Nets’ Din-winner
PG’s shot sinks Minny
THE NETS were well aware that Minnesota had been blowing teams off the starting line.
But Brooklyn not only hung in at the beginning, it made the big plays at the end.
Spencer Dinwiddie made the goahead jumper with 10.1 seconds left and tied his career high with 26 points, leading Brooklyn to a 98-97 victory over the Timberwolves on Wednes- day night.
The Wolves raced to a 17-0 lead against Indiana on Sunday and then 16-0 against the Lakers the next night, but the Nets never let them find an early flow.
“When you spot a team that many points, it’s always hard to come back and that’s something we really didn’t want to happen,” Dinwiddie said, “and obviously we didn’t.”
Jimmy Butler missed at the buzzer as the Timberwolves lost for just the second time in nine games.
“I just think as a whole we didn’t play that much good basketball and we get put in that situation, which from the jump could have went either way,” Butler said. “At least we fought and got back in the game, but I didn’t make a shot.”
Dinwiddie added nine assists as the Nets improved to 2-0 in the new year — more wins than they had all last January, when they were 1-15. Joe Harris came off the bench to score 17 points.
“Really proud of how the team’s progressing and just showing a resiliency that I felt that we didn’t have last year,” Nets coach Kenny Atkinson said. “We felt last year we kind of crumbled in a situation like that where they made a run. We stayed together and really showed a lot of physical and mental toughness.”
Butler finished with 30 points, mostly on the strength of 16-of-18 shooting at the foul line. Andrew Wiggins added 17 points and Karl-Anthony Towns had 16 points and 10 rebounds. GETTY