Mitchell HansenWeb Editorial AssociateTwitter
The Minnesota Timberwolves came back to beat the Los Angeles Clippers 104-101 on Thursday night at Staples Center in Los Angeles to wrap up a three-game road trip.
Here are some observations from Thursday's game:
Karl-Anthony Towns stole the show, taking over when Minnesota needed it most.
Towns finished with 37 points, 12 rebounds and five assists in 40-plus minutes to lead the Wolves. He shot 17-for-24 from the field in the game.
But perhaps the most impressive part of Towns' performance, other than his numerous putback dunks, was the fact that the second-year big man continued to improve as the game went on.
After tallying 10 points, seven rebounds and four assists in the first half, Towns turned it up in the second half. He finished with 27 second-half points and outscored the entire Clippers team 15-12 in the final 6:39 of the game to lead Minnesota to victory.
After jumping out to a 25-22 lead after one quarter at Staples Center, the Wolves ran into some struggles leading into halftime. The Clippers outscored the Wolves 29-19 in the second quarter to hold a 51-44 lead going into the break.
But as Minnesota has learned the hard way this season, it only takes one quarter to turn a game around. And the Wolves used the third quarter to do just that.
Minnesota, which trailed by as much as 12 points in the game, went on to outscore Los Angeles 33-28 in the third quarter and cut the Clippers lead down to 79-77 before going on to outscore Los Angeles 27-22 in the fourth to come away with the comeback victory on the road.
The Wolves saw a lineup late in the game that we haven't seen too much this season.
With Ricky Rubio suffering a hip injury in the first half that sidelined him for the rest of the game, Minnesota went with a smaller lineup of Kris Dunn, Tyus Jones, Zach LaVine, Andrew Wiggins and Towns for almost all of the fourth quarter.
In that quarter alone, that lineup gave the Wolves a late push. Towns had 15 points and four rebounds with a +/- of +8, Jones had four points and four assists with a +4, Wiggins hit two free throws to seal the win in the final seconds and finished the quarter with a +5, LaVine had two points and three rebounds with a +5 and Dunn had one point and three rebounds with a +7.
The smaller lineup could have been due to Los Angeles rolling with a three-guard lineup for most of the game, but it seemed to work out just fine for the Wolves.
With Blake Griffin (knee) and Chris Paul (thumb) out with injuries for the Clippers, DeAndre Jordan and Austin Rivers had pretty impressive performances against Minnesota.
Jordan finished with 29 points and 16 rebounds on 12-of-15 shooting from the field, while Rivers went 7-for-14 from the field and finished with 20 points.
The Wolves (15-28) return home to take on the Denver Nuggets (17-24) on Sunday at Target Center in a Western Conference matchup that begins at 6 p.m. The game will be aired on Fox Sports North and 830 WCCO.
