The Minnesota Timberwolves needed overtime to defeat the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday night, 124-117. Shabazz Muhammad scored a career-high 35 points, Andrew Wiggins had 32 and Karl-Anthony Towns added 20 points to go with his 12 rebounds.
Stephen Curry scored his first points of Tuesday’s matchup by knocking down two free throws that had extended Golden State’s lead to 11 with just under 28 seconds remaining in the second quarter. Despite an uncharacteristically poor shooting performance, in which he had missed each of his first eight field goal attempts, Curry tallied 10 assists during the first half while Klay Thompson and Harrison Barnes accounted for 40 of the Warriors’ 55 points.
Muhammad shot 5-of-6 from the field en route to 13 points in just over 14 minutes of playing time during the first two quarters, while Towns and Wiggins scored a combined 15 points on 7-of-18 shooting.
Leandro Barbosa and Andre Iguodala checked in for Thompson and Barnes with 5:12 remaining to play in the third, after Curry committed his third personal foul of the game. No more than a minute earlier, Wiggins had buried a 3-pointer that cut the deficit to 14 points. From then on, between the 5:10 mark of the third until the end of regulation, the Wolves outscored Golden State by 20 points (64-44).
Muhammad, Towns and Wiggins — the only Wolves to score during the extra 5:00 frame — combined for 18 points having made 4-of-5 attempts from field and 10-of-13 at the free throw line. While the rare, woeful, shooting night continued for Curry in overtime, as he who will likely be named NBA MVP scored only three points on 1-of-7 shooting.
Towns for the 49th time this season recorded a double-double, his 13th straight.
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said afterward that he is not surprised by the game’s outcome. “This doesn’t surprise me,” Kerr said, as was reported by the Star Tribune.
“I think it’s easy to get lost in all of this stuff. We haven’t been very dialed in of late. The good news is I think we are perfectly capable of getting locked in and playing much better and we should.”
“Focus was the number one thing,” Draymond Green added.
“We lost our focus and when you lose your focus, that’s when turnovers happen. That’s when bad defense happens, that’s when problems happen.”
[Star Tribune, NBA.com]
