13. A dominating performance vs. the Suns
While Garnett never was known for putting up gaudy scoring numbers, there are a host of fun regular season games to choose from.
From his overall efficiency for a player that didn’t shoot many 3-pointers, to 20-rebound games, triple-doubles, and more, there are plenty of impressive box score lines that stick out from Garnett’s game logs.
But in January of 2005, Garnett scored a career-high 47 points, grabbed 17 rebounds, dished out four assists, and tallied two steals. While it came in a losing effort, the Wolves lost to the mighty Phoenix Suns, who were 26-4 at the time and finished the regular season with 62 wins and a trip to the conference finals.
The Wolves were coming off their own Western Conference Finals berth the previous spring but were struggling during the first quarter of the season and sat at just 16-12 coming into play against Phoenix. It was the season that saw Flip Saunders fired when the team had a 25-26 record more than halfway through the year, and the first year of a 14-year playoff drought.
But that didn’t stop Garnett from doing everything he could to lift the Wolves to a win.
Garnett’s 47 points came on an efficient 19-of-28 shooting and 9-of-11 in a game-high 42 minutes. After Minnesota trailed by 15 points heading into the fourth quarter, the Timberwolves outscored the Suns by a 35-27 margin in the final frame, but the “Seven Seconds or Less” Suns offense was too much.
This particular Wolves team was simply too banged up and still suffering from a conference finals hangover. But that doesn’t mean this wasn’t an amazing performance from “The Big Ticket”.