Minnesota Timberwolves: Close but no cigar in loss to Houston

The Minnesota Timberwolves lost again on Wednesday night, the team’s eighth straight loss.

The good news is that the Minnesota Timberwolves outscored the Houston Rockets in three out of the four quarters in Wednesday’s contest at the Toyota Center in the nation’s fourth biggest city. The problem is the one quarter that the Rockets outscored the Wolves was enough to put them on top when the final buzzer sounded.

The Wolves won the first and fourth quarters by a point, the third by three, but lost the second by eight which results in a 107-104 score in favor of the Houston Rockets.

Houston was led by James Harden who notched a double-double with a 27 point, 11 assist game. Former big deal Dwight Howard also notched a double-double with a 15 point and 10 rebound game. Terrence Jones also was big in the Rockets victory with 16 points and nine rebounds in 34 minutes off the bench.

Minnesota was without Kevin Garnett for the game since it was the second game of a back-to-back. KG’s absence resulted in Nikola Pekovic being inserted into the starting five in the midst of his comeback tour. Pek had eight points and five rebounds in 16 minutes of play for the big guy.