Anthony Edwards scored a game-high 24 points, Karl-Anthony Towns tallied 22 points as part of a well-rounded performance and the visiting Minnesota Timberwolves rolled to a 122-95 win over the Houston Rockets on Friday.
Towns added eight rebounds and six assists while Edwards dished out five assists. Both shot 8 for 17 from the floor for the Timberwolves, who shot 52.3 percent and scored 60 points in the paint in the opener of a four-game road trip.
Naz Reid, who made 3-of-6 3-point attempts, and Jaden McDaniels tallied 16 points apiece for the Timberwolves, while Rudy Gobert added 13 points and 12 rebounds.
Jalen Green led the Rockets with 20 points, while Alperen Sengun added 19, with his streak of 20-point games snapped at seven. Jabari Smith Jr. paired 16 points with nine rebounds for Houston, which has lost four of its last six.
Leading by 10 at the break, the Timberwolves ceded no ground in the third quarter. McDaniels and Mike Conley hit timely 3-pointers as Minnesota shot 55 percent in the period, with Edwards and Towns scoring seven points apiece. Even with Green scoring 10 points in the frame, and with the Timberwolves committing five turnovers, the Rockets trailed 84-72 entering the final period.
Just over four minutes into that frame, that deficit swelled to 22 when Minnesota answered a Cam Whitmore dunk with a Towns layup, a Jordan McLaughlin 3-pointer and a breakaway dunk from Gobert that pushed the Timberwolves’ lead to 100-78 with 7:59 remaining.
The Timberwolves’ shared approach was evident early. By the 5:19 mark of the opening period, all five Minnesota starters had scored in an 18-18 deadlock. The visitors closed the period by capitalizing on the Rockets’ miscues, extending to a 32-24 lead when Edwards completed a three-point play with 1:16 left in the period following a bad pass from Whitmore.
The Rockets showed signs of fight early in the second, whittling a 13-point deficit to 39-34 on a pair of Green free throws. However, the Timberwolves answered with a Conley 3-pointer, a McDaniels transition basket following a Sengun turnover, and a Reid layup that preceded a steal and transition dunk from Gobert to extend the margin to 48-34.
The Rockets kept fighting uphill and were largely undone by their mistakes. When Green drilled a 3-pointer late in the first half, that set the halftime score at 56-46. But it came after Edwards took advantage of a blown defensive assignment and threw down a thunderous dunk in the halfcourt.
–Field Level Media
