HOUSTON – Mere moments after his team scored 130 points Saturday night in Houston and still lost, young Timberwolves star Karl-Anthony Towns stripped off his uniform, pulled on a practice jersey and headed down an arena corridor to a weight room, where he clanged and banged the defeat away.
Twenty minutes later, after most of his teammates had already showered and departed, Towns returned to his team's locker room, sweaty and drained.
"Very rarely," he said Saturday night when asked if he often lifts weights immediately after a game. "But today was one of those days. I was a little extra mad."
He vented his frustration over an evening when the Wolves won the battles in rebounding (58-31), second-chance points (29-15) and points in the paint (68-44) and yet succumbed to a Rockets team that hoisted 58 three-point attempts and made 22.
That 66-27 scoring disparity on three-pointers and the Wolves' 25 turnovers outdid Towns' 37-point, 22-rebound performance and teammate Andrew Wiggins' 17th consecutive game with 20 or more points, surpassing Kevin Garnett for most in franchise history.
Towns owns a streak of 20-point games himself, 14 of them now and counting after Saturday's game. That's behind only Wiggins, Garnett and Kevin Love in team history.
"We lost," Towns said. "Those stats don't mean nothing."
The clock ticks on the Wolves' playoff chances after they squandered a chance Saturday to get closer to the Western Conference's eighth and final playoff spot, with only 23 games now remaining.