Minnesota Timberwolves: 15 greatest moments of Kevin Garnett’s career

9. Garnett drops 35 and 20 in the playoffs

In 2003, for the first time in franchise history, the Timberwolves managed to land home-court advantage in the first-round of the playoffs by way of a top-four seed in the Western Conference.

Of course, they only won 51 games and bested the imposing, 50-win Los Angeles Lakers by just a single game in the regular season, but that meant that they’d get to host Game 1 and Game 2 of the first round at Target Center — a huge deal for a franchise with six consecutive playoff series losses.

For their part, the Lakers had just won back-to-back-to-back NBA championships and still had their Hall-of-Fame duo together in Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant.

The Wolves hadn’t yet pieced together their “Big Three” that would carry them to the Western Conference Finals the following year and were led by Garnett a banged-up Wally Szczerbiak. (As it turns out, averaging 38 minutes per game over all 82 games in his All-Star season the year before wasn’t great for his legs.)

Here’s the scene: Minnesota has finally achieved home court advantage. They’re playing host to the Lakers, who have won three-straight NBA titles. And the Wolves have already lost Game 1 by 19 points. Simply put, a loss in Game 2 would be devastating.

In steps Garnett.

Garnett was dominant, scoring 35 points on 15-of-21 shooting with 20 rebounds, seven assists, two steals, and a block. The Wolves won going away, besting the Lakers’ Game 1 advantage and winning by a final of 119-91.

When the series moved to Los Angeles, the Wolves actually managed to win Game 3 and take a 2-1 advantage in the series before the Lakers won three straight games to close it out.

The next season, however, the Wolves ended up with the No. 1 seed in the entire conference. More on that later.