The Wolves suffered another tough loss at home on Sunday afternoon after coming up short against the Memphis Grizzlies, 114-106.
Being without Ricky Rubio once again, Andre Miller stepped up and the 39-year-old played 34 minutes, which included 12 of the first 15 minutes of the game.
“We try and have a mixture of young guys with some of the veteran guys to kind of keep things calm,” Timberwolves interim head coach Sam Mitchell said. “And make sure they understand when to run, when to pull back, what time to run the play, what type of plays to run and where we have an advantage at.”
Minnesota got off to a good start due to the veteran presence at the point guard position. The Wolves led 23-22 after one quarter, and Miller had four points and five assists.
Unfortunately the Grizzlies started to heat up in the second and shot the ball well, putting 33 points on the board. Minnesota did a nice job causing turnovers, but midway through the second, Memphis was making 61 percent of their shots compared to 44 for the Wolves.
“They hit some jump shots and they shot the ball well from the outside,” Mitchell said. “That’s something normally they haven’t been doing. But we come out and we don’t put pressure on those guys early. These are NBA players, once they get confidence, they’re going to make shots.”
Trailing 55-49 when stepping on the court to start the third, Minnesota started to find their offensive groove and scored 30 points. The Grizzlies starters continued playing well and the score was close, 81-79 heading into the final period of play.
Despite solid efforts from Andrew Wiggins, Karl-Anthony Towns and Zach LaVine, Memphis outlasted the home team and won 114- 106.
The Grizzlies’ starters accounted for 79 of their points and newcomer Mario Chalmers played well and went 10-for-10 from the free throw line.
LaVine finished with 25 points on 8-for-15 shooting and 4-for-7 from beyond the arc. Minnesota hauled in nine offensive rebounds to give them an 11 shot advantage on the game. Unfortunately the Wolves allowed the Grizzles to shoot 56 percent from the field and 53 percent from deep.
Minnesota is 0-5 this year at home and move to 4-6 overall on the season.
“We have to worry about our defense,” Mitchell emphasized. “We have to play better defense. We gave up 50-plus percent from the two and the three.”
Kevin Garnett looked good in his 24 minutes of game action and did a nice job on both ends of the floor. The former league’s Most Valuable Player finished with eight points (4-for-4), five rebounds, four assists and three steals.
Karl-Anthony Towns had a relatively quiet game with 14 points and nine rebounds, but he did have some flashes of brilliance including this over the shoulder assist to Andre Miller.
The Timberwolves will travel to Miami to take on the Heat on Tuesday night. Minnesota was on the losing end the last time these two teams played earlier this season. The non-conference matchup will start at 6:30 and will be broadcasted on Fox Sports North and 830 WCCO radio.
