A furious fourth-quarter rally wasn’t enough Wednesday night, as the Timberwolves fell 103-101 to Denver at Target Center.
Trailing by 13 early in the final frame, a lineup of Derrick Rose, Tyus Jones, Robert Covington, Dario Saric and Gorgui Dieng went on a 14-2 run to close the deficit to just one. Target Center was electric, the team was energized.
“We had a couple stops that allowed us to get back in it,” Covington said. “It was just about the effort and will to really just make things happen.”
Denver got a 3-pointer from Gary Harris to extend the Nuggets’ lead back to 92-88 with less than five minutes to play, at which point Tom Thibodeau called timeout. He’d stuck with the reserves for the bulk of the fourth quarter after watching his starters get their doors blown off in the third to create such a deficit.
Jeff Teague told Thibodeau to leave the reserves in the game, but the coach elected to start shuffling starters back onto the floor. Off came Jones and Dieng, in came Teague and Towns.
“The bench put us in position to have a chance to win,” Thibodeau said. “”We have to be able to count on our starters to get the job done.”
This time, they didn’t. Rose hit a 3-pointer on the Wolves’ ensuing possession to cut the deficit back to one, but Denver responded with a 5-0 run to re-extend the lead. Minnesota failed to execute in the game’s closing possessions and kicked away a chance at victory.
“This is the first time that we’ve been in a position like this where I thought we were supposed to win the game,” Rose said, “but we let it slip.”
That, players agreed, is frustrating.
“Its’ always frustrating when you make that run and you can’t close out a game,” Covington said. “That would’ve made the victory that much more sweeter, but a couple mental mistakes … that’s what allowed us to not get the win.”
That, and a dreadful third quarter. Minnesota led by six points at the half, but was outscored 35-18 in the third frame. The Wolves were stagnant offensively, befuddled by post double teams that stopped Karl-Anthony Towns and forced turnovers on one end, and unable to do anything in the form of stopping Denver on the other.
Minnesota fell back into bad habits of force feeding things that weren’t there and arguing with officials when a couple things didn’t go its way.
“We just didn’t play as hard, we didn’t execute,” Towns said. “We didn’t come out ready in the third quarter. They were ready, and that’s what led to our demise.”
The loss ends what started as a successful home stand for Minnesota. The Wolves won three-straight home games to improve to 7-9. But their last two losses have stunted their momentum. Minnesota is back to four games under-.500 and is again staring up a steep hill in the Western Conference playoff race.
Like the third quarter Wednesday night, Minnesota’s rough start to the season has the team in an awfully deep hole.
“There’s a lot more games to figure it out,” Rose said.
Sure, but things need to change sooner than later.