Winning streak bringing much-needed good vibes to Timberwolves

For once, the Timberwolves are feeling what it's like to be on a win streak.

They picked up their fourth consecutive win 126-114 over Golden State with Anthony Edwards leading a fourth-quarter charge with 18 of his 25 points coming then.

Edwards said the locker room is a much happier place these days.

"Shorter talks in the locker room after the game, you know what I'm saying? More camaraderie within the team," Edwards said. "Everybody is talking to everybody, laughing, playing music, and we're just excited.

"Winning feels great. If you don't feel great after a win, then I don't know what it takes."

There are a lot of good vibes around the Wolves right now, something that was in short supply earlier in the season when the Wolves went through injuries to key players and suffered both frequent blowouts and excruciating losses. After the game, Karl-Anthony Towns was asked if he thought the presence of fans (the Wolves are 6-0 with fans in Target Center) was helping give the Wolves a boost. He said they're just playing better.

"Not to dismiss them, but it's not our fans, I think it's just us having that connection," Towns said. "We're hitting on cylinders right now that we weren't hitting on earlier. The execution is there. I think the biggest difference with us from before is the physicality we play with."

Towns leads the way when it comes to physicality, as he again withstood a lot of pressure inside to post 22 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists.

The Wolves also had one of the best rebounding nights of the season in out-rebounding Golden State 57-34. Towns was also asked if he was seeing any parallels to the run Phoenix made in the NBA bubble last season, when the Suns went 8-0 before missing the playoffs. They now are fighting for the top seed in the Western Conference. He said the Wolves aren't there yet, but if they keep playing the way they are, they will finally start proving to themselves they might be building something instead of only talking about it.

"If we want to have that Phoenix narrative, we got to finish strong and we have to play the way we're supposed to play and show that we're having signs of improvement," Towns said. "Now

if we go in with that, not only does that show you guys that we're putting the effort in, but it also shows us that we can do it. Now we take this momentum, we get a whole training camp, a whole summer, we get continuity, we build unity, we build camaraderie and we just keep growing and by the time we get to next year, now we have a better idea of our system."

Someone who knows what that Phoenix run was like is Ricky Rubio. Rubio said the two situations were more different than alike. For one, Phoenix was still trying to make the playoffs. They didn't, but they had to play every night to win. The Wolves, who are out of the playoffs, don't have that kind of urgency attached to every game.

"Pressure is off," Rubio said. "We had to do it [in Phoenix] when the pressure is on."

The pressure won't be back on for a long time. By then, the Wolves hope what they're doing now will sow some good.

"The four wins, it feels good, but that's what we're here for," Finch said. "We're here to try to get wins. I told our guys let's not get complacent, let's stay greedy, let's continue to try to stack them up."
Towns get second COVID vaccine

Towns came to his postgame media session smiling and showing off his second COVID vaccine, which he received after the game. The team received their first doses a little over three weeks ago. They play again Saturday and so will have about 48 hours for any side effects to wear off.

"We got it done," Towns said. "So I love it. I'm excited to be fully vaccinated finally. I've said it before and will say it again, I think it's important for all of us to get vaccinated if we want to see life come back to normal, we all got to make the sacrifice and make the effort to go get the vaccine."