Minnesota Timberwolves: Player grades from final game of the season loss to Nuggets
By Ben Beecken
The Minnesota Timberwolves finished the 2018-19 season with a third consecutive loss as the tables were turned from last year’s Game 82.
All things considered, this was probably a fitting end to a disappointing season for the Minnesota Timberwolves.
With a chance to knock divisional rival Denver out of the No. 2 spot in the Western Conference playoffs, the Wolves led by six points heading to the fourth quarter and by 12 points with under four minutes left in the game. But the Nuggets finished things off with a 16-0 run and cemented the second seed in the West.
The Wolves played without Karl-Anthony Towns for the second-straight game as he sat out with knee inflammation. Andrew Wiggins played like a man possessed, and while his final line of 25 points on 20 shots isn’t all that impressive, he was good all night long and should have been going to the free throw line with a chance to take the lead in the final minute of the game.
Wiggins dominated the first quarter and helped the Wolves stay in the game early on. Then, Gorgui Dieng and Cameron Reynolds took over. They were three of the only four Wolves players who scored in double digits but did enough to make a run at winning a game in the Mile High City.
The Wolves’ team defense was as good as it’s been a long time, too, and until a couple of breakdowns on the defensive glass and the subsequent scramble that led to a pair of devestatting 3-pointers from the Nuggets, it was an impressive team performance.
Wiggins was triple-teamed and fouled with Minnesota down one with less than a half-minute remaining as his entire left arm was raked by Nikola Jokic. But the official didn’t call the foul and the Wolves were forced to foul on the other end of the floor. After a pair of missed free throws and a missed three from Wiggins, the game was all but over.
The rest of the players
Keita Bates-Diop had four points and seven rebounds in 19 minutes and had a couple of impressive defensive plays and a nice fastbreak dunk as well.
Two-way player C.J. Williams had his best game of the season, too, scoring six points on a pair of 3-point shots in 18 minutes. Fellow two-way player Jared Terrell only played six minutes in relief of Jones and finished as a +2 in the plus-minus column.
What’s Next?
The offseason, that’s what. The playoff-less offseason that Wolves fans have been used to for a decade-and-a-half, save for last April.