Ice-cold shooting dooms Timberwolves in Toronto to open season
Shots did not fall all night as the Minnesota Timberwolves lost the season opener 97-94 to the Toronto Raptors Wednesday night. Minnesota took 100 shots made just 34, including 8-of-31 from 3-point land.
Key players stats:
- Anthony Edwards: 26 points, 14 rebounds (8-27 shooting)
- Karl-Anthony Towns: 19 points, 10 rebounds, 4 blocks (7-24 shooting)
- Rudy Gobert: 15 points, 13 rebounds, 4 blocks, 2 steals
Edwards scored the first 10 points of the game for Minnesota, hitting three of his first four shot attempts and then hit just 5-of-23 the rest of the night. His running mate Karl-Anthony Towns wasn't much better, connecting on 8-of-25 shots.
Minnesota trailed 70-60 midway through the third quarter before ending the final five and a half minutes on a 14-3 run fueled by the bench, which ironically hadn't made a shot until Kyle Anderson's putback with 5:09 left in the quarter to start the run. Naz Reid also hit a pair of close-range shots, Edwards hit a 3 and then Shake Milton buried a corner triple for the Timberwolves' first lead since midway through the second quarter.
The daggers came from deep late in the fourth quarter as Dennis Schroder and Pascal Siakam hit back-to-back 3s for a 90-84 lead with 4:58 to go, and then Siakam buried another triple to put Toronto up 93-86 with 3:01 remaining.
Towns had a chance to cut the lead to three with 90 seconds to play but he missed an open 3. The big man was 1-of-9 from deep in the game, and it ended worse for Towns as he tried to force a pass down low to Gobert with the Wolves trailing 95-91 with 30 seconds to go and it was poked away and stolen, leading to a dunk by Scottie Barnes for the final nail in the coffin.
Toronto dominated Minnesota 34-12 in fastbreak points.
The Timberwolves were without starting small forward Jaden McDaniels, who is day-to-day with a calf strain. Nickeil Alexander-Walker started in his placed. The only other players to see the floor were Reid, Anderson, Milton and Troy Brown Jr.
Up next: Timberwolves vs. Miami, Saturday at 7 p.m. CT.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.