Coming into Sunday night, the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Miami Heat were two of seven teams in the NBA to start their season with a 2-0 record. While it’s an extremely small sample size, Wolves fans have to like what they’ve seen as Minnesota picked up their third straight victory to open the year defeating the Heat by a score of 116-109.
The Wolves helped pave the way to a win with a strong first quarter that saw Karl-Anthony Towns score 15 points and pull down seven rebounds.
As Minnesota ended the quarter on a 22-4 run, it appeared as if they were about to run Miami out of the Target Center, but the Heat had a rebuttal in the second quarter behind the play of Kendrick Nunn.
The rookie guard put up 18 points in the opening half to help the Heat go on an 18-4 run at the end of the second quarter to give Miami a 57-55 lead at halftime and build a lead as large as seven points in the third quarter.
Although the Wolves had their issues from beyond the three-point line, where they shot 13-for-45 (28.9%), Minnesota would make a run in the fourth quarter to get back into the game where Andrew Wiggins would take over.
Wiggins began the season missing his first 13 shots from beyond the arc, but came alive in the final three minutes against Miami, driving in for a game-tying layup with 3:28 remaining that would start a string of 11 consecutive points for the enigmatic forward.
.@22Wiggins took over 😤 pic.twitter.com/gjto0ixOpb
— FanDuel Sports Network North (@FanDuelSN_NOR) October 28, 2019
With his first three-pointer of the year giving the Wolves a 104-101 lead, Wiggins drained two more three-pointers to give him a season-high 25 points and Minnesota a 110-103 advantage that would essentially put the game away.
The win gave the Wolves their best start since the 2013-14 season and matched the second-best start in franchise history. Minnesota will look to keep its early-season momentum going as it heads back on the road to take on the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday night.
