The Timberwolves have been waiting for a long winning streak this season that will put them in a more comfortable position in the NBA Western Conference.
Steph Curry is still Steph Curry, as the Timberwolves discovered late Wednesday
Golden State rolled out to a 24-point first-quarter lead, then Curry supplied the last-minute dagger for the Warriors in their 116-115 victory.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
January 16, 2025 at 4:18PM
It hasn’t happened.
On Wednesday night at Target Center, they fell behind Golden State by 24 points in the first quarter and waited for a run that would get them back into the game.
It finally happened. But it wasn’t good enough.
The Wolves never led before losing 116-115 before 18,978. They worked back into a tie at 108 with a minute left, but Steph Curry hit a corner three-pointer with 47 seconds left and the Warriors held on.
“The game was lost in the first quarter,” Wolves coach Chris Finch said. “That’s the obvious statement. And then you have to play perfect, and it came down to, you know, a couple of missed layups, losing Curry and not being able to secure [a rebound on a missed Warriors] free throw either.”
The performance was vintage Curry, who had 31 points (7-for-12 on three-pointers) and eight assists as his team got back to .500 at 20-20.
“Anybody who thinks I’m OK with being on an average basketball team is insane,” said Curry, who was forced to play a season-high 37 minutes with four teammates, including four-time All-Star Draymond Green, sidelined.
Ex-Wolves guard Andrew Wiggins added 24 points — and some last-second heroics. After Donte DiVincenzo pulled the Wolves within 113-112 with 11 seconds left, Golden State’s Gary Payton II made a free throw, then missed the second. Wiggins got the rebound, was fouled and made both free throws for a four-point lead.
Anthony Edwards’ three-pointer in the final second made it a one-point final. Edwards and DiVincenzo had 28 points each for the Wolves (21-19).
“They came out with energy,” DiVincenzo said. “They came out how we should’ve come out. There’s no excuses. I think we just have to be better to start the game.
“We got it together. We fought and clawed our way back, but we start the game differently, this is a different story.”
Golden State scored the first 13 points of the game. The Wolves missed 10 of their first 11 shots and fell behind 34-12 after one quarter as the Warriors hit eight of their first 12 three-point tries.
“The start was bad,” Edwards said. “We know we gotta get better, but I think it’s all about the finish.
“Not moral victories, but we fought.”
Wiggins drew the defensive assignment on Edwards for the most part and held him to 7-for-19 shooting from the field.
“It’s a great thing to know my teammates and my coaches have confidence in me to guard the best player every night,” Wiggins said. “It’s a big responsibility. I love it. It helps me get my game going.”
Edwards did hit consecutive threes to start the second quarter as the Wolves mounted a mini-comeback. They got within 10 midway through the quarter, but Golden State led by 55-42 at the break.
The game slowed to a crawl in the third quarter amid a flurry of whistles. The Wolves shot 20 free throws in the quarter and had only two turnovers but were only able to cut the deficit to nine at 87-78.
“It took us too long to find that gear,” Finch said. “But once we did, we figured some things out. We scored 30, 36, 37 in the last three quarters. But we didn’t start the game with the same type of urgency.
“On offense, I didn’t think we were out there trying. We wanted it to come easy to us offensively. They were physical. They were sending us certain directions. We were reluctant to attack. We didn’t come off actions to turn corners and be aggressive. We only finished with nine turnovers, but I think we had four or five in the first quarter.”
Buddy Hield came off the bench to score 18 for Golden State, which was playing without Green (illness), former Wolves forward Kyle Anderson (hamstring), Jonathan Kuminga (ankle) and Brandin Podziemski (abdomen).
Julius Randle added 17 points, Naz Reid 15 and Jaden McDaniels 14 for the Wolves, who were outrebounded 45-41.
The Warriors shot 50% (18-for-36) on three-pointers, and the Wolves hit 17 of 37.
The Wolves’ longest winning streak this season is four games.
Turning the corner?
The Timberwolves will hit the halfway point of the NBA season Friday, still struggling at times to establish an identity.
The Wolves had their second-best overall record in 35 seasons when they finished 56-26 in 2023-24; they were 29-11 after 40 games.
This season, they are 21-19 after 40 games in the long adjustment to adding Randle and DiVincenzo, an adjustment that has shown progress now that DiVincenzo is in the starting lineup and Randle has found a niche.
“He’s been filling up the stat sheet, playmaking at a high level, seven or eight assists every night, what we need, playing well off Ant,” Finch said of Randle before the game Wednesday. “Much more decisive, a little more burst, definitely playing with force, good to see.”
The team’s bugaboo has been turnovers at inopportune times, and that’s a first-half-of-the-season trend that Finch laments.
“There’s habits in every player that are good or not so good, and some of those are going to end up in turnovers or bad shots or ill-advised plays or however you want to look at it.
“But we just have a lot of egregious [turnovers]. And those we can definitely take out of the game, just by playing a little smarter. We don’t need to always thread the needle, we don’t always need to make these high-risk plays … trying to make a bunch of home run plays. That doesn’t always have to be the case.”
Minnesota made it all the way back and even took a lead before fading at the end.
