The Wolves trailed Chicago by 16 points Sunday almost before you knew it, and it was Telfair's nine first-quarter points that kept them close enough to make a game of it in the minutes before halftime.

"Bassy was the only reason we got the chance to win the game," Wolves coach Kevin McHale said. "He was the only guy with any mojo early. He kept us hanging around."

The Wolves hung around and then closed the Bulls out after they trailed by seven points with less than four minutes left in the fourth quarter. Telfair's defense on Rose was crucial when Rose took the final shot with a chance to win the game in the final seconds of regulation and again when he missed as overtime's final seconds ticked away.

"It's always on the point guard's shoulder to set the tone, absolutely," Telfair said. "Score, defend -- whatever I need to do."

Passing colors

You might have thought that the hubbub all these months about Kevin Love's relatively seldom seen outlet-passing ability was overblown ... then he snapped off a 60-foot pass threaded between Bulls defenders and hit Rodney Carney full stride for a breakaway dunk in the second quarter. It punctuated a 12-2 run that got the Wolves back in the game after they trailed by as many as 16 points in the first quarter.

Unstoppable?

McHale "really liked" Rose going into last summer's draft, but he thought that the former Memphis guard's suspect outside shooting might be exposed in the NBA.

"I thought you might be able to force him to shoot the ball," McHale said of Chicago's Rookie of the Year candidate. "You can't. You go under, he goes farther. You back up, he comes at you harder. With the new rules in the NBA, it's probably easier to get to the rim in our league than in college. So guys who have that explosive speed, who can turn the corner and come at you right now, are just murder to try to guard."

He's a believer

Confidence is a funny thing, which Al Jefferson showed against New Orleans the other night. Instead of positioning for a rebound as Randy Foye launched a crucial three-pointer late in the game, Jefferson simply stood in the corner and raised his arms to signal the shot good.

"Hey, sometimes the spirit just moves you," McHale said when asked whether he wanted his players playing referee.

Said Jefferson: "He says that now, but what if it hadn't gone in?"

Familiar Foye

Randy Foye -- a.k.a. "Fourth-Quarter Foye" -- didn't score a point in Sunday's fourth quarter and scored two in the overtime. But his running bank shot with 41 seconds left provided the one-point margin of victory.

"That shot reminded me of the one I hit my rookie year to beat them at the buzzer," Foye said. "It was the same exact play. K.G. (Kevin Garnett) dropped it off to me. This time, it was Bassy (Telfair) who dropped it off and I made the layup."