Atlanta Hawks: Rapid Reaction to Thrilling Victory vs. Wolves

Rapid reactions to the Atlanta Hawks defeating the Minnesota Timberwolves 123 to 120 in overtime.

In what was easily the most entertaining game of the season for the Atlanta Hawks, the road team traveled up to Minnesota and defeated the Wolves in overtime on the back of some clutch scoring from the team’s rookies as well as some timely team defense.

The Hawks were down by 2 with 20.7 seconds remaining and the Wolves inbounding the ball. Dario Saric softly dumped the ball into Karl-Anthony Towns, who was not quite ready for it, and Kent Bazemore reached in and streaked to the basket for a game-tying dunk.

As we’ve said before, this is the kind of effort that Baze brings every night, so let’s hope the Atlanta Hawks are able to accrue some assets in return for him in a trade, which is almost certainly on the way at some point this season – but I digress.

Perhaps the main culprit for the Timberwolves’ loss on the evening was max-contract player Andrew Wiggins, who missed a rash of free throws down the end of the game and in the overtime period and finished the game with a 5 of 12 showing from the charity stripe in all – less than ideal.

The Wolves got mammoth performances from Karl-Anthony Towns (31 points, 19 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 blocks) and Robert Covington (28 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 blocks), but it was not enough to buoy inefficient performances from Wiggins (16 points on 14 shots) and Derrick Rose 25 points on 24 shots.

This was a wild game typified by some extreme momentum changes over the course of the night, in a game in which the Wolves were wearing their “earned uniforms” created because the team made the playoffs last year.

With a loss to the Atlanta Hawks, who are admittedly up to 10 wins on the season, another playoff trip in the stacked Western Conference is looking a little sketchy. Either way, this was a tremendously entertaining game for Hawks fans.