Bieber to attend opener? No, Love's just kidding

Sheesh, what some guys won't do to increase their Twitter followers ...

Timberwolves forward Kevin Love on Friday night asked all his tweeps who planned on attending Monday's season opener and later tweeted, "Justin Bieber just texted me and said he's coming to opening night against OKC."

Love is Mr. Hollywood -- attended UCLA, lives in Los Angeles during the summers, is an ESPN media darling -- so it's plausible he's buddies with a teen heartthrob, right?

"No," he said Saturday morning. "Honestly, I was doing it just to be funny. People took it seriously. People thought it was a joke and funny. People were asking me to ask him certain things. I thought it was pretty funny."

Hey, Kim Kardashian attended a Wolves game last season and supermodel Adriana Lima was a regular a few seasons ago, so anything is possible.

"He sat in front of me at the ESPYs," Love said. "He was front row. I was second row. So that's the closest I've ever been to Bieber."

As of Saturday, Love had 121,441 Twitter followers.

Home for the holidays Coach Rick Adelman called an unusually early practice Saturday -- 8 a.m. -- so players and coaches could have off the rest of Christmas Eve and all of Christmas Day. He then hurried out of practice and with sons R.J. and David and caught a private plane back home to Portland, Ore., to celebrate the holiday.

He sounded less than convincing when asked if he plans to watch the NBA's Christmas Day season openers.

"Well, sure, we're supposed to," he said. "Christmas is a special day for the NBA."

Another balmy Christmas J.J. Barea (quad contusion) and Ricky Rubio (sprained ankle) practiced for the third consecutive day, and Adelman declared them ready for Monday's opener.

Barea didn't sound too disappointed his first northern Christmas isn't a white one.

Noncommital Adelman said he hasn't decided who will start Monday.

"I don't think it's going to be a secret," said Adelman, who kept a starting unit of Love, Michael Beasley, Darko Milicic, Wes Johnson and Luke Ridnour together in Saturday morning's practice.

Etc. • Center Nikola Pekovic again did not practice after injuring his groin in Wednesday's preseason finale at Milwaukee and is expected to miss at least another week.