Minnesota Timberwolves: Karl-Anthony Towns on fire
After a slow start to the 2018-19 season, the Minnesota Timberwolves are starting to turn it around, thanks to the improved play of Karl-Anthony Towns.
The Minnesota Timberwolves nabbed the eighth spot in the Western Conference in 2017-18, which effectively ended the team’s 13-year playoff drought. Unfortunately, they didn’t put up much of a fight against the top-seeded Houston Rockets, as they were eliminated in five games.
Although the season didn’t end the way they would have liked, the Timberwolves seemed poised to improve upon what they accomplished a season ago. However, things have not gone according to plan.
For starters, Jimmy Butler, who Minnesota acquired in the summer of 2017, requested a trade and made life very interesting until he was subsequently dealt. Additionally, head coach Tom Thibodeau was relieved of his duties following a blowout win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Jan. 6.
Needless to say, this wasn’t what the Wolves had in mind coming into this season. But in spite of the less than impressive 17-20 mark through the first three months of the 2018-19 campaign, things have begun trending upward for the team in the Twin Cities, and the improved play of Karl-Anthony Towns – who signed a max extension in the offseason – has played a key role in Minnesota’s resurgence.
Let’s take a quick glance at some of his recent body of work.
In the team’s first game of the new year – a road contest against the Boston Celtics – Towns finished with an impressive stat line of 28 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists in 37 minutes of action. He shot 12-for-21 from the field and went 1-for-2 from beyond the arc. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to prevent the Celtics from posting a 115-102 victory.
A few nights later, KAT put a hurting on the Lakers. In that contest, he scored 28 points (11-for-20 from the field), pulled down 18 boards, blocked four shots, handed out three assists and recorded two steals, leading the Timberwolves to an easy 108-86 victory.
https://twitter.com/Timberwolves/status/1082028427530637312
Yes, these performances certainly stand on their own merit. However, Towns’ best performance of late was an outing against the New Orleans Pelicans on Jan. 12. Let’s get the negative aspect out of the way first and mention that he didn’t have a great shooting night, as he converted just 10 of his 23 attempts from the field.
On the flip side of the equation, Towns scored 27 points and hauled in a career-high 27 rebounds. No, that is not a misprint.
He rounded out the night with four blocks (the third time he has accomplished the feat in a stretch of four outings), to go along with three assists and two steals, thus showing the ability to be an effective presence at both ends of the floor.
In the month of January, Towns’ averages include 25.3 points, 13.1 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 1.6 blocks and 1.3 steals per contest on shooting splits of .514/.319/.877. The scoring and rebounding numbers are the most he’s posted in any month this season.
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Even more important, the Timberwolves have posted a 6-4 mark over the last 10 games and are just two games back of the final playoff spot in the West. Sure, there’s still a lot basketball to be played, but if KAT and the Timberwolves can continue playing good basketball the rest of the way, they could be in position to earn a return trip to the postseason – something this squad hasn’t accomplished since 2003-04.