DENVER – As Karl-Anthony Towns gave his postgame comments after Wednesday's 124-107 victory over Denver, Anthony Edwards stood off to the side. The two held a friendly debate as to who the best shooter on the team was.
Anthony Edwards makes history, Karl-Anthony Towns reaches milestone as Wolves crush Nuggets
Karl-Anthony Towns scored the 10,000th point of his career and Anthony Edwards became the youngest player to hit 10 three-pointers in a game in the 124-107 victory.
December 16, 2021 at 12:24PM
Edwards conditioned his claim by saying that "in spurts," he's the best.
Towns replied, "I'll give you spurts, for sure."
Edwards had the most prolonged spurt of his burgeoning career, and no player his age ever had a night like him in NBA history. Edwards hit 10 of his 14 three-point attempts against Denver and became, at 20, the youngest player in NBA history to hit that mark.
The confident Edwards thinks he will hit every shot he takes. He was right nearly every time Wednesday.
"My teammates do a great job of telling me to just be me, just go. No matter if I'm hot or not," Edwards said. "If I'm not shooting the ball, PB [Patrick Beverley] looking at me crazy. Coach [Chris Finch] looking at me crazy. Everybody looking at me crazy like, 'What you doing?' I think they do a great job of giving me even more confidence than I already have."
His 38 points allowed him to go past 2,000 for his career, but Edwards wasn't the only one to eclipse a career milestone. Towns scored 32 points as he blew past 10,000 in his career.
That led to multiple water-cup showers on the court and in the locker room.
Towns wore only a coat with no shirt as he held his postgame media session.
"I'm up here looking like Miami Vice," Towns said.
But in a quieter moment, Towns appeared on the verge of tears as he talked about how much the celebration and milestone meant to him.
"I've never had that kind of moment," Towns said. "Seven years in to have that kind of moment, it meant a lot to me. It was really special. I'm just grateful that I get to give this opportunity and this moment to my family and my friends."
The Wolves snapped a 12-game losing streak to the Nuggets with a wire-to-wire victory in which their offense rarely looked crisper.
The league's 23rd-best three-point-shooting team entering the night was 23 of 48 (48%) on Wednesday, with five players hitting at least three threes. The Wolves led by as many as 23 and the Nuggets never got within 10 in the second half. That's because Edwards made sure they never made it close.
Denver's final push came when it cut the lead to 110-98 with 5 minutes, 45 seconds remaining.
Towns hit a jumper and then Edwards took over. He drove on Nikola Jokic (27 points) for a layup and followed that up with three more threes.
Ballgame over. It took a little longer for Edwards to come down.
"His challenge is really going to be keeping his feet on the ground now," Finch said. "Playing with the same type of approach. No letdowns. Then just kind of keep stacking those types of performances on top of each other."
Not that Edwards needs to hit 10 threes, but Finch wants him to play smart, to take the right shots and not force anything.
This was already in Edwards' head after the game, as assistant Pablo Prigioni reminded him he has a tendency to be inconsistent.
"Like Pablo said after the game, 'Listen, every time after you have a stellar game, you come back and you go downhill,'" Edwards said. "So in my mind mentally, I'm putting this game behind me and I'm focusing on this game coming up. Like I can't come out here and play this way and then come out and lay a goose egg. I can't do that to my teammates."
The Timberwolves turned on their defense and turned a deficit into a comfortable winning margin over the course of about five crucial minutes.
