Are the Timberwolves good?
Winners of 7 of their last 10 games, the Timberwolves took another big win against a top-level team, beating the surging Washington Wizards 119-104.
With 16 games to go and still the games behind the 8-seeded Nuggets, every game is vital going forward. This is what made the individual efforts so indicative of playoff desire. It was a perfect night for Ricky Rubio, who broke the single-game assist record, 19, to go along with 22 points on 8-15 shooting.
“Yeah, I think the movement – when you cut and you’re open, you know you’re going to get the ball,” president-coach Tom Thibodeau said afterward.
“So what it does is guys run the floor hard, they move without the ball, they know that they’re playing off each other I think really well, and so the teams are locking into Karl and Wig, it creates some easy opportunities for other guys and I like the balance of the scoring tonight.”
Somehow, Rubio’s effort made Karl-Anthony Towns’ 39 point, 13 rebound effort (all coming fresh off Western Conference Player of the Week honors) seem like an afterthought.
“I just glad I was here to watch history, to be a part of it. It was just amazing to see him play out there,” Karl-Anthony Towns said postgame.
“It was like watching a movie and you never get to hear the stats you just hear the same person keep making the play and you wonder how many stats you got…Ricky was just throwing dimes. I don’t know in my career if there will be another better time for me to be in foul trouble so I got a front row seat to watch.”
Brandon Rush led the game in plus/minus with plus-25, after hitting his first three three-pointers, getting the Wolves off to a much needed start. This was a good counterbalance to fellow starting wingman Andrew Wiggins’ 5-15 effort, who has been struggling over the past 4 games.
The Wolves now hit the road for the next three games, first facing off against the East’s No. 2 seeded Boston Celtics. The Celtics were the 3-seed before the Wolves defeated Washington tonight, plummeting the Wizards to No. 3.
Here is the Fox Sports North feed of Thibodeau’s press conference:
And from inside the locker room:
