It was all fun and games until the streak is finally over. Minnesota Timberwolves captain ball Karl Anthony-Towns knows that, and this humbling experience now is hopefully being felt around the promising pack moving forward.
As the Charlotte Hornets finally slashed the red-hot Timberwolves’ five-game winning skid via a 133-115 home demolition on Friday, Towns had a realistic perspective about the whole Minny squad — they didn’t play with the exact energy that they had from the past couple of occassions.
“I didn’t feel like we play as desperate as we usually are,” Towns said. “Just a lack of effort by our team and we paid the price.”
The Wolves allowed the Hornets to breach within the 100-point mark — a horrifying 133 markers to be exact. The 18-point wreckage has to serve as a wake up call in trying to be consistently competitive enough on a nightly basis.
“When we play defense, we’re a top-10 team in the league, I truly believe. When we don’t play defense, we’re bottom-5.”
“We got beat like the old Wolves. This is not the new Wolves we’ve been talking about.”
From the previous days, Minnesota was applauded for the splendid two-way performances of its roster upon trying to climb up the daunting summit of the Western Conference. Even the advanced statistics respected them for their collective efforts. The five-man of Towns, D’Angelo Russell, Anthony Edwards, Jared Vanderbilt and Patrick Beverley was the best lineup amongst 30 teams in minimum of 90 minutes if both offensive and defensive rating are being combined.
With the recent loss, the star center and his company are truly humbled — determined to carry the lesson as they try to establish a winning streak anew.
“I think we were too confident,” Towns argued on reporters. “I think I’ve always said too much confidence breeds arrogance and I feel like, it’s not that we didn’t respect our opponent, but we thought so highly of ourselves and I think sometimes you got to be humble and tonight we got humbled.”
Indeed, a sign of maturity for admitting that it was an interior problem that caused the downfall. As they go along, Timberwolves will just continue to grow and develop with that talentes core. The battle scars that they are currently enduring will always serve as blessings in disguise — undisputed factors to help them transform into a feisty, ferocious opponents in the near future.
As the Wolves move backwards to 9-10, they will look to return to the win column as they travel in Philadelphia for a Saturday night duel with the Sixers.
