Timberwolves Wrap: A balanced win over the Clippers

The Timberwolves had four players score 20 or more points as they pulled away from the Clippers in the second half for an easy win on Tuesday night.

The Timberwolves took advantage of big nights from Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins and 20-point performances from both Jeff Teague and Jamal Crawford to outscore the Clippers by 11 points in the third quarter and pull away for an important victory at Target Center on Tuesday night.

Entering play on Tuesday, the Clippers were only two games behind the Wolves in the Western Conference, with Minnesota holding onto the eighth and final playoff spot. A win by the Clippers would have pulled them within just one game in the standings, while a win by the Wolves would mean a four-game sweep of the season series and, including the tiebreaker, a four-game lead on L.A.

The Wolves got their sweep, and while it took something like two-and-a-half quarters for things to go according to plan, they eventually began to pull away in the second half.

A lazy defensive first quarter put the host Wolves into a see-saw battle early on, but a spurt from the bench including a stretch of seven straight points scored by Derrick Rose helped Minnesota to pull out in front prior to halftime, although a late second quarter run from the Clippers trimmed the halftime lead to only three.

The second half belonged to Jeff Teague and Andrew Wiggins, however. The Wolves used a 13-0 third quarter run to build a large lead, and after the Clippers took a bite out of it, Minnesota built the lead right back up into double-digits and hardly slowed down from that point forward.

Highlight of the Night

Tweet of the Night

Key Takeaways

• Derrick Rose had another strong stretch of play, but this time all seven of his minutes came in the second quarter. He did not play in the second half due to a sprained ankle.
• For as quiet as Teague was in the first half, he dominated the second half. First, he lulled the Clippers to sleep by dumping the ball off to Towns in the pick-and-roll time after time, and then he began jetting past his man and scoring in the lane on a variety of floaters, scoop shots, and layups. He was a wizard in the open court, and outside of a couple of dumb first half turnovers trying to split double-teams and getting trapped on the perimeter, this was essentially a flawless performance from the Wolves’ point guard.
• Towns was great once again, which is especially significant since he was going up against the mountain of a man that is DeAndre Jordan. The Clippers center still finished with 18 points on 9-of-11 shooting and 12 rebounds, but he had to work for everything he got. Towns launched seven 3-point attempts after not shooting any on Sunday against Houston. He scored 30 points on 19 shots and contributed across the box score once again.
• The Wolves defense played hard in the second half, and was keyed largely by an extremely active Andrew Wiggins.

Player of the Game

Jeff Teague: 20 points (9-13 FG, 1-2 3P, 3-3 FT), 12 assists, 4 rebounds

Teague was awesome, as mentioned. He did a solid job defensively, too, as Milos Teodosic scored just 10 points on eight shots in 22 minutes and Lou Williams shot just 4-of-11 from the floor.

Notable Timberwolves Box Score Stats

• Karl-Anthony Towns: 30 points (10-19 FG, 3-7 3P, 7-8 FT), 10 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, one block
• Andrew Wiggins: 27 points (9-16 FG, 4-5 3P, 5-5 FT), 3 rebounds, 3 blocks, one steal
• Jamal Crawford: 20 points (7-13 FG, 2-7 3P, 4-4 FT), 2 rebounds, one assist, one steal
• Taj Gibson: 15 points (6-8 FG, 3-3 FT), 8 rebounds, one assist, one block

Next: Is it a new beginning for Derrick Rose?

What’s Next?

The Wolves will have the next two days off before heading to Madison Square Garden to take on the New York Knicks on Friday night at 6:30 p.m. CT.