It’s Andrew Wiggins’ world, we’re just living in it.
The Timberwolves wing continued his strong start to the 2019-20 season, erupting for 40 points on Friday night, leading the Wolves to a 125-119 overtime win over the Warriors at Target Center.
Wiggins hit a layup with 5.6 seconds left in the game to tie the game at 110-110, effectively sending the game to overtime. In overtime, he finished with six points, including a clutch 3-pointer with 23.5 seconds left to put the Wolves up 123-119.
If you’re keeping track at home, that’s now three out of eight games Wiggins has won games late for Minnesota.
The win improves the Timberwolves to 5-3 on the season, tied for fourth in the West.
But back to Wiggins.
Some tidbits:
- He finished with 40 points, seven assists, five rebounds and three blocks while shooting 17-for-33 from the field.
- His seven assists equated to 17 points. And math then tells us that Wiggins accounted for 57 Timberwolves points or 45.6 percent.
- By finishing with 40 points, five or more rebounds, five or more assists plus three blocks, he became the first player in Timberwolves history to put up a stat line like that. That’s not even an oddly specific stat like player to score 40 points on a Tuesday in January while wearing blue. Those are all indicators of a very strong all-around game.
- On the season, Wiggins is now averaging 24.6 points, 4.8 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 1.1 blocks per game while shooting 46.1 percent from the field.
- Wiggins has had six or more assists in three of his last four games.
- With 30 points on Wednesday against the Grizzlies and 40 points on Friday, it’s the first time Wiggins has had back-to-back 30-point games since Feb. 14-15, 2017.
- It’s clear that Wiggins is buying into the system. He had just four shots in-between the free-throw line and 3-point line (making three). Twenty-two of his shot attempts came in the paint and he connected on 12 of those.
Back to the game.
It wasn’t a pretty win. As you know, the Warriors aren’t what they once were. D’Angelo Russell returned to the lineup and did he ever make his presence felt. Russell erupted for 52 points, nine rebounds and five assists against the Wolves.
The Wolves had 18 turnovers in the game but forced 19. There were plenty of things to learn from in the game, but winning in the NBA is hard, especially for a team like the Wolves with so many new faces.
Karl-Anthony Towns didn’t have his best night but still finished with 20 points, 14 rebounds and four assists. Robert Covington added 17 points and a classic Covington line of five steals and three blocks. Jake Layman and Josh Okogie combined for 28 points and 12 rebounds off the bench. Okogie, especially defensively, made some huge plays for the Wolves down the stretch.
It’s an 82-game season. There are going to be plenty of ups and downs, and this game in particular and a whole bunch of them. But the important thing is that it ended up an up.
The Wolves are back at it in a Sunday matinee against the Denver Nuggets. Tipoff is set for 2:30 p.m. CT. You can get tickets here.