INDIANAPOLIS _ Karl-Anthony Towns made the layup as Damontas Sabonis fouled him. After the ball fell through the hoop, Towns turned to the Wolves bench, flexed and let out a yell you could faintly hear in the second deck of Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
Towns was officially back after a left knee sprain and illness caused him to miss 15 consecutive games.
The question now is, will his return rehabilitate the Wolves' season?
The Wolves fell in his return, 116-114, to the Pacers in their fourth straight loss as they couldn't get a late bucket to put them over the top of a winnable game.
Towns finished with 27 points in his return while Andrew Wiggins added 22. T.J. Warren had 28 for Indiana while Malcolm Brogdon added 12, including a go-ahead floater.
With the game tied 114 in the fourth, the Wolves came up empty on multiple offensive possessions. Both Wiggins and Towns had their feet on the sideline when they caught passes, leading to two turnovers. Towns' was especially heartbreaking for the Wolves, as his 3-point attempt was good.
The Pacers responded with a floater from Brogdon with 18.3 seconds to play to take a two-point lead.
A Shabazz Napier 3 missed on the other end, but Robert Covington forced a jump ball with 4.1 seconds to play. Jeremy Lamb secured the jump ball for Indiana
Towns figures to cure a lot of the ills on the offensive end of the floor for the Wolves, except that didn't happen early on Friday. The Wolves missed their first seven shots before Towns got going, as he scored the team's first nine points, including that early three-point play.
Once the Wolves overcame that slow start, they were fine offensively after having one of the least efficient offenses in the league with Towns out. On the flip side, the Wolves defense was one of the best in the league with Towns out.
The defense didn't quite hold up as well against an Indiana team that was humming Friday night. The Pacers shot 63% in the first half on their way to 56% for the game.
Indiana used an 11-1 run that spanned the end of the first and beginning of the second quarter to take its largest lead of the first half, 11, 37-26, 45 seconds into the second. Towns would play 13 minutes in the first half and scored 13 points and grabbed two rebounds.
At one point when he was out of the game, he went to the tunnel near the Wolves locker room and rode a stationary bike.
Meanwhile, the Pacers maintained their lead as the Wolves tried to cut into it. After the Pacers went up 11, the Wolves responded with a 9-0 run and even took a two-point lead multiple times in the quarter thanks to productive minutes from Jarrett Culver and Jordan McCLaughlin, who was recalled from Iowa after the Wolves traded Jeff Teague and Treveon Graham to Atlanta for Allen Crabbe, who was not with the Wolves on Friday.
The Pacers led 67-61 at the half.
Both teams came out on first in the third quarter. The Wolves seemingly couldn't miss from 3-point range, except the Pacers had an answer nearly each time the Wolves hit one. The Wolves would eventually take an 86-85 lead after a Towns bucket. But for as well as they shot (7 of 13 from deep) the entered the fourth down the same margin, six, that they entered the third. That's because the Pacers shot 10 of 18 in that quarter.
The Wolves just couldn't get stops until later in the fourth quarter. With Gorgui Dieng and Covington on the floor together, and got within 107-103 with seven minutes left in the quarter.
The Wolves got within 114-112 after a Wiggins layup with 2:17 to play and tied it 114-114 on a pair of Towns free throws but those would be their last points.
