The Wolves ended a 2-14 December by blowing a 29-point lead in Tuesday night's 107-100 loss at Dallas, but forward Ryan Gomes said he and his teammates are looking to make a fresh start in 2009.

"We've got to look back at those things and come into this new year and try to erase all that stuff," Gomes said after Thursday's practice. "It is on our record, we know what happened in the past, but we've got to look forward to the future and the present, which is (tonight) against Golden State."

Looking ahead to that game, Gomes agreed it's one the Wolves could and maybe should win, on their home floor against a 10-24 opponent.

Looking at the tape of Tuesday's loss, he said the Wolves were guilty of being a step slow and maybe a little complacent.

"I think we got too comfortable being up 29," he said. "Then it got to 20 and we were like, 'We're still all right.' Then it got to 12 and the next thing you know they tied it up. We've got to close out games. We're getting older as a team, and we've been through a lot of different scenarios. We've got to find a way to win in those scenarios."

The inability to close out games has been a seasonlong problem for the Wolves (6-25), for the first 19 games under Randy Wittman and the past 12 under Kevin McHale, who second-guessed himself for not going to his bench sooner at Dallas.

"We came out in the third quarter, we should have substituted our starters out after about four minutes," he said. "Even though I still think we were up 20, we just came out like we thought the game was over, that they weren't going to press on."

The Wolves were coming off an overtime win at home against Memphis the night before, but McHale said that's no excuse and that his team needs to get a lot more resilient.

"If you're not getting the ball going from side to side, not sprinting back on defense, not shrinking the court defensively and if you're not swinging the ball and setting picks on offense, nothing's going to happen anyway," he said. "It doesn't matter if it's the middle of the third quarter or the last two minutes of the game. That's where this team has got to get better. That's our real Achilles' heel."

The first meeting with Golden State was another the Wolves let get away. The Warriors scored the final nine points of regulation en route to a 113-110 overtime triumph.

After a murderous month in which Gomes and his teammates have played one top team after another, he said this a winnable game and an opportunity the Wolves can't afford to squander.

"It's a game that we want," he said. "Especially coming off the game that we just played. They're one of those teams that they play up-tempo, so they can be hitting one night or they can be off. We've got to go out there and play our game. We like to play inside-the-paint Basketball, so we can't get caught up in the way they play. We've got to be able to utilize our mismatches in our favor."

Briefly: The status of shooting guard Mike Miller, who has missed the past five games because of a sprained right ankle, will be a game-time decision again for the Wolves.

"Mike practiced for the most part today, and we'll see how he feels tomorrow," McHale said.