Andrew Wiggins and the Minnesota Timberwolves lost against the visiting Atlanta Hawks due to missed free throws, dunks and layups.
Wiggins, a career 74 percent free throw shooter, was Minnesota’s biggest offender from the stripe in the 123-120 overtime loss. He went 5-of-12 and heard about it from a frustrated home crowd.
But Wiggins didn’t take the boos kindly.
“That’s fans for you,” Wiggins said. “We’ve got some s—ty fans, and we’ve got some good fans. That’s just how it works.”
Wiggins and the Wolves were out of sorts from the start; Wiggins forgot to put his jersey on underneath his warm-ups, and things went downhill in a hurry.
Minnesota went 21-of-38 from the free throw line overall.
“It happens,” Wiggins said. “It’s one of those days and one of those games.”
In overtime, Karl-Anthony Towns made two free throws before Wiggins went to the line for two shots with 4.5 seconds left. After missing two big free throws a few seconds earlier, Wiggins hit the first but missed his second.
The Timberwolves erased a 22-point deficit after Atlanta silenced the home crowd early with a season-high 42 first-quarter points. The Wolves held the Hawks to 47 points total over the next two quarters.
“We came out the second half and played with the edge we should have for all 48,” Towns said. “We put ourselves in that position. We dug ourselves out of a tremendous hole. We just didn’t close it out.”
Derrick Rose scored 25 points for Minnesota but sprained his right ankle late. He started again for Jeff Teague, who missed his sixth straight game with inflammation in his left ankle.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
Source:ESPN
