"It's been tough, because it wears on you," he said. "You go to bed with it; you wake up with it. In the morning, a win or loss is magnified when you wake up. A win feels a little bit better in the morning than it did even that night. And a loss feels just as worse. Yeah, it wears on you." ...

When Terry Porter took over as coach of the Phoenix Suns, he really inherited two teams from Mike D'Antoni.

"We have the Shaq team and the non-Shaq team," Porter said. "When he's not around, we try to up the tempo a little bit. We'll still go into the post to Amare (Stoudemire). We'll go to Boris (Diaw). But obviously it's not the same as having Shaq on the floor."

When Shaquille O'Neal is in the middle of the Suns lineup, Porter calls for a half-court, walk-it-up style of play to accommodate the 16-year veteran.

When O'Neal is sitting, he wants to see more of the shoot now, ask questions later high-octane team that Steve Nash has run for so long. ...

Kevin Love's first NBA game couldn't have gone much better.

But after scoring 12 points, grabbing nine rebounds and blocking two shots in the season-opening victory over the Sacramento Kings, things haven't gone as well for the Minnesota Timberwolves rookie.

Playing sporadic minutes over a six-game stretch that ended with a loss to Phoenix on Wednesday, Love shot just 9-of-39 (23 percent) while averaging 5.8 points a game.

"It's tough, but you just have to bounce back and keep your head high," Love said. "This is something I've never really dealt with before. So I just need to keep it going, keep rebounding and do other stuff, do the intangible stuff to keep me going and keep the team going."

After a standout freshman season at UCLA, Love was drafted fifth overall by Memphis. He was traded to the Wolves on draft night along with Mike Miller, Brian Cardinal and Jason Collins for No. 3 pick O.J. Mayo, guard Marko Jaric and forward Antoine Walker.

His low point so far this season may have come against Boston on Nov. 21, when he went 3-for-10 from the field and didn't know the play called on the first set he entered the game.

"How do you not know what we're running?" coach Randy Wittman wondered as he walked back toward the bench.

Later in the game, Love shot a 3-pointer from the top of the key that missed badly.

"What's wrong with an 18-footer?" Wittman barked.

Still, the coach said these struggles are all part of the process for a player still adjusting to the pro game.

"He'll be fine," Wittman said.