Timberwolves prevail
SEATTLE — Go figure the Timberwolves. They sink to a .500 record, play woefully for a month, lose to some of the NBA’s worst teams, slide even further down in the Western Conference standings … then turn around and knock off the league’s Northwest Division leader on the road.
Wally Szczerbiak scored a season-high 34 points, a franchise record for a Wolves bench player, and added six rebounds and eight assists to lead Minnesota to a 112-107 victory over the Seattle SuperSonics on Friday night at KeyArena.
The Wolves led throughout, often by double digits, and held off Seattle’s fourth-quarter rally. Szczerbiak and Kevin Garnett pulled down offensive rebounds in the final minute to allow Minnesota (20-19) to run the clock down and keep the ball away from the Sonics.
The Wolves had lost eight of their past nine road games.
Garnett added 24 points, and Troy Hudson, who had been struggling on offense, added 20 off the bench as the Wolves pulled within 7 1/2 games of Seattle in the division.
Ray Allen led the Sonics with 25 points but shot only 7 of 23 from the floor. Luke Ridnour led Seattle with a career-high 19 points.
When the season started, the Sonics were the ones expected to be chasing the Wolves in the Northwest Division. Instead, it’s the Wolves doing the chasing. Seattle relied on three-point shooting to open a wide lead on the Wolves in the division.
After going 2 of 30 on three-point attempts in their previous two games, both losses, the Wolves went 10 for 17 on three-pointers against Seattle. The Sonics were 12 of 25 on three-pointers.
The Wolves shot 58 percent from the floor overall, a season best.
Minnesota played its eighth straight game without starting point guard Sam Cassell, who has been out with a hamstring injury. He said there is a chance he would play tonight at Portland. Latrell Sprewell was questionable before the game because of the flu. He started but scored only two points in 15 minutes.
One thing the Wolves wanted to avoid was getting into a three-point shootout with the Sonics; they ended up getting into one anyway. By end of the first quarter, the Wolves had already taken six 3-point shots, making three of them. Sprewell missed his first two three-point attempts to bring his streak of misses to 14 consecutive.
Szczerbiak, who has shied away from shooting a lot of 3-pointers this season, was 2 of 2 behind the arc to help the Wolves take a 25-18 lead into second quarter. Those were the only 3-point attempts he would take. He finished 11 of 19 from the floor and 10 of 12 from the free-throw line in 39 minutes.