Minnesota Timberwolves lose 7th straight; Boston Celtics break three-game losing streak, 85-82 at Target Center
NBA: A recent stumble was enough to make the defensive Celtics realize that they had to give in more defence into their games to help themselves from a further downslide. The Boston Celtics entered the game with the same old spirit to let go of their
first three game losing streak of the season and defeated the weak Minnesota Timberwolves for the ninth straight time. The Kevin Love-less Timberwolves could not bear a late fourth quarter assault and gave up in an 85-82 loss to the Celtics, Sunday night at
the Target Center.
Having taken the reins of the game in their hands from the very beginning, Boston built a 32-12 lead over the opposition in the very first quarter. This early lead gave them an advantage but that was not enough. The Timberwolves did revenge that first
quarter assault and stammered over them the rest of the way. The Timberwolves stimulated into the second quarter notching three-pointers and some nice shots to bring some life into the game. They outscored the Celtics by six points in the second quarter, 21-15.
Minnesota took a 7-0 run over the Celtics in the early third quarter to cut the deficit to just 41-49 points. Nenad Krstic slam dunked twice whereas Paul Pierce cut a sharp driving dunk to make it 55-41 again. Once again the Wolves ran ahead with a 6-0 run
to make it 48-55, but the Celtics had taken care of that in the first quarter. Kevin Garnett added a tip shot for the Celtics, before the Wolves sealed another 6-0 run to bridge the gap at the 4:12 mark, leaving just three points in between, 54-57. The Wolves
played dangerously and they were just two points behind the Celtics as the game leaped into the final stanza, 64-62.
The last quarter was a cat and mouse chase as the Timberwolves kept their stance high and kept following the Celtics throughout the final quarter. The Celtics were careful enough not to let the Wolves tie the game and kept answering back with their
shots. The Celtics never let the Wolves claim a lead and luckily Michael Beasley missed a three-pointer that could have otherwise pushed the game into overtime. Anthony Tolliver posted the last shot the game, driving a dunk to make 16 points in the loss, 82-85.
Boston won by three points.
Beasley later said that his team played remarkably and had the spirit of competition. The Wolves forward who scooped out game high 28 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in the loss was quoted as saying, "I feel like we showed a lot of character. We could've
just let them beat us by 60 points. But we fought back and gave ourselves a chance to win the last two minutes. Of course we wanted to win, but it didn't turn out that way. A lot of guys played well, and we learned a lot from this game."
Anthony Randolph has been playing with a spark in the previous two games starting in place of All-Star Kevin Love. The player has recorded an average of 27.5 points along with 13.0 rebounds in those games. In a contest against the Dallas Mavericks,
the player made his career best 31 points on Thursday. However, this was not a favourable night for Randolph as the player slumped to just three points in his game that lasted for 16 plus minutes. The player was fouled four times and turned the ball over three
times. Pierce scored 23 to lead the Boston Celtics whereas Garnett contributed 13 points and 13 rebounds in 32 plus minutes.
Tags: