Minnesota Timberwolves fall to Hornets without Wiggins, Rubio

One of the weirdest trends in sports continued tonight, as the Minnesota Timberwolves fell to 0-3 at home for the season despite their 4-0 record on the road this season. The final score wound up being a 104-95 loss to the Charlotte Hornets.

The Wolves were without Andrew Wiggins, Ricky Rubio, and Kevin Garnett tonight as each of them sat for rest purposes (Wiggins and Rubio were resting sore knees). Alas, it appears the Wolves were going to need them on the court tonight if they were going to get a win.

Jeremy Lin led the way for the Hornets, scoring 19 points (6/11 FG, 1/5 3pt FG, 6/8 FT) off the bench while Jeremy Lamb contributed 18 points (8/10 FG, 2/3 3pt FG) and four rebounds.

The best performer for Minnesota tonight was none other than Karl-Anthony Towns, who tallied 19 points (7/16 FG, 5/5 FT), 13 rebounds, and three blocks. He continues to impress night in and night out, recording yet another double-double, to bring his total to five double-doubles in seven career games and it’s also his third consecutive double-double. In other words, he’s good. Really good.

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Zach LaVine led the Wolves in scoring for the night with 20 points (9/19 FG, 1/4 3pt FG, 1/2 FT) while also grabbing five rebounds and eight assists. However, with LaVine there will always be flashes of brilliance and flashes of horribleness. He turned the ball over eight times tonight, and a few of them were pretty bad. For example, late in the game as the Wolves were trying to mount a comeback, he threw a wild entry pass that Towns couldn’t corral. And no, Towns wasn’t happy about it.

Kevin Martin scored 18 points (6/16 FG, 1/3 3pt FG, 5/6 FT) and dished out five assists, but he too had trouble with turnovers with six for the game.

Nemanja Bjelica had another solid under-the-radar performance for the Wolves tonight. His defense and rebounding continue to be impressive, and much better than I expected they’d be. I’m confused as to why Adreian Payne got the start over him tonight in Garnett’s place, but in fairness, all of Mitchell’s rotations have been pretty confusing thus far. Overall, Bjelica put up 13 points (4/7 FG, 3/5 3pt FG, 2/2 FT), seven rebounds and four assists.

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This is one of those games where, as a Wolves fan, you just have to shrug your shoulders. They were without arguably their two most valuable players in Wiggins and Rubio, plus another starter in Garnett. It’s tough for a team to try to adjust smoothly to that on the second day of a back-to-back. Additionally, being cautious with the injuries to Wiggins and Rubio is probably for the best, because the defending champion Golden State Warriors come to town on Thursday night.

Notes/Observations

— First of all, I didn’t actually get to watch this game tonight (dorm cable doesn’t include Fox Sports Plus) so you can take these however you’d like. I did, however, listen to the radio broadcast so that should count for something.

— Tyus Jones got his first NBA action tonight and was, well, I think you can figure out how it went. He played 12 minutes and the Wolves were outscored by 23 points when he was on the floor. That’s not ideal.

— It wasn’t just Jones that was bad, though. The entire bench was pretty bad tonight. Between Jones, Shabazz Muhammad, Gorgui Dieng, and Bjelica, the average +/- rating was -21.25. The starters? They averaged +11.8, despite the nine-point loss.

— In crunch time, especially without Wiggins on the floor, the Wolves need to feed Karl-Anthony Towns. Tonight, as they were trying mount the late comeback, they seemed to ignore Towns. Then, when they did try to feed him, LaVine threw it away.

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— I’ve mentioned Sam Mitchell’s rotations plenty before, so I’ll keep this brief. Tyus Jones and Andre Miller were on the court at the same time tonight. That’s all I’m going to say.

Onward

The Minnesota Timberwolves get to stay home for the next couple days as they host the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors on Thursday night. The game will be televised nationally on TNT. Check with Sporting Sota throughout the week for news and analysis on the Wolves.