The 2017-18 campaign saw the Timberwolves win 47 games and land the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference playoffs. Let’s rank the top five individual performances by Wolves players during the season.
The Timberwolves went from 31 wins in 2016-17 to 47 in 2017-18. Adding Jimmy Butler had a lot to do with the ascension, of course, but there was absolutely measurable growth from their other All-Star, Karl-Anthony Towns.
That means that our list of the top five individual performances of the season includes more than just Butler, although there is plenty of Jimmy G. on the list, too.
There wasn’t rigid criteria for this list, just simply a solid and diverse stat line to go along with a Timberwolves win. And while Butler is much more the type of player to always be solid on both ends of the floor than to drop 45, 12, and 10, Towns is certainly the eye-popping numbers kind of guy.
And because we couldn’t just pick five, we’ll kick things off with an honorable mention game — call it No. 6 on our top five list. Let’s get into it with the lone Andrew Wiggins performance on this list.
The Timberwolves only had two individual scoring performances north of 40 points this season. Somewhat surprisingly, zero of them belonged to Jimmy Butler, and one of them belonged to Andrew Wiggins.
Butler had just missed a Saturday night victory over the eventual Eastern Conference No.1 seed Toronto Raptors, and a West Coast letdown seemed to be a real possibility without their superstar in the lineup.
But Wiggins stepped up, scoring 40 points and knocking down a trio of triples to go along with six rebounds. Jeff Teague drained 16 of 17 free throw attempts and scored 30 points of his own while Towns only made a single field goal and scored just 11 points on the night.
The game was close throughout but was sealed in part due to a pair of big rebounds from Wiggins down the stretch. It was a solid all-around game at a time when the Wolves needed just that from their third fiddle.