MINNEAPOLIS — Karl-Anthony Towns had 34 points and 12 rebounds and the Minnesota Timberwolves snapped Portland’s six-game winning streak with a 110-109 victory over the Trail Blazers on Monday night.
Andrew Wiggins scored 29 points and Ricky Rubio had 11 points, 16 assists and seven rebounds for the Timberwolves, who bounced back from an ugly home loss to Sacramento that eliminated them from postseason contention on Saturday.
Damian Lillard scored 25 points for Portland, but had a rough shooting night. He made just 7 of 21 shots, including 3 of 11 3-pointers, and his potential game-winning pull-up jumper at the buzzer glanced off the rim. The Blazers lead Denver by 1½ games in the race for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
C.J. McCollum struggled as well, scoring 17 points on 5-for-14 shooting and 0 for 3 on 3s.
Al-Farouq Aminu scored 20 points and Maurice Harkless had 17 points, eight rebounds and a big block of a Rubio drive that gave the Blazers the ball back with 4.9 seconds to play.
Lillard got a clean look, but couldn’t knock it down and Portland missed a golden chance to pad its lead on Denver in a tense race.
It was the second game for Portland without Jusuf Nurkic, the big man who galvanized the team after coming over in a trade from Denver at the deadline, to a fractured right leg.
But they beat lowly Phoenix in their first game without him and went super-small on Monday against the Wolves with Aminu and Harkless seeing some time at center.
The sleek lineup put the Blazers in control with a 34-point second quarter, but Towns had his way in the fourth. He scored 14 points in the period.
NOTES
AWARDS: The NBA’s first awards show will be held June 26 at Basketball City at Pier 36 in Manhattan.
The league will announce the winner of the MVP and its other major awards during the show, which will be televised live on TNT.
The Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, Sixth Man Award, Most Improved Player and Coach of the Year will be announced during the NBA Awards Show. The league said Monday that it will announce new awards that will be unveiled during the telecast in the coming months.
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