Thursday night may have featured the best win of the entire season for the Minnesota Timberwolves. On the second night of a back-to-back and in their last game before starting off All-Star break, the Wolves could have easily laid down and proceeded to take a night off, just happy to be getting a well-earned rest period. But instead, they got one of their best wins of 2024-25 in taking down the Western Conference-leading Oklahoma City Thunder.
For fans that have followed this team for a long time, you know this is the most Timberwolves thing ever. Minnesota had just suffered a loss to a heavily injured Milwaukee Bucks team 24 hours before on Wednesday. Without Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard, the Bucks came into Target Center and got a win after Anthony Edwards missed a last-second shot. It looked like Thursday was going to be a scheduled loss without question.
But true to form, the Timberwolves pulled a win out in a situation where it made absolutely no sense for them to. The Thunder were riding high, winners of seven games in a row coming in and holding a league-best 44-9 record. On paper, it should have been a comfortable Oklahoma City win.
Minnesota took down OKC one night after losing to shorthanded Bucks
Instead, Minnesota jumped out to a 37-24 advantage at the end of the first quarter, which would eventually balloon to as large as a 19-point advantage for the home team. The Wolves got 20-point outings from Edwards, Naz Reid and Jaden McDaniels. Reid earned his sixth double-double of the season with a game-high 27 points and 14 rebounds. They did all this while down three starting players in Mike Conley, Julius Randle and Rudy Gobert.
While improbable, this game was incredibly true to form for the Timberwolves. There have been countless examples over the last several seasons where Minnesota has lost a game they had no business losing, then followed it up by immediately winning a game it seemed like they had no business winning. A solid example would be last year in the first week of the season, when the Wolves took a bad loss in Atlanta to the Hawks, then came home and defeated the then-defending champion Denver Nuggets two nights later.
As Timberwolves influencer Barflaan Tedoe would say, this is the Minnesota Timberwolves experience. And at the end of the day, a win like this should do a lot for this team as they head into All-Star break and look to come back with that same confidence.