On a freezing cold Thursday night in Minneapolis, the Minnesota Timberwolves desperately needed a win. They had lost their previous three games and had fallen to seventh place in the Western Conference.
They were unable to get it as they were taken down by the middling Chicago Bulls 120-115.
Just like the previous game against the Utah Jazz, the Wolves got out to a great start. They took a 14-point lead a little more than eight minutes into the game on the back of hounding defense. Minnesota forced misses on 10 of the first 12 Chicago shots, allowing them to get easy baskets on the other end of the court.
As the game went on, though, that defensive intensity went away. The largest indicator for this was the Wolves’ inability to avoid fouling. So often, the Wolves were not in the correct position to defend their man. Instead of moving their feet to defend properly, they either committed blocking fouls or reached in and made contact with a Bulls player’s arms.
In the second quarter, the Bulls were in the bonus with 8:48 left. In the third quarter, they were in the bonus with 6:56 remaining. Overall, Minnesota committed 27 fouls (plus a Naz Reid technical foul), which led to 33 Chicago free throws.
The Wolves trailed by three points heading into the fourth quarter, and as they have so often this season, they came storming back. Midway through the fourth quarter, the defense finally started to get some stops, and the offense found a rhythm as a Naz Reid dunk gave them a six-point lead with five minutes left.
The Wolves were unable to put the game away from that point, as they missed their next four shots, allowing the Bulls to cut the lead to one. The Wolves stopped the bleeding there, though, after an Anthony Edwards floater and a 3-pointer from Jaden McDaniels, the Timberwolves found themselves up four with a minute and a half left.
That is when the game came crumbling down for the Wolves, as Edwards fell asleep guarding his man in the corner. Coby White drilled the 3-pointer from the corner to cut the Minnesota lead to just one.
The Wolves followed that up with turnovers on their next two possessions, allowing Tre Jones to streak to the rim off an inbounds pass to give Chicago a one-point lead. With the game on the line, on the next possession, Ant used up most of the shot clock and threw up a heavily contested three that came nowhere close to going in.
That would be as close as the Wolves would come to winning the game, as a pair of Jalen Smith free throws and an Edwards on a game-tying 3-pointer, the game was out of reach.
Edwards finished with just 20 points, struggling to find his shot as he finished the game 9-25 from the field. Julius Randle led the Wolves in scoring with 30 points to go along with seven rebounds and six assists. Naz scored 20 points, including four 3-pointers, but aside from him, the Wolves’ bench scored eight points on 3-14 shooting.
The loss was the Wolves’ fourth straight. The first two against the Houston Rockets without Edwards, and against the San Antonio Spurs on the second night of a back-to-back, were understandable. These last two versus the Jazz and Bulls, on the other hand do not come with nearly the same benefit of the doubt.
There is still plenty of season left, but his recent stretch may have cost the Wolves a top seed in the Western Conference, and they are now fighting to just stay out of the Play-In Tournament. For a team that did it a year ago, maybe they feel like they can do it all again.
Up Next
With the local temperatures set to dip below negative ten over the weekend, the Timberwolves stay home for a pair of games against the Golden State Warriors. The first is a Saturday matinee at 4:30 PM CT at Target Center. Wolves fans can watch the game on ABC.
