The Timberwolves were a 20-win team entering Saturday\u2019s contest at Target Center.<\/p>\n
Brooklyn was 9-19.<\/p>\n
Yet there was zero doubt throughout the evening as to who was the better basketball team. The Nets outclassed Minnesota in every possible department en route to a 123-107 win.<\/p>\n
Brooklyn was more disciplined and tougher defensively. It moved, played in transition and made the right plays on offense.<\/p>\n
You know, everything good NBA teams do \u2014 and what the Wolves can only be bothered to deliver on a sporadic basis.<\/p>\n
Perhaps Minnesota \u2014 44 hours removed from a heartbreaking loss to Denver \u2014 had Saturday chalked up as a win when it entered the arena. That would\u2019ve been a jarring case of ignorance.<\/p>\n
Brooklyn has now won seven of its last 10 games and entered Saturday allowing the NBA\u2019s fewest points per game in December (102.7)<\/p>\n
The Nets selected five players in the first round of the June NBA draft and, understandably, started the season slow out of the gates. But Brooklyn has developed a clear brand of basketball that entails doing just about everything the right way.<\/p>\n
And Brooklyn received an added boost Saturday in the return of scoring guard Cam Thomas, who missed nearly two months with a hamstring injury. Thomas scored 30 points off the bench in just 20 minutes and served as the Nets\u2019 closer when Minnesota made a mini push in the middle of the final frame.<\/p>\n
The Wolves tend to reserve their best basketball for the best opponents. That\u2019s a bad habit, and one that did them in against a team that\u2019s far better than its record indicates.<\/p>\n
The Wolves have now lost two straight and are now set to embark on a four-game road trip, beginning Monday in Chicago.<\/p>\n
Anthony Edwards scored 28 points in the loss.<\/p>\n
Shannon out<\/p>\n
Second-year wing Terrence Shannon Jr. will be re-evaluated in two weeks after an MRI revealed a left foot abductor hallucis strain.<\/p>\n
Shannon exited in the third quarter of Minnesota\u2019s game Thursday in Denver with the injury.<\/p>\n
His absence figures to make Jaylen Clark a more consistent part of Minnesota\u2019s rotation for the time being.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Timberwolves were a 20-win team entering Saturday\u2019s contest at Target Center. Brooklyn was 9-19. Yet there was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9130,21,9,24,63,319],"class_list":{"0":"post-82316","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-brooklyn","9":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","10":"tag-brooklyn-news","11":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}