Wolves record: 4-11
After getting out to a hot start, Minnesota faded in the third quarter and despite a better fourth watched as Denver took a 106-97 victory.
The difference in the game was Denver’s aggressiveness on the court.
Denver converted 26 of 33 free throws. Minnesota attempted only 10.
During play, the Wolves made four more field goals than the Nuggets .
From the Associated Press:
Randy Foye scored a season-high 25 points to lead Minnesota. Al Jefferson had 20 points and 13 rebounds, and Kevin Love had his first career double-double with 18 points and 12 rebounds. Love averaged 5.8 points in his previous nine games.
After beating Oklahoma City on the road Friday night, the Timberwolves missed a chance to win consecutive games for the first time this season…
Minnesota’s Mike Miller was 2-for-10 from the field, including 0-for-6 on 3-pointers.
We outscored them by four field goals in the game, but they lived at the free throw line,” head coach Randy Wittman said. “We didn’t step it up when they made their run during the third quarter. They knocked us on our heels and we didn’t respond to it until the end there when we continued to fight.”
Denver kicked up the fast break style of offense in the third quarter to outscore the Wolves on the break 21-5 as Minnesota dropped to 4-11 on the season. In addition to the fast break offense, the Nuggets were aggressive moving towards the basket and reached the charity stripe 33 times on the night with a 78 percentage from the free throw line. Denver came out of the locker room with the intensity of a team looking to hit the century mark, which has led to a 7-1 record for the Nuggets when scoring over 100 points.
The Nuggets’ mastery of the Timberwolves goes back awhile – Saturday’s victory was Denver’s seventh straight against Minnesota – but Billups, acquired from Detroit for Allen Iverson just four days into the season, has been around for only two of them. The gormer Timberwolf got the hang of it pretty quickly, though, scoring 27 points, getting to the free-throw line 12 times – more than the entire Wolves squad – and thoroughly frustrating a Minnesota offense that had reached 100 points in four of its last five games.
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