Dec. 30--Timberwolves 113 Miami 104

Every time I write about the Timberwolves, they proceed to quickly lose a couple of winnable games and I think, my goodness, I am not going to write about this team again. But, then, I am not sure any other Minnesota team was active on New Year's Eve day, so here we are again.

And, on New Year's Eve day, the Wolves managed to defeat the Miami Heat 113-104. They took a 30-19 1st quarter lead and held on as Karl Towns was dominant with 34 points and 18 boards.

But, of course, this win was sandwiched by a couple of bad losses. 123-120 in OT at home to the 11-25 Atlanta Hawks. Ugh. The Wolves trailed 42-27 after 1 and came back to tie 89-all after 3, but could not close it out. This is the one where Andrew Wiggins made 2-of-6 throws in OT. Towns went 31-19 and Robert Covington added 28 and Derrick Rose 25 and, yet, somehow, the Wolves managed to lose it. Oh, yeah, Atlanta made 16-of-35 3s.

Then came the loss at New Orleans against a 17-21 team playing without its best player Anthony Davis. Oh, yeah. The Pelicans made 14-of-25 3s. Towns went 28-17, Wiggins added 20. But the Wolves trailed 63-51 at the half, went ahead 89-88 after 3, but could not close it out.

So they are 2-2 in their last 4, both losses coming to teams with losing records. And they've wasted a totally dominant stretch from Towns, 28 ppg and 18 boards over 4 games. Now, Jeff Teague missed all 4 games and Rose missed 2 of them. But, my friends keep telling me that Tyus Jones is the Wolves' best point guard.

But they seem to be able to lose no matter who's at the controls. One step forward, 2 steps back. The total achilles heel of this team is that they simply cannot defend the 3. And, so, no, I don't see how they can make the playoffs. They've now dropped 3.5 GB the #8 spot in the west and, more to the point, there are 5 teams ahead of them--San Antone, Sacramento, Memphis, Utah and Dallas. The season is almost half gone. It's not too late, but show me a trend line that favors the Wolves. There aren't any.

Player of the Day--Karl Anthony Towns