MINNEAPOLIS _ It is telling that the Timberwolves didn't look like the fresher team down the stretch.
Shouldn't have been that way. Denver came to Target Center on Saturday night hot, yes. The Nuggets had won five games in a row. But they were playing without injured players Jamal Murray and Gary Harris. They were playing for the fourth time in six nights and on the back end of back-to-back games.
And yet it was the Nuggets, with the game tied at 98 midway through the fourth quarter, who did what it took to win, ending a low-scoring, disjointed fourth quarter with the win.
Struggling to stop penetration much of the night and victim to the open 3-pointers that came as a result, the Wolves lost, 107-106, to the Nuggets.
With the ball down one coming out of a time out with 14.5 seconds left, Luol Deng's corner 3 went off the far rim.
The Wolves (25-27) lost for the third time in four games, with a three-game road trip beginning at Memphis Tuesday.
Karl-Anthony Towns scored 31 points with 12 rebounds. Jerryd Bayless had 15 points and 10 assists. Deng scored 11 of Minnesota's 38 bench points.
But the Wolves struggled all night to contain Monte Morris (17 points), Malik Beasley (22) and Trey Lyles (19); the three combined to hit 8 of 16 3-pointers.
Down six midway through the final quarter, the Wolves got back-to-back 3-pointers to tie the game at 98 on Josh Okogie's corner 3, setting the stage for the final 6:24.
Out of a timeout Denver scored four straight. Towns made one of two free throws with 2:54 left. Over the final 2 minutes the Wolves got within one point twice, the final time on Deng's dunk with 40.5 seconds left. The Wolves got a steal from Taj Gibson on the ensuing possession, but couldn't convert.
The Wolves used two runs to take a 38-29 lead after a quarter. The first came from the starters, the second mainly from the bench.
The Nuggets led 17-13 when the Wolves clicked off a 9-0, one in which Bayless had five points and two assists, giving the Wolves a 22-17 lead on Bayless' 3-pointer.
After the Nuggets had pulled within 23-24, the Wolves finished off the quarter on a 14-6 run, one in which Derrick Rose scored twice, Deng had a three-point play and Dario Saric hit a 3-pointer. Towns led the way with nine points in the quarter, but the bench chipped in 14 points and the team shot nearly 65 percent.
That lead was quickly gone, thanks to Denver's 16-4 run over the first 3:40 of the second quarter that put Denver up 45-42 on Torrey Craig's basket.
It was back and forth until, down one with 3-plus minutes left, Towns and Bayless each had three points in a quick 8-0 run over the next minute and a half to take a 64-57 lead with 1:29 left in the half before the Nuggets finished the half by scoring the final four points.
The Wolves were trailing by two mid-way through the third quarter when Nuggets center Nikola Jokic missed one shot, got his rebound, missed again, then was called for an offensive foul. Livid, he was called for a technical, with Towns hitting the free throw.
That seemed to change the tenor of the game. On the ensuing possession Towns drove for a dunk then, moments later, fed Deng for a corner 3 with 3:39 left in the quarter, a 6-0 run that forced a Denver timeout. That run went to 8-0 out of the timeout on Towns jumper that put the Wolves up 85-79.
But the Nuggets came back, again, finishing the quarter on a 10-3 run _ with 3-pointers by Lyles and Juan Hernangomez _ to lead 89-88 entering the fourth quarter.
