ATLANTA _ Little by little, Timberwolves' coach Tom Thibodeau's young team is learning how to win.
Wednesday's 92-84 victory at Atlanta was their third in four games, and they would have gone 4-for-4 had they not melted down and lost a nine-point lead in the final minute of regular time and the game to Houston last weekend.
This time, the Wolves led 15-4 early and then trailed by as many as five points before winning the fourth quarter and the game on a night they used their size, rebounding and Karl-Anthony Towns' 17-point, 17-rebound effort to beat a team playing without big man Dwight Howard.
The Wolves outrebounded Atlanta 52-35 and outscored the Hawks 25-15 in the fourth quarter to win for the ninth time in 28 games this season, even though they still didn't protect the ball well in the final minutes.
The Hawks played their second consecutive game without Howard (back tightness) and two nights after winning by a basket in Oklahoma City, the Hawks again started small, with Paul Millsap playing a center on TV and shooter Kyle Korver moved to a "stretch" power forward's role.
They promptly fell behind by 11 points on a night when the Wolves focused on using their size to outrebound Atlanta and Towns focused on posting-up near the basket.
With Mike Muscala providing size and 16 points off the bench, the Hawks recovered from that early deficit and repeatedly came back in a careening game that saw the Wolves lead 88-82 with 3:23 left.
The last time the Timberwolves came to Atlanta, they led by 34 points early in the third quarter, trailed by a point with fewer than four minutes remaining and won by 10 points after Towns and Wiggins led them on a closing 11-0 run.
That was more than 13 months ago, two weeks into a 29-victory season that started with the Wolves winning their first four road games over the Lakers in Los Angeles and at Denver, Chicago and Atlanta.
Wiggins matched a career-scoring high at the time with 33 points that including seven in those closing run. After the game, Towns looked across the Philips Arena locker room toward Wiggins' empty stall and said, "A superstar wanting to end the game on his terms, that's what I saw."
All this time later, Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer stared blankly before Wednesday's game when he was asked if he remembers last season's meeting in Atlanta.
"No, what happened?" he asked. "They beat us."
He was told his team trailed by 34 points by coming back valiantly.
"Actually, somebody mentioned that the other night," Budenholzer said. "Somebody said we had a big comeback, but we lost, right?"
Yes, his team did in a game that made sportswriters write, rewrite and then rewrite again.
"I'm sure my brain was going a lot of different directions, too," Budenholzer said.
It probably did so again Wednesday in a first half that swung wildly from opening tap to intermission.
The Wolves started by building early leads of 8-2 and 15-4 before the Hawks answered back without waiting for the deficit to grow to 34 points.
Their response was a 14-0 run that turned the game's momentum after Muscala came off the Hawks' bench and provided energy and effort, not to mention some much-needed size.
That burst took them from 11 points behind and help eventually push them into a 24-19 lead with nearly three minutes still left in the first quarter.
By the time the quarter was over, though, the Wolves countered with a 9-2 run of their own that sent them to the second quarter with a 28-26 lead.
With Howard out and the Hawks mostly undersized, the Wolves hit the backboards hard, outrebounding Atlanta 30-20 in the first half. They regained a 40-33 lead midway through second quarter, but the Hawks pulled with a point with 2{ minutes left.
The Wolves finished the first half with a 7-2 run that sent them into halftime leading 49-44.
