Timberwolves' skid continues in road loss to Grizzlies
Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies (9-4) built a lead and played on that lead all night en route to a 114-103 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves (5-8) on Friday night.
The game, nationally televised on ESPN, was the first meeting between Western Conference foes since the Grizzlies knocked the Timberwolves out of the playoffs last season. Despite the best efforts of Anthony Edwards, Morant, Desmond Bane and Dillon Brooks were too much as they sent the Timberwolves to their sixth loss in seven games.
Edwards scored 28 points but the rest of Minnesota's starting lineup combined for 47 points – 15 each from Rudy Gobert and Jaden McDaniels, 13 from Karl-Anthony Towns and four from D'Angelo Russell.
Morant led the Grizzlies with 28 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists. Bane scored 24 and Brooks added 21.
Memphis shot 7-of-33 from 3 but lit up Minnesota with 62 points in the paint, 40 of them in the first half. And they out-rebounded the Wolves 46-33, including 15 offensive rebounds that led to 32 second-chance points. Gobert, who leads the NBA in rebounding, had six boards in 35 minutes.
Towns fouled out with 3:09 left in the fourth quarter. He had four fouls in the first half and picked up his fifth foul early in the third quarter.
Russell was 2-of-8 shooting, including 0-of-4 from 3 and wasn't on the floor in the final minutes of the game. He had eight assists, zero rebounds and three turnovers in 27 minutes.
Up next: Timberwolves at Cleveland, Sunday at 5 p.m.
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.