HOUSTON – As Chris Finch walked into a cramped dressing room for his pregame news conference at the Toyota Center, a TV above him was playing the third quarter of the Lakers-Nuggets game.
The most significant game to the Wolves on Sunday may not have been their own 139-132 win over Houston, but rather what happened in Los Angeles. Finch's usual line is he doesn't like to watch teams ahead of the Wolves in the standings or else it will "ruin his night."
How about his Sunday afternoon?
"Three missed [Lakers] layups already did that," Finch quipped.
His team nearly ruined it even more for him by giving back a large chunk of its 27-point lead in the fourth quarter, but the Wolves hung on and did their part Sunday in their last-minute pursuit of a guaranteed playoff spot at the No. 6 seed.
"We got a lot of things to talk about," center Karl-Anthony Towns said. "We're not happy and proud of the showing we gave tonight as a team, as a team that says we're going to be a playoff team. All in all, we did get the win."
Unfortunately for them, the Nuggets also got the win over the Lakers and remained two games ahead of Minnesota with three to play for each team. The Wolves have the tiebreaker over Denver.
After a tough stretch of games, the Wolves got a relatively easy one in their last road game of the season against the rebuilding Rockets. Anthony Edwards had 33 points while Towns added 28.