Fresh off their biggest win of the season, a 132-110 victory over the Golden State Warriors in which Steph Curry was held to just 11 points on the night, the Denver Nuggets could not contain Andrew Wiggins and the Minnesota Timberwolves, falling 112-99 in the final game before the All-Star break.
Wiggins scored 40 points in the win, including going 8 for 11 from 3-point range and his fourth-quarter dunk over Nikola Jokic was the highlight reel moment of the night. Fellow T-Wolves phenom Karl-Anthony Towns scored 24 and pulled down 19 rebounds. Shabazz Muhammad had 15 points off the bench for Minnesota, as well.
Denver’s offensive attack was far more balanced, getting double-digit scoring from six of the eight players who saw floor time, but the Nuggets had no one on the offense end that could match Wiggins’ big night. Jokic, who is averaging 20.1 points per game in February, was held to 15 on the night. Gary Harris led all Nuggets with 22. Mason Plumlee made his first appearance, a start, since being traded over the weekend for Jusuf Nurkic and contributed 11 points and nine rebounds, although his -19 plus/minus ranked last on the team in the loss.
Denver heads into the All-Star break at 25-31, but still holding on to the No. 8 seed in the playoffs with a 1.5 game lead over Sacramento. Denver does note return to game action until Thursday when they will face that same Kings team on the road. Denver and Sacramento will meet three more times in total before the end of the regular season.
