Towns Scores 56 as Hawks Fall to Wolves

The Atlanta Hawks fought valiantly against the Minnesota Timberwolves but were ultimately dispatched by the individual brilliance of Karl-Anthony Towns, who dropped a season-high, career-high and Wolves franchise record 56 points against the Hawks on Wednesday night, dropping the away team by a final margin of 126 to 114.

This was a well-played affair from both teams, as the only glaring statistic was an ugly 20 total turnovers from Atlanta. If the Hawks had been able to curtail some of those miscues – and perhaps double- or even triple-team Towns when the opportunity arose – this might’ve been much closer than its final score would indicate.

The Hawks even led for the majority of the 1^st quarter, until Gorgui Dieng hit a layup to give the Wolves a lead they would never lose.

Again, all praise to this Wolves victory has to go to Karl Towns, who completely eviscerated any semblance of Hawks defense at every opportunity. The KATman torched the Hawks at all three levels and finished with those immense 56 points (the third-highest total scored by any player this season) on 19 of 32 shots, including 6 of 8 from downtown and 12 of 15 from the charity stripe.

Towns also added a game-high 15 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 block and +7 box plus/minus.

Of course, Towns performed all these miracles in a game-high 41 minutes, and Wolves head coach Tom Thibodeau only played an 8-man rotation in this tilt to help propel Towns to his giant night (not making any excuses though — he totally blitzed ATL).

Despite this legendary performance from one of the game’s best young players, the Hawks were not without some impressive individual performances as well.