NBA Power Rankings: Up is down, down is up after crazy start

Last week: Won at Brooklyn 127-126 (OT), won at Charlotte 121-99, won vs. Miami 116-109

Next week: Wednesday at Philadelphia, Saturday at Washington

Karl-Anthony Towns warned us. In an interview published by The Undefeated’s Marc J. Spears earlier this month, Towns warned us.

"“Everyone always sleeps on people in Minnesota because they don’t hear our name a lot. That’s fine. That’s cool. We are going to come from the underground and just find ourselves in the playoffs if we continue to do what we’re doing. … It’s fine. Keep sleeping on us.”"

Towns has backed that up through the first week in a big way, averaging 32.0 points, 13.3 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 3.0 steals and 2.0 blocks in 33.7 minutes per game. Towns is shooting 52.5 percent overall and is 15-for-29 from 3-point range (51.7 percent), including a 7-for-11 masterpiece in the opener at Brooklyn.

Enigmatic Andrew Wiggins snapped out of an early slump Sunday, when the Minnesota Timberwolves handed the Heat their first loss, scoring 25 points on 9-of-18 shooting, hitting 4-of-10 from deep. Prior to that, Wiggins was at 40 percent overall and had misfired on all seven of his 3-point tries.

The Wolves are forcing 19.7 turnovers a game, are second in the NBA with a 27.1 percent rate on the offensive glass and 10th with an 81.0 percent defensive rebounding percentage.  Throw in solid bench work from Josh Okogie — 11.9 points, 4.3 boards, 2.7 assists, 1.3 steals in just 20.3 minutes a game — and Minnesota is already starting to wake some folks up.