The Toronto Raptors have followed an eight-game winning streak with back-to-back losses, and they will try to rebound Wednesday night when they oppose the Minnesota Timberwolves in Minneapolis.
The Raptors opened a five-game road trip on Monday with a 120-90 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans. Toronto shot a season-low 30.5 percent (29-for-95) from the field.
“Terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible game,” said Pascal Siakam, who scored 18 points for Toronto but hit just 7 of 19 field-goal attempts. “It was just one of those nights.”
The Timberwolves will be going for their third consecutive victory on Wednesday after defeating the visiting Charlotte Hornets 126-120 in overtime on Tuesday. Led by 39 points and 15 rebounds from Karl-Anthony Towns, the Timberwolves won their seventh straight home game.
“It’s a great win,” said Timberwolves coach Chris Finch, a former Raptors assistant coach. “Great one. One of the best wins of the year. We hung in there.”
Raptors coach Nick Nurse said before the game on Monday that he had not seen signs that his players were looking forward to the All-Star break.
“I haven’t felt it maybe as much this year as I have (in the past).” Nurse said.
Fred VanVleet, who left the Monday game in the third quarter with a sore knee after scoring 20 points, was listed as questionable for the game against Minnesota.
Nurse indicated that the Raptors might make some lineup adjustments when facing the big centers in the league such as the Pelicans’ Jonas Valanciunas, a former Raptor, and Towns.
“I think that it’s something we’re going to have to evaluate just a little bit,” Nurse said. “When we do come up against a big, really big, big like that, are we going to stay the way we are or are we going to try to match one of our centers with them a little bit more? I think we have to evaluate.
“Some games we do well and we front and we scramble and we trap and we’re really active, and we couldn’t get any of that stuff done (on Monday).”
The Raptors hoped that the frontcourt of Siakam, OG Anunoby and Scottie Barnes would be able to cope against the big centers and play most of the game.
Now it appears that centers Khem Birch and Precious Achiuwa might be used more.
The Timberwolves overcame a 13-point deficit in the second half Tuesday without Anthony Edwards, who left during the second quarter with a sprained right ankle. He had nine points in 18 minutes of playing time.
D’Angelo Russell had 18 points and 11 assists for Minnesota while Jaden McDaniels contributed 18 points and six rebounds.
With the return of a healthy lineup, Finch has had difficulty finding minutes for some players who became accustomed to more playing time when the team was short-handed.
“It’s definitely harder to find worthy players minutes,” Finch said. “Because in the other situation, you’ve got to play whoever is available and hope they play well. And, for the most part, our guys played really well.”
Jaylen Nowell and Taurean Prince did not play in Minnesota’s 129-120 road victory over the Indiana Pacers on Sunday.
“I know Jaylen’s got to be super frustrated,” Finch said. “It was never our intention to not play (Prince) the other night.”
Prince had no points in 10 minutes of playing time on Tuesday while Nowell had five points in six minutes.
–Field Level Media
