"He'll make a lot of them," McHale said before Monday night's 90-83 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks. "You miss a couple early in your career when you probably should have been in, and you make some later in your career when you have no business being in, but your reputation gets you there."

Jefferson's main competition for a spot on the Western Conference squad could be the Phoenix Suns' Shaquille O'Neal, who played 456 fewer minutes this season through Sunday and has been held out of the front or back ends of back-to-games.

McHale, asked if that should factor into the voting, couldn't suppress a smile: "Like I said, sometimes your reputation will precede you in these things."

All kidding aside, McHale said the respect for Jefferson among opposing coaches is evident in the way they defend him.

"I see teams when you watch them, our assistant coaches say this team won't trap the post," McHale said. "We play them and within a quarter, they're trapping the post. They don't trap the post against anybody, and they come and trap the post against Al. When you see him shoot layups, I don't care who you are as a coach. You think, 'I just can't watch this all night.' He's unique. He really is."

The Bucks play in the Eastern Conference, so coach Scott Skiles couldn't have voted for Jefferson even if he wanted to. But Skiles made it clear that he is a big Jefferson fan.

"If he's not the best, he's one of the best low-post players in the league," Skiles said of Jefferson. "He's got that, I guess I would call it a jump hook that he can shoot from ... 12 to 14 feet, and it's just a feathery soft touch."

Jefferson bolstered his all-star case by scoring 23 points and grabbing 10 rebounds against the Bucks.

All-star reserves will be announced Thursday.

Miller time: Mike Miller made just one shot for the Wolves on Monday, but it was a big one.

The team's slumping shooting guard drained a three-pointer to give Minnesota an 81-72 lead with 5:39 to play after the Bucks had shaved a 14-point deficit to six.

"It was a big one," Miller said. "We needed it because they had made a little run at us, and I knocked it down."

Playing with a protective sleeve on his sore left elbow, Miller missed his only other shot but tied his season high with 10 rebounds.

Hit and miss: McHale didn't like the fact that the Wolves took 27 three-pointers, but at least they made eight.

The Bucks were 1 for 14 (7.1 percent) on three-pointers and shot 40 percent from the floor.

"I thought our defense was very good tonight," McHale said. "We made them shoot a lot of jump shots."

Big shoes: Monday's loss dropped the Bucks' record to 5-10 without leading scorer Michael Redd, who suffered a season-ending knee injury Saturday against Sacramento after missing 14 games with an ankle injury earlier this season.

Ramon Sessions did a decent job in his first game replacing Redd, scoring 18 points. Redd was averaging 21.2 per game.

Briefly: Rodney Carney played the final 4:11 for Sebastian Telfair, who appeared to suffer a thigh injury.

Sessions, on Ryan Gomes' three-pointer that gave the Wolves an 86-78 lead with 1:46 to play: "That was tough. He hit that, and it crushed us. That was a big shot."