A night after Minnesota played a competitive game throughout against the Memphis Grizzlies, the Minnesota Timberwolves turned in a disappointing performance against the 23-33 New York Knicks.
Minnesota came out slow and found themselves down 14-1 within the first five minutes of the game. Despite a couple of solid comeback efforts, Carmelo Anthony and Robin Lopez were too much for the Wolves to overcome as the Knicks snapped a seven-game losing streak with a 103-95 victory.
With both teams coming off of a game last night, New York seemed to clearly be the more energized team as they outrebound Minnesota by 20 and shot over 50 percent from the field.
Lopez seemed to have his way with Minnesota’s bigs all-night and finished with 26 points on 11-for-14 from the field and 16 rebounds. Anthony was feeling it all night and turned in a game-high 30 points on 12-for-23 shooting, 11 rebounds and a game-high 14 plus/minus rating.
Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins did their best to carry the team with a combined 48 points and 13 points, but in the end the Timberwolves lack of discipline on defense acted as their kryptonite.
Ricky Rubio did a nice job leading the offense with 16 assists and Shabazz Muhammad was a nice spark off the bench contributing 20 points on 8-for-11 shooting.
Numbers Game:
11: The amount of combined points from three starters on the night: Rubio (9), Gorgui Dieng (3) and Tayshaun Prince (0).
72: The percent the Wolves shot from the free-throw line in tonight’s game. Ranked third in the league in FT efficiency at 79.8 percent coming into the night, Minnesota struggled mightily putting in the easy buckets.
7: Less than 24 hours after turning the ball over 20 times, Minnesota only committed this many turnovers in tonight’s game against the Knicks.
Leader of the Pack: Karl-Anthony Towns
The rookie phenom was at it again on Saturday night scoring 24 points, snatching eight rebounds, dishing out four assists and swatting three shots.
Highlight of the Night:
Down 16-3 in the first quarter, Towns got the crowd on their feet as he spun past fellow rookie sensation Kristaps Porzingis and finished with a nice And-1 reverse layup.
Up Next:
Minnesota will host another home game on Monday night when the Boston Celtics come to town. The non-conference battle will tip-off will be at 7:00 p.m., so be sure to tune in to either Fox Sports North or 830 WCCO radio.
