Timberwolves 99, Thunder 96
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Gorgui Dieng scored 25 points to lead the Minnesota Timberwolves to a 99-96 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder Friday at the Chesapeake Energy Arena.
Dieng was 7 of 12 from the field and 11 of 11 from the free-throw line. Andrew Wiggins scored 20 points and Ricky Rubio posted 12 assists and 13 points, including the game-winning 3-pointer as the Timberwolves improved to 21-45.
Kevin Durant scored 28 points on 11 of 20 shooting for the Thunder. Russell Westbrook added 26 points and eight assists. Enes Kanter came off the bench to pour in 17 points and 14 rebounds. But it was not enough as the Thunder fell to 44-21.
With 5:26 left in the game, Wiggins hit 1 of 2 from the free-throw line to cut Oklahoma City's lead to 85-80. Westbrook then missed a long 3-pointer and Dieng made them pay with a layup.
Zach LaVine drained a 3-pointer to give the Timberwolves its first lead of the fourth. But Westbrook drove the lane for an easy layup to give Oklahoma City the lead back at 87-86. After the T-Wolves hit a pair of free throws, Durant knocked down a 3-pointer.
The Thunder came up with consecutive defensive stops. The second one led to Westbrook throwing a no-look back pass to Durant for a fastbreak dunk. It put the home team up 92-88 with 2:28 on the clock.
Dieng hit a pair of free throws to get the Timberwolves to within two. Durant missed a short jumper and Minnesota had a chance to tie the game. But Dieng and Towns both missed their opportunities and it led to a reverse dunk from Durant with 1:00 left in the game.
After Dieng hit two more from the free-throw line, Oklahoma City held a 94-92 advantage. A moving screen was called on Steven Adams, giving Minnesota the ball. Karl-Anthony Towns then tied the game with a short jumper in the lane and 41.9 seconds left.
After Anthony Morrow missed a 3-point attempt, Towns hit a clutch fade-away jumper with 16 seconds left.
Durant got the ball and drove the baseline. He missed, but Adams came up with the put back with 10 seconds on left in the game.
That was enough time for Wiggins to find Rubio alone at the 3-point line and he buried the game-winning shot to close out the night.
NOTES: The Thunder announced Friday that assistant coach Monty Williams will not return to the team this season after the death of his wife Ingrid last month in a car accident. "The most important thing for Monty during this time is for him to be with his family, and the most important thing for us as an organization is to support him as a person, in any way that we can," Thunder general manager Sam Presti said. "Even though Monty will not return to the team this season, his presence will be felt by all of us within the program and we will remain close with him and his family." ... After missing 11 games with a foot strain, Minnesota F Nemanja Bjelica returned to action. "He has been doing a lot of individual work," Timberwolves coach Sam Mitchell said. "But we're not going to go in this late in the game, and we're playing our young guys 44 to 45 minutes, and I'm going to have a full intra-squad scrimmage for one guy. I'm not going to punish the rest of the players like that." ... Oklahoma City coach Billy Donovan said he tried to recruit Minnesota C Karl-Anthony Towns to come to Florida out of high school. "I recruited him hard. He visited our school," Donovan said. "I knew I was in trouble. When he said, 'coach, I really think I'd like to come. But I want to take one more trip.' I said where do you want to go. He said Kentucky. I said, 'OK, I'm probably going to lose out on that one.'"