Perhaps progress at the quarter pole

OK, I know that 82 games isn't divisible by four. But for the sake of this little blog post, I'm calling 20 games into the season to be the quarter mark.

For the Minnesota Timberwolves, the first fourth of the season hasn't been terribly pretty. There was a 15 game losing streak. There were lots of new faces. There was little Kevin Love. There was Al Jefferson, but not at 100 percent.

But on Saturday night, there were brief signs of life. A murmur. A little something. If the NBA season was a Grey's Anatomy episode, the Wolves would still be on the operating table and Christina would be bitching about something while Derek attempted another impossible surgery. On second thought, maybe I should quit the Grey's Anatomy reference since Seattle couldn't even keep its NBA team.

But as I sat in Target Center on Saturday night, I couldn't really believe what I was seeing. The Wolves played with confidence. They, largely, made good decisions down the stretch. They knocked down open shots. And they beat Utah for their first home victory since opening night.

While Utah is more middle-of-the-pack than great, the Jazz do still have some nice pieces. They have a great PG in Deron Williams, they have a system and they usually don't beat themselves.

At the end, I don't really care that the Wolves won on Saturday. I do, however, care about how they won. They won, in large part, by going young. Over the final 5-plus minutes, Rambis went with this lineup:

Big Al, KLove, Gomes, Flynn and Ellington.

Or 24 years old, 21, 27, 20, 22

Or sixth year, second year, fifth year, rookie, rookie

This, to me, is progress. I understand that making the Wolves competitive is going to be a process. I get that it is going to take time. And I'm cool with that. I'm cool with them losing if it means truly playing guys who have a chance moving forward.

What I'm not cool with is playing the guys who aren't part of the longer term future. I don't want to see Pecherov on the floor at the end of games. I don't want Jawai. I certainly don't want to see Brian Cardinal.

I say play the kids and see what happens. I'm cool with a little bit of Damien Wilkins, but not a ton. I don't think Ryan Hollins is really an answer, so I want only small doses. I am also not super excited to see Corey Brewer on the floor during the final minutes because he simply isn't good enough.

One more thing. Less Sasha Pavlovic would be nice.

To me the return of KLove and the improved play of Ellington helps greatly in this area. Against the Jazz, neither Pecherov or Jawai saw the floor and Hollins played less than 13 minutes. We all know that Kevin Love has a chance to be a very good player in the NBA. He may never be an All-Star, but he is very, very solid. He rebounds like crazy, he starts the team's transition game and he makes very few mistakes. After all, he has two double-doubles in two games. What's wrong with that?

But as important as Love's return is to the Wolves, the emergence of Ellington in the past week can't be overlooked. Part of the reason why I like Ellington is that he seems to have a good understanding of what he can't do and he tries to find ways to do what he is good at. He's a good outside shooter, he's a pretty good passer and he's kind of sneaky good as a rebounder.

Over the past three games, Ellington has averaged 26 minutes, 3 rebounds and 10 points per game while shooting .619 from the floor and averaging more assists than turnovers. Let's compare him with Corey Brewer. Over Brewer's past five games (easy stats on espn.com), he is averaging 25.8 minutes, 3.4 rebounds, 8 points per game while shooting .372 and turning the ball over more than getting assists.

Corey Brewer seems like a nice guy. He seems to be in good shape after missing almost all of last season with a kneed injury. And he's a good dunker. But Wayne Ellington is way more efficient offensively, doesn't make as many dumb plays and doesn't need as many shots to score.

The biggest difference to me is that he seems to know his limitations and avoids things he isn't good at while Brewer either doesn't know or doesn't care that his range is about four feet from the basket. He also tries for the impossible a little more than I'd like and that leads to turnovers.

Anyway, this thing has gone in about 12 different directions, but I think the combination of KLove returning and Ellington seeing more late-game minutes is a step in the right direction.