Minnesota Timberwolves: Player grades from loss to Hornets

The losses continued to mount on Thursday as the Minnesota Timberwolves dropped their fifth-straight game, this time to the Charlotte Hornets.

On a day that the Minnesota Timberwolves announced that half of the top six players in their regular rotation would miss the remainder of the season, the Wolves fell to Kemba Walker and the Hornets in Charlotte.

The Hornets remain on the outside looking in of the Eastern Conference playoff picture but still have a mathematical shot at making it into the field. They’re still playing for something, whereas the Wolves are clearly petering out as the season winds down.

Despite only making one of his eight 3-point attempts, Walker shot 10-of-12 from the free throw line and finished with 32 points, six assists, and five rebounds. The suddenly guard-poor Timberwolves couldn’t slow him down, and while Walker didn’t get much in the way of help from his teammates, that’s all that Charlotte needed.

Karl-Anthony Towns had another impressive performance and Andrew Wiggins showed signs of life as well, but perhaps most encouraging was Dario Saric‘s 15-point, 7-rebound night.

The Wolves hung around for most of the night until midway through the fourth quarter, when the Hornets stretched their lead to double digits. And that was that.

The rest of the players

Jerryd Bayless had just two points and three assists in 16 minutes behind Jones. Cameron Reynolds played only nine minutes but canned two of his four 3-point attempts.

Here’s hoping that Ryan Saunders gets Reynolds some more clock over the last few games to see what he can do and try to run a few more sets with open 3-point attempts as the goal.

What’s Next?

The Timberwolves are off on Friday and will be in Memphis on Saturday to take on the Grizzlies at 7 p.m. CT.