» Bucks lose:
Towns, Wiggins fierce in rout
The Bucks fall behind early and never recover, falling to the Minnesota Timberwolves, 11699, in Minneapolis.
Minneapolis — Karl-Anthony Towns set the tone with physical play.
Shabazz Muhammad lit up the Milwaukee Bucks as usual. Andrew Wiggins was active all night.
And the Minnesota Timberwolves cruised to a 116-99 victory over the Bucks before an enthused sellout crowd of 17,779 at the Target Center on Friday night.
Towns, fresh off his first triple-double on Wednesday, dunked and blocked his way to a dominant performance and finished with 18 points and 16 rebounds.
Wiggins led Minnesota (1122) with 31 points and Zach LaVine added 24 while hitting 6 of 9 three-point attempts. Wiggins punctuated the Timberwolves’ victory with a hammer dunk over Bucks center Miles Plumlee late in the game. Muhammad finished with 22 points.
The Timberwolves were hot from three-point range as they sank 13 of 25 attempts (52%), and they hit 43 of 77 shots overall (56%).
“The ball stuck,” Bucks coach Jason Kidd said. “But the
big thing is our defense; we didn’t put up any resistance tonight, and you’re going to find yourselves in trouble if you do that. LaVine and Muhammad made threes. Not just the threes. They got warmup shots tonight.”
Giannis Antetokounmpo paced the Bucks (15-16) with 25 points, seven rebounds and five assists in 32 minutes. Jabari Parker added 20 points and six rebounds in 38 minutes.
Kidd debated sitting Antetokounmpo for the fourth quarter with a quick turnaround heading into an early-evening start in Chicago on New Year’s Eve. Antetokounmpo returned to the game with 6:35 left.
“I think it was 10 (actually 11),” Kidd said of the deficit. “We were getting Giannis back in to see if we could get it any lower. But we just couldn’t.”
Milwaukee had a season-high 36 assists in a lopsided victory over Detroit on Wednesday but had just 22 assists on Friday. Malcolm Brogdon started at point guard in place of Matthew Dellavedova, out with a right hamstring injury.
“The ball just didn’t move as well today,” Brogdon said. “Dribbling it too much. Part of it is Delly is out and he’s a facilitator. He’s our prime guy, the most unselfish guy we have.
“But also we’ve got to take initiative for ourselves and just move the ball. It’s an 82-game season and things happen. We have to step up even when the rotations change.”
Brogdon and Greg Monroe have been a strong combo off the Bucks bench and that was broken up with Brogdon in the starting lineup.
Mirza Teletovic returned after missing two games with a concussion and had eight points in 19 minutes.
“When somebody gets over 100 points, you definitely realize you’re not playing the right defense,” Teletovic said. “We struggled with that tonight.
“When you’re missing a point guard like Delly, it’s very important for this team.”
Parker said the team’s effort was disappointing.
“You’ve got to care,” he said. “We didn’t care out there. We owe ourselves.
“I’d rather lose to the Bulls than lose to this team. Nothing against them, but we’ve got to win these games. If we want to be good, we’ve got to win these games. We tip our hats to them; they played really well.
“But we’re negative when we play teams under .500.”
The Bucks trailed by as many as 15 points in the first half and the deficit was 14 before they went on an 8-0 run to get within 44-38 with 5:16 left in the second quarter.
Parker and Tony Snell hit back-to-back threepointers and Antetokounmpo dunked after taking a long outlet pass from Parker.
But Wiggins scored seven points in the last 41⁄2 minutes of the half to help the Timberwolves lead, 55-48, at intermission.
Minnesota shot 55.6% in the half (20 of 36) and made 6 of 11 three-point attempts.
The Bucks trailed by 19 early in the fourth quarter but used an 8-2 run to pull within 92-79 with 8:49 left.
Antetokounmpo returned to the game, but there was no rally coming as LaVine beat the shot clock with a three-pointer, first ruled no good but later added to the Timberwolves lead after a video review.