On Sunday night in downtown Minneapolis, the Minnesota Timberwolves got boat-raced yet again, this time against the Charlotte Hornets 122-108. It is the Wolves\u2019 third straight loss, bringing their season record to 46-32.<\/p>\n
The Wolves were again without Anthony Edwards, who scored just eight points on 3-15 shooting on Friday against the Philadelphia 76ers. Edwards has now missed eight of the past ten Timberwolves outings as he deals with Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome in his right knee.<\/p>\n
Minnesota played well for large portions of the game. The Wolves were on fire from beyond the arc in the first half, as they shot 10-21 from deep, including four from Bones Hyland, who put one in at the halftime buzzer to give his team a five-point lead.<\/p>\n
The game remained close until late in the third quarter when the wheels completely fell off the wagon for the Timberwolves. Down by one, Ayo Dosunmu fouled Coby White on a 3-pointer. White knocked down the first two free throws, but missed the third. The Wolves were unable to secure the rebound as the Hornets found White for another 3-pointer, which he knocked down for a five-point possession.<\/p>\n
That five-point possession ended up being a microcosm of the entire night. The Wolves gave up a total of 16 offensive rebounds in the game and got double-upped 24-12 by the Hornets in second-chance points. The rebounding problem has been a trend of late for Minnesota, as they now rank 22nd in defensive rebound percentage since the All-Star Break.<\/p>\n
That five-point possession ended up being the turning point in the game as Charlotte used it to propel them to a 15-0 run that put the game out of reach. The second half as a whole was a disaster for Minnesota, as after scoring the first two points with two Dosunmu free throws, they got outscored 47-21 to turn a modest seven-point lead into a 19-point deficit.<\/p>\n
Each loss during this three-game losing streak for the Wolves has come, in part, because of a giant second-half run by their opponent. On Thursday, the Detroit Pistons outscored the Wolves 18-3 during the fourth quarter, on Friday, the 76ers had a 40-18 run in the third quarter, and now tonight the Hornets blitzed the Wolves down the stretch of the third quarter and into the fourth.<\/p>\n
The Wolves are now 6-9 in their last 15 games, sporting the third-worst offense in the NBA during that stretch. While the Wolves have certainly dealt with injuries during that stretch, including Edwards, Dosunmu, and Jaden McDaniels missing multiple games, it is not a good sign that Minnesota has been so deficient on offense when a starter or two has been out of the lineup.<\/p>\n
One major reason for the Wolves\u2019 offensive struggles has been the play of Naz Reid. Tonight\u2019s game was possibly Reid\u2019s worst of the season as he scored just six points while missing 11 of his 14 shots. At the start of February, Reid was averaging 17.7 points per game, but has only scored 11.5 a game since. During that time, he is shooting a paltry 27.2 percent on 3-pointers.<\/p>\n
This weekend\u2019s game has also brought a lot of clarity about what the Wolves\u2019 seed and playoff opponent will be. The Timberwolves are now overwhelmingly likely to be the sixth seed for the second straight season, as three games separate them in the loss column from both the teams above and below them in the standings.<\/p>\n
The Denver Nuggets have also caught up to tie the Los Angeles Lakers for the third seed. While the Lakers do have the tiebreaker, it seems unlikely they can keep pace with the Nuggets as both Luka Don\u010di\u0107 and Austin Reaves will miss the rest of the regular season, and possibly longer.<\/p>\n
It appears it may be time to start mentally preparing for another playoff series between the Nuggets and Timberwolves.<\/p>\n
The Timberwolves head back out on the road for another three-game road trip. It starts with a matchup against the Indiana Pacers, who have had an injury-riddled season with a record of 18-60 since losing in Game 7 of the NBA Finals a year ago. The game begins at 6:00 PM CT and airs on FanDuel Sports Network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Sunday night in downtown Minneapolis, the Minnesota Timberwolves got boat-raced yet again, this time against the Charlotte…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":700702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3782],"tags":[7,307,152,3954,6,308,51802],"class_list":{"0":"post-700701","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-timberwolves","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-minnesota","10":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","11":"tag-minnesotatimberwolves","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-timberwolves","14":"tag-timberwolves-scores"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116355563781022207","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}