Game Preview: Timberwolves at Knicks

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Timberwolves at Knicks

Friday, December 2nd, 2016 at 6:30 p.m. at the Madison Square Garden

MATCHUP

New month, new team? Lets hope so. Today marks the first game in December for the Timberwolves. With the loss to New York on Wednesday, the ceiling collapsed a little bit more. Minnesota desperately needs a win streak to turn their season around and live up to the hopes they had coming into the year. The Wolves roll into Madison Square Garden with a 5-13 record with the 14th spot in the Western Conference. The Knicks have a respectable 9-9 record with the 9th spot in the Eastern Conference.

Projected Starters

Timberwolves:

PG: Ricky Rubio #9

SG: Zach LaVine #8

SF: Andrew Wiggins #22

PF: Gorgui Dieng #5

C: Karl-Anthony Towns #32

Knicks:

PG: Derrick Rose #25

SG: Justin Holiday #

SF: Carmelo Anthony #7

PF: Kristaps Porzingis #6

C: Kyle O’Quinn #9

Injury Report

Timberwolves: 

Nikola Pekovic – out/season (recurring foot pain)

Knicks:

Lance Thomas – questionable (ankle)

Joakim Noah – questionable (ankle)

Courtney Lee – questionable (ankle)

Last Meeting

The Timberwolves and Knicks faced off on Wednesday. It was a back and forth game between the two. Minnesota outscored New York in 3/4 quarters, but it still wasn’t enough to hold on. Carmelo Anthony had a buzzer-beater with 2.3 seconds left on the clock. The game was full of runs by both teams. At one point in the 4th quarter, Minnesota was down by 17 and came back to tie it up. As we all know, the problem with the Wolves hasn’t been scoring. They’ve had a problem on defense, and getting production off of the bench.

Noteworthy

Match-up to watch tonight: Zach LaVine and Justin Holiday. After Karl-Anthony Towns put the entire team on his back Wednesday, I expect the Knicks to make major defensive adjustments to suppress his offensive game. Towns is a pretty elusive player for his age. He’s not afraid to kick it out to someone on the perimeter. That’s where LaVine comes in. He was pretty cold on Wednesday from beyond the 3 point line, therefore he is due for a big game. LaVine will have a backup guarding him the whole game because Courtney Lee is hurt. That’s an advantage in itself.

Player to watch: Mindaugas Kuzminskas. Kuzminskas came off the bench for the Knicks and played 19 minutes. In those 19 minutes he was 4-5 from 3 point. He had 14 points in 19 minutes. Talk about efficiency. Kuzminskas will get some more playing time with Noah and Lance Thomas’s ankle injuries looming. Minnesota will need to adjust and close out on him from beyond the arc.

In order to win this game, Minnesota needs to get better production out of their bench. They can’t expect their starting 5 to play 40+ minutes every game and come out with a win. On Wednesday, Minnesota only had 5 abysmal points off of the bench.

Minnesota needs to keep attacking the basket. The Wolves went to the line 39 times on Wednesday versus the Knicks’ 15. We also had 12 more points in the paint than New York. If we can get some of their players in early foul trouble, we might have a chance to come out with a W.

Broadcast Information

TV: Fox Sports North – Dave Benz (play-by- play), Jim Peterson (analyst)

Radio: 830 WCCO-AM – Alan Horton (play-by- play)

(All stats found on NBA.com and basketball-reference.com)

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