INDIANAPOLIS _ It's helpful when you can erase the sour taste of a stinging defeat by playing the next night.
So the Wolves were glad to take the floor Thursday against the Pacers after a disappointing overtime loss to the Hawks on Wednesday.
Except they followed that loss with another close one Thursday. The Wolves fell to the Pacers 122-115 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in another game that could have been theirs but slipped away late. Poor defensive execution, complete with open cutters and missed rebounds mixed in with a pair of Andrew Wiggins missed free throws late made this a veritable greatest hits of how the Wolves lose late.
Bojan Bogdanovich played the role of Wolves slayer Thursday, scoring 37 points while the Wolves sent to waste Karl-Anthony Towns' fifth-career 40-point game. Towns finished with 42 points and 16 rebounds. Indiana also shot 59 percent from 3-point range (16 of 27).
In the first quarter, the Wolves were hunting Towns, feeding him the ball on almost every possession, and Towns wasn't shy about taking shots. He took 14 of the Wolves' 24 field-goal attempts in the quarter, resulting in 23 points, a personal-best for Towns in the quarter. He was scoring inside and outside as the Pacers had trouble containing him. Behind Towns, the Wolves were able to build an early lead that grew to 35-26 by the end of the quarter.
Towns' 23 points were the most he has ever scored in a quarter and one point shy of Chauncey Billups' franchise record for most points in a quarter.
The second quarter wasn't as kind to Towns and the Wolves. Their lead grew to 12, but then Indiana started exploiting the Wolves' defense. The Pacers shot 15 of 27 for the quarter and finished the half 10 of 15 from 3-point range.
Towns rested for half the quarter and wasn't able to pick up where he left off upon re-entering. He added another six points but was flustered with the officiating and drew a technical foul. The Wolves became sloppy with the ball, committing 13 first-half turnovers, eight of them coming in the second quarter. A 52-40 Wolves lead soon became a 61-57 Pacers lead over the course of 4:15 and the Pacers had a 64-60 lead at halftime.
The Pacers carried their momentum over into the start of the quarter and increased their lead from 10 as they got quality minutes off the bench from T.J. Leaf, who finished with 18. But after the Pistons went up 10, the Wolves rallied with a 14-0 run that featured their best defense of the night. This time Towns had some help offensively. Saric scored a pair of buckets while Jeff Teague had four free throws during the stretch. Towns, however, would pick up his fourth foul with 5:45 to play and he exited until the fourth quarter. Derrick Rose helped pick up the slack on offense, but the Wolves still trailed 92-90.
Towns came back with 8:47 left and the Wolves trailing by five. He helped the Wolves get back within one score and re-take the lead as the game became into another possession game on the road. After Andrew Wiggins got back cut by Bogdanovic and missed a pair of free throws at the other end, the Wolves trailed by five inside of two minutes, a deficit they couldn't overcome again.
