Toronto continues to be a house of horrors for the Timberwolves, even when it has no business being one.
Minnesota lost its 20th consecutive game in the city on Thursday, falling 110-105 to the cellar-dwelling Raptors.
In a back-and-forth affair, the Wolves were simply outplayed down the stretch.
Toronto (4-12) entered the evening with three wins. Minnesota (8-7) was fresh off a three-day break. Thursday looked ripe for a get-right game for Minnesota, who had won consecutive games ahead of the tilt, but neither came in convincing fashion.
After needing a buzzer beater to defeat a Phoenix team that’s getting throttled by everyone at the moment and losing twice to Portland last week, there are no sure wins for the Wolves at the moment.
Anthony Edwards was quiet in the first half, scoring just five points over the first 12 minutes. But he caught fire after the break, scoring 11 points in the first four minutes of the third quarter in a stretch that put the Wolves up five. But every time it looked as though the Wolves would pull away, they would have a defensive breakdown that would, inevitably, lead to an easy Raptors’ bucket to get Toronto back into the game.
“They came back on us on a couple of layups, which you can’t give up at that point and time, which is easy stuff,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch told reporters. “I thought we were guarding OK, but yeah, it was sustainable offense (that was the problem), really.”
Edwards finished with 26 points, while Julius Randle scored 23 and Jaden McDaniels had 22 on a night where the Wolves were without Mike Conley, who missed the game with a sprained toe. But as a whole, the Wolves offense struggled to find any kind of rhythm. They were 33 for 80 from the field, including 12 for 35 from deep.
Two of Minnesota’s most anemic offensive performances of the season have come in the two contests Conley has missed — Thursday’s game and the loss in Portland eight days ago in which Minnesota shot just 39% from the field.
His absence was particularly notable down the stretch Thursday as things fell apart.
There was a six-minute stretch in the middle of the final frame in which Edwards took just one shot. The Wolves went from tied to down eight in that span. During that stretch, there was a play in which Rudy Gobert — who had 13 points and 11 rebounds — parked himself in the paint and called for a post feed, which never came from Randle.
Gobert sat there for so long, an offensive 3-second violation was finally whistled. After the play, Edwards had words for the center, who was clearly dismayed himself.
“Mike makes a difference every time he plays for us,” Finch said. “We haven’t shown the ability to generate a lot of consistent offense when he hasn’t played. So, tonight was probably another example of that.”
On the other end, Minnesota allowed Toronto to shoot 51% from the field, as the Wolves continue to get crushed by opposing scoring wings. After Shaedon Sharpe, De’Aaron Fox and Devin Booker cooked the Minnesota defense in three consecutive games, it was R.J. Barrett’s turn on Thursday.
He scored 31 points on 10-for-14 shooting. The Raptors got to the line 39 times, scored 23 points off 17 Wolves’ turnovers and scored 56 points in the paint.
The Wolves will now have another two days off before playing the Celtics on Sunday in Boston, a city in which they haven’t won since 2005, a streak of 17 consecutive losses. It remains to be seen if they’ll have Naz Reid in that tilt. He walked off the floor gingerly in the final minute on Thursday after he was rolled into by Raptors wing Scottie Barnes in a loose-ball situation. Finch had no update on Reid’s injury after the game.
Briefly
Rob Dillingham played 10 minutes before he was ruled out after suffering an ankle injury in the second half.
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