of a ruckus. I'll bet most of them got in via one of the many discount ticket promotions saturating the state. You know, buy eight gallons of gas and get 15 Timberwolves tickets free.

But when the Wolves took a lead into the locker room at halftime, there were shouts of encouragement. Small steps. The fans really were into it by the time the Wolves appeared to have the game all but locked up. The inevitable collapse brought them back to reality, but they still saw some good things.

Certainly, the Wolves attempted to go hard at the basket. They tried hard to pick up the pace, too. Overall, they were much more aggressive than usual.

"We gave ourselves a good chance to win this game," said Ryan Gomes. "I'll just say that we have to get sick and tired of losing."

It's really not possible to make too many judgments after one game. Maybe good things are about to happen. But what the heck, it can't get any worse.

Tom Powers can be reached at tpowers@pioneerpress.com