NEW ORLEANS — The Timberwolves blew out the Pelicans on Monday night 110-96, so the box score must show the Wolves shot the lights out on Bourbon Street, right?
That assumption, however, wasn't true as the Wolves shot just 40% from the field and 23% from three-point range.
Instead, the Wolves won their fourth straight because of their defense and rebounding, a prospect that would have been most implausible in previous seasons.
The Wolves forced the Pelicans into 23 turnovers and scored 28 points off those miscues, helping to compensate for their lackluster shooting. Jonas Valanciunas and the Pelicans dominated the Wolves on the boards when the teams last met in October and exposed just how much of a problem that could be for this team.
The Wolves evened things up on that end Monday 49-47 and used their prowess on the offensive glass to score 26 second-chance points. Karl-Anthony Towns kept his head in his matchup against Valanciunas to score 28 and help the Wolves gain control early. Jarred Vanderbilt had 16 points and 11 rebounds while Jaden McDaniels had strong minutes off the bench with 10 points.
The Wolves won despite D'Angelo Russell and Anthony Edwards shooting a combined 9-for-32.
Towns and Valanciunas have engaged in a few battles over the years and Valanciunas got under Towns' skin when the teams met twice back in Minnesota. Towns came out aggressive but determined not to let Valanciunas get to him early. Towns scored the first seven points of the game for the Wolves on his way to 23 in the first half.
That set the tone, even as Edwards and Russell struggled to find their shots. The Wolves led 20-11 in the first before New Orleans got some transition buckets to tighten the score by the end of the quarter. The Pelicans pulled back in front to lead 29-28 entering the second.
That's when the Wolves got going. It started with Russell leading an all-bench unit in the opening minutes that went on a 15-2 run that featured a pair of threes from McDaniels to open the quarter. The Pelicans went cold in the second and shot 0-for-6 from three-point range and just 8 of 20 overall. The Wolves also capitalized on New Orleans' miscues better in the second. After scoring seven points off seven Pelicans turnovers in the first quarter, the Wolves scored 16 off another seven in the second.
Towns checked back in at the 7 minutes, 26 second mark of the quarter and went back to work. The Pelicans opted not to double-team him and Towns induced Valanciunas to pick up his third foul later in the quarter. Then Towns attacked a smaller defender like Willy Hernangomez to help the Wolves finish the half with their biggest lead to that point, 66-50. The Wolves closed the half on an 18-8 run.
The Wolves set the tone in the third quarter by crashing the offensive glass on their first two possessions, which resulted in five second-chance points. The Wolves outhustled and outdefended the Pelicans on a night when their shots as a team weren't falling and built a convincing lead off that. The Wolves pushed their lead to 26, 83-57, by the 5:27 mark. Vanderbilt had three offensive rebounds in the quarter and drew a foul on another rebound attempt.
The Pelicans cut the Wolves' lead to 15 in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter, prompting coach Chris Finch to call a timeout. The Wolves responded. By the 6:30 mark the lead was back up to 26, and the Wolves were cruising again.
