MINNEAPOLIS _ The brave and probably bored souls who cut through the biting cold to take refuge for a few hours at Target Center didn't exactly get to see poetic NBA basketball.
The Timberwolves are trying to survive a rash of injuries while the struggling Grizzlies make no excuses for their style of play. They are here to muck up the game, slow things down and make it a choppy affair.
The teams at least gave fans a little bonus _ overtime to keep them out of the frigid air a while longer. Or perhaps it wasn't such a good thing given the play was about as sloppy as your morning commute in a snowstorm.
At least the Wolves sent the fans home a little happier than they arrived in a 99-97 overtime victory that included a wild finish in which Karl-Anthony Towns buried a shot from the deep right corner off a miss from Andrew Wiggins at the buzzer.
Towns overcame foul trouble to score 16 points and add 10 rebounds, and he was overcome by teammates at the end of the game as they laughed their way off the court following perhaps their ugliest victory of the season. Jerryd Bayless had 19 points and 12 assists while Mike Conley led Memphis with 26 points.
Since taking over for Tom Thibodeau, Wolves interim coach Ryan Saunders hasn't been afraid to tinker with rotations and substitution patterns, unlike the rigid Thibodeau.
Toward the end of the first quarter and in the early minutes of the second Saunders unleashed perhaps his maddest experiment yet _ four big mean off the bench in Dario Saric, Anthony Tolliver, Luol Deng and Gorgui Dieng, playing alongside either point guard Isaiah Canaan, who made his Wolves debut on a 10-day contract, or Bayless. They actually played well, and increased and early Wolves lead from 11 to 15 by over the 3:56 they were on the floor together.
That lineup combination came about in part from Towns' nagging foul trouble.
Initially, the Wolves were doing just fine without him. In the first quarter after Towns picked up two fouls a little over three minutes in, the Grizzlies had a sluggish offensive performance, committing eight turnovers and shooting just 6 of 19. Dieng did a commendable job filling in for Towns, scoring seven points and handing out three assists. The Wolves led 24-16 after one when the big lineup pushed that to 15 early in the second quarter. Bayless was the primary scorer of that group, as he compiled eight points in the second.
But Memphis took advantage of Towns' foul trouble the remainder of the half. With the Wolves going cold (9 of 23 in the second quarter), Memphis was able to chip away and tie the proceedings 44-44 at the half. Towns didn't score in the first half.
The game took a turn for the ugly in the third quarter as both teams played and aesthetically aching brand of basketball.
Towns finally got going and put up 10 in the quarter _ but he committed his fourth foul, this time while Marc Gasol was shooting a 3-pointer. The Wolves led 60-52 when Towns committed that foul. It was 80-80 after Towns re-entered with 9:05 to play.
Memphis took the lead 91-89 when Bruno Caboclo drained a 3 with 1:57 to play as the Wolves found it difficult to score down the stretch of regulation, but they got a key bucket off an inbounds play as Towns dunked to tie the score at 93. Mike Conley missed a runner on Memphis' next possession and Bayless missed twice of the Wolves as the game went to an extra session nobody asked for but got anyway.
At least Towns was able to get them cheering out the door.
