In a game the Timberwolves needed — especially with Utah and Oklahoma City losing on the same night — they got it done.
The best part? Andrew Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns stepped up in the moments their team needed them most on both ends of the floor.
Towns and Wiggins finished the game shooting a combined 19 of 35 from the field for 57 points, but it was their defense that was the biggest story of the night.
All the while, Towns shut down DeAndre Jordan in the second half and Wiggins made a momentum-shifting defensive play.
When factoring in the 20 points and 12 assists for Jeff Teague — who is having major recent success of his own — the basis for Tuesday’s win is quite clear on the stat sheet.
The eye test backed it up, too. And with Tuesday’s win separating the No. 8 and the No. 9 seeds even more, everyone knew what was at stake.
“We know that we needed this game,” Wiggins said in the locker room. “[The Clippers are] right behind us and it’s a race to the playoffs right now for a lot of teams. And we know that we needed to have this one, so we came out ultra-aggressive.”
With Jimmy Butler out of the lineup, Towns has made the most out of his situation. He’s won them games they wouldn’t have otherwise won — most notably against Golden State last week. Against Jordan, Towns kept his tenacity on offense and didn’t seem to fear Jordan’s combination of size and hops.
He kept his composure in the post, and did a good job trailing in the halfcourt for easy top-of-the-key 3s.
But Towns has done this a lot, even before Butler went down. He’s an All-Star and has played like one over the past two weeks.
What was especially exciting about this game was the emergence of Wiggins. On both ends of the floor, to boot.
“Wiggins was awesome tonight. That was a great all-around team performance,” Tom Thibodeau said. “I thought Andrew made several hustle plays. He scored the ball, he made good decisions. He played a great all-around game.”
With this game in the books, Wiggins is now shooting 45 percent from 3 over the past 10 games — the number of games Butler has been out. On Tuesday, he shot 4-of-5 from deep and looked confident on the perimeter.
Wiggins’ inconsistency from deep has become an unfortunate norm so far this season, but it can be especially apparent that he’s going to struggle when he isn’t going up for his deep ball right away.
His shot gather is always smooth, but tends to be a bit slower when he’s missed a few in a row.
On Tuesday, it was clear that he was looking to shoot from the moment the ball headed in his direction. The ball is coming out of his hands at a slightly quicker speed when he’s feeling good.
While Towns has been the hero most often for the Wolves this season, Wiggins has quietly been more efficient without Butler than we’ve seen over a 10-game stretch for much of this year.
But while the offensive stats are nice, Wiggins’ defense — something that’s much harder to measure, was the most impressive part of his game on Tuesday.
The best moment was on a defensive possession on Austin Rivers. Rivers tried on a number of occasions to get around Wiggins on an isolation. Instead, Wiggins forced a loose ball, dove for it and nearly saved it for the Wolves.
It resulted in a standing ovation from the Wolves bench and the coaching staff.
“That’s just momentum,” Wiggins said. “Great momentum for us to keep going, keep pushing forward.”
His teammates applauded his effort, both during and after the game.
“He’s one of those guys that doesn’t show a lot of emotions; but when you see him make a play like that, you get excited,” Teague said in the locker room.
It’s the type of hustle that Wiggins has been criticized for doing inconsistently, especially since signing a max contract. It was the type of “play hard for 48 minutes” play that Thibodeau has urged his entire team — not just Wiggins — to commit to all season.
Still, it was especially nice to see from the 23-year-old in a game the Wolves needed badly.
The success didn’t really start until the third quarter, but that’s when the defense truly ramped up and the Wolves put the game away.
“We got some stops, capitalized on high pick and roll,” Towns, who held Jordan to just two points in the second half after a 16-point first half. “We had a lull, were kind of trading buckets, but the thing was they were hitting 2s and we were hitting 3s.”
Tuesday’s win marks the 41st of the season, which means the Timberwolves are guaranteed to at least finish at .500 on the season. It’s the first time that’s happened in franchise history without Kevin Garnett on the roster and Flip Saunders as head coach.
And while there’s a long way to go for this team — even if their schedule does soften up a bit down the stretch — there’s still more winning that will need to happen before that mark truly means anything.
But beating playoff competition like Los Angeles is exactly what this team needs down the stretch. In theory, beating a team like the Clippers means they should have success against teams like New York on Friday.
Of course, it’s rarely that simple.
But as the season draws to a close, performances like the one they got from Wiggins on Tuesday will continue to be vital for them. It would be nice for Wiggins to do this every night, but if he can’t, it will be up to his teammates to pick up the slack. It’ll require team basketball in its truest form, especially without Butler.
To their credit, it’s what they’ve been doing. And that’s how you make the playoffs.
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