MINNEAPOLIS — Without their usual afternoon naps and their star center, the Timberwolves lost Wednesday afternoon at Target Center, 130-105, to Milwaukee.
It was their fourth loss in their last five games, their sixth in the last eight and their sixth consecutive game overall to the Bucks.
They lost games rescheduled on consecutive days by a combined 55 points after Monday's home game against Brooklyn was moved to Tuesday afternoon.
Khris Middleton led Milwaukee with 27 points while rookie Anthony Edwards scored 24 for the Wolves.
The Bucks played without two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo while the Wolves went without star center Karl-Anthony Towns.
Antetokounmpo missed his sixth consecutive game because of an injured knee. The Bucks now are 3-3 in those games with their current two-game winning streak preceded by a three-game losing streak.
They beat Orlando by 37 points on Sunday, 124-87 and end a stretch in which they play nine of 10 games on the road Thursday at Atlanta.
The Wolves on Wednesday played the third game of a four-game homestand that ends Friday against former Wolves guard Jimmy Butler and Miami.
Towns missed Tuesday's home loss to Brooklyn to remember the anniversary of his mother Jacqueline Cruz-Towns' death from COVID-19 complications at age 58. He didn't play on Wednesday for what the team again called personal reasons.
Naz Reid started for him at center instead.
As they did against the Nets, the Wolves on Wednesday played in a rare weekday afternoon start. They did so because of evening curfews imposed in Minneapolis and other nearby cities following Sunday's killing of 20-year-old Daunte Wright by a Brooklyn Center police officer.
Tuesday's game started at 3 p.m., Wednesday's game at 3:30 p.m.
The Wolves made just one of their first 14 shots Wednesday and fell behind 16-5 early.
They then made five of their last eight shots in the first quarter. They trailed by 24-19 at quarter's end after falling behind by those double-digits yet again.
The Bucks turned the game with a 17-2 run that ended the second quarter and began the third quarter. Included in that was an 8-0 run in the second quarter's final minute that became 11-2 before first half's end.
The Wolves trailed 61-44 at halftime and by 30 points after halftime.
Without Towns Wednesday, veteran forward Ed Davis played in his second consecutive game after he hadn't played in the previous 30. Included in his playing time was a fierce block on Bucks forward Bobby Portis' attempted dunk in the third quarter's final minute.
The Wolves used a 9-0, fourth-quarter run to help get the deficit back to 20 points — at 116-96 — in the game's final four minutes.
