It was the Wolves’ 11th consecutive loss after a season-opening victory over New Jersey.
They now are two more losses away from tying their worst start in franchise history, 1-13 during the 1994-95 season that brought No. 5 overall draft pick Kevin Garnett the next summer.
The loss spoiled an inspired effort by Wolves forward Al Jefferson, who had 20 points and 10 rebounds in his return to the team after a two-game absence to grieve the death of his grandmother last week in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Jefferson made 9 of 11 shots from the floor, but he didn’t have much help in holding off Houston, which got 20 points from forward Luis Scola and 18 from forward Trevor Ariza. The loss dropped the Wolves to 1-11. Houston, playing without all-star guard-forward Tracy McGrady, improved to 7-5.
And when the Wolves’ star sat down for a third-quarter rest, Ramon Sessions (who finished with 16 points) and Oleksiy Pecherov (12 points) led a 9-0 run that pulled Minnesota within a point, 68-67, entering the fourth quarter.
“It was such a dangerous game,” said Rockets forward Shane Battier. “They want to win. You can’t look at the records and assume you’re going to win.”
Not until SuperScola showed up, anyway. Adelman inserted his never-too-tired secret weapon into the game to open the fourth quarter, and “we really picked it up from there,” Adelman said. “Luis came back in, and we seemed to take control at that point.”