Timberwolves coach Tom Thibodeau says he has told his young team many times that as soon as they play defense with the same passion they possess for scoring the basketball, they'll win consistently.
Might they be listening?
Wednesday's convincing 107-80 victory at Utah suggests so.
Just four nights after Houston shot 58 3-pointers and scored 142 points against them, the Wolves limited the Northwest Division first-place Jazz to 35 points in the first half and 53 through three quarters on their way to their first victory in Salt Lake City since March 2015.
The Wolves won for the sixth time in nine games and remain three games behind Denver for the Western Conference's eighth and final playoff spot after the Nuggets beat Milwaukee Wednesday as well.
The last time these two teams played, the Wolves blew a nine-point lead in the final, ticking minutes and allowed Utah the game's final 11 points in a 94-92 loss at Target Center.
That's one of 14 times this season they've lost a double-digit lead and the game, but they have not done so since Feb. 10 against New Orleans.
This time, the Wolves' 20-5 run that ended the first half gave them a 16-point halftime lead and the Wolves led by as many as 30 points and never by fewer than 15 in the second half.
The Wolves now have held the opponent to fewer than 90 points in four of their last seven games and under 100 in five of those as well.
They're also 5-2 in those seven games.
It's not rocket science, Thibodeau said before Wednesday's game.
"Three of the last four games, I thought the defense was very good and we won all three of those games," he said. "The one game in which it wasn't, we lost. If you play that way with a consistency, we'll win."
The Wolves' defense and two more 20-plus point games from Andrew Wiggins and Karl Anthony-Towns sent the Jazz to its second defeat in as many nights. They lost 109-106 in Oklahoma City on Tuesday night while the Wolves waited for them in Salt Lake City on a four-game trip that ends Saturday in San Antonio.
Wiggins' 20-point night stretched his streak of such games to 19 consecutively, by three the longest in franchise history.
Towns' 21-point, 15-rebound night was his 16th consecutive 20-point game and his fifth consecutive 20/15 game. That matches New Orleans' Anthony Davis for the longest such streak this season.
Asked before the game about his team's increasing defensive proficiency, Thibodeau said, "We just have to be consistent. We have to work at it every day. There's a lot of work that has to be done. But again, don't get lost in the stuff that really doesn't matter and get lost in the stuff that does and that's our improvement, particularly on the defensive end. And I think there's another level we can get to offensively as well."
