The Wolves beat the Clippers 113-107 in Los Angeles on Wednesday night. The win moved your favorite squad to 15-11 on the season, fourth in the West. Here are three observations from the game via our Kyle Ratke:
Double-Double Machine Strikes Again
Wolves center Karl-Anthony Towns finished with 21 points and 12 rebounds, notching his 20th double-double in 26 games. That mark leads the NBA. He’s up one on New Orleans’ DeMarcus Cousins and two on Detroit’s Andre Drummond.
Fun fact: Taj Gibson, Towns’ teammate, also finished with a 16-point, 14-rebound double-double in the game and ranks tied for 14th with 11 double-doubles.
More fun facts: Since Towns entered the league in 2015, he has 134 double-doubles, the most in the NBA. Pretty crazy. He also swatted four shots in the game defensively, which is a step forward for Towns.
Crawford Goes Back To LA
Wolves wing Jamal Crawford spent the last five seasons with the Clippers. Over that stretch, he averaged 15.3 points per game. He and the Clippers made the playoffs in each season and he was named the NBA Sixth Man of the Year in 2013-14 and 2015-16.
Obviously, there’s a lot of emotion going back to a place where you had so much success.
The Clippers made a tribute video for Crawford in his return.
I’M NOT CRYING, YOU’RE CRYING!
Crawford finished with 11 points, three rebounds and three assists in the win – including this 3-pointer which might as well been attempted from Minneapolis.
Rivers Continues Success Against Wolves
Austin Rivers has been at the wrong end of a lot of jokes, but he’s playing some pretty good basketball in 2017-18 as the Clippers are desperately looking for scorers.
On Wednesday night, Rivers put up 23 points, shooting 9-for-18 from the field. This came three nights after putting up 30 points on the Wolves, 21 coming from the 3-point line.
In his last four games, he’s hit 23+ in three of the four. With Blake Griffin out of the lineup in Los Angeles, the Clippers will need somebody to pick up some sort of slack. It appears as if Rivers will at least attempt to be that guy.
The Wolves are back at it Sunday night against the Mavericks. Tipoff is at 6 p.m. at Target Center.