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Three Takeaways From Sunday's Win Over The Bulls

The Wolves beat the Bulls 117-89 on Sunday at the Target Center in front of a sold-out crowd. Here are three observations from our Kyle Ratke on the win.

Season Sweep

For the second-straight season, the Wolves completed the season sweep over the Chicago Bulls. That’s nothing to scoff at considering the Bulls won 42 games last season and are currently projected as the seven seed in the East.

Are they the same team that they were when they were making deep playoff runs? No, but for the Wolves, a team 3.5 games back from the playoffs, every win is important whether the opposing team is elite or not.

“That was good,” Wolves big man Gorgui Dieng, who finished with 10 points and 13 rebounds, said after the game. “Anytime you can get a win, it’s very important to us. We’re just trying to get back in the race and I think this one was very important to us.”

Wiggins The Scoring Machine

After finishing with 27 points, Wolves wing Andrew Wiggins has now scored 20 or points in 13 straight games dating back to Jan. 19. If he does it in three more games, he’ll tie Kevin Garnett for the most consecutive game with 20-plus points in team history with 16.

“Whoever’s guarding me, you’ve got to find an advantage,” Wiggins said. “You’ve got to find their weakness and go at them that way.”

On the season, Wiggins is averaging 22.6 points, 4.2 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game while shooting 45.7 percent from the field and 34.6 percent from the 3-point line. He’s enjoying his best stretch of the season. We’ll see if he can keep it going against the Cavaliers on Tuesday.

Bulls Without Stars

The Bulls were without Dwyane Wade (wrist), Jimmy Butler (heel), Nikola Mirotic (back) and Paul Zipser (ankle) in the game.

It’s easy to look at the game and say, ‘the Wolves should have won.’ But there’s a difference between ‘should win’ and actually doing it. The Wolves handled their business. A win is a win and in February, every team is pretty beat up.

“It’s tough,” Wolves coach Tom Thibodeau said. “You prepare in the morning for everybody, but mentally when you prepare, you’ve got to get ready for the primary scorers. At the end of the day, you’ve got to focus on what you can do. Once you’re in the league, you’ve proved yourself that you can play, so we were trying to get ready for everyone.”

The Wolves will try to make it two in a row on Tuesday against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. on Fox Sports North, NBA TV and 830 WCCO.