In a battle of the NBA’s two worst teams by record, and with draft-lottery odds arguably the biggest prize, the Rockets pulled off a nearly impossible loss by going scoreless over Friday’s final seven-plus minutes in Minnesota. Houston has now lost 22 of its last 23 games, overall.
A jumper from DJ Augustin put Houston up 16 with 7:31 left in the game, and they were then outscored 22-0 the rest of the way in a stunning 107-101 victory (box score) for the Timberwolves. With the win, Minnesota improved to 11-34, which puts the Rockets (12-32) within range of the league’s worst mark — and with a rematch looming in under 24 hours.
Per ESPN Stats & Info, Houston is just the fourth NBA team over the last 25 years to go scoreless over the last 7:30 of a game.
Star center Karl-Anthony Towns was the clear standout for Minnesota with 29 points, 16 rebounds, and 8 assists, while his counterpart, Christian Wood, led the Rockets with 24 points and 9 rebounds.
John Wall dished out a season-high 15 assists, but he shot just 6-of-25 (24.0%) from the field and went 0-of-6 in the decisive and isolation-heavy fourth quarter. Wall also had a game-high seven turnovers.
John Wall (0-6) and Christian Wood (0-5) went a combined 0-of-11 in the 4th Quarter. pic.twitter.com/dA73MbHnft
— Alykhan Bijani (@Rockets_Insider) March 27, 2021
Augustin added 13 points off the bench for Houston, while starting forwards Sterling Brown (11 points, 11 rebounds) and Jae’Sean Tate (10 points, 7 rebounds) each scored in double-figures. With Danuel House Jr. out for personal reasons, Ben McLemore started in his place and scored a season-high 21 points on 7-of-14 (50.0%) from 3-point range.
Houston and Minnesota will play again on Saturday night, also at Target Center in Minneapolis. For now, here’s a look at highlights and postgame reaction following night one of the back-to-back.
Thinking about the way mascots used to do things to distract shooters, I’m just going to assume the Timberwolves’ guy was holding up a poster of Cade Cunningham.
— Jonathan Feigen (@Jonathan_Feigen) March 27, 2021
Silas says he knows the guys want to win but they can’t get away from the gameplan and they did that down the stretch.
“Stagnant. Disappointing.”
— Kelly Iko (@KellyIkoNBA) March 27, 2021
Stephen Silas on how the team can bounce back tomorrow night: “We know what we need to do. We just need to do it for four quarters.”
— Coty M. Davis (@CotyDavis_24) March 27, 2021
John Wall: “It’s a game that we should have won, but the only good thing is we’re about to play these guys again tomorrow. We know what we did to get the lead that we had… So we’ve got to come back and do the same thing tomorrow, but make sure we close it out.” https://t.co/vAXJV28pSD
— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) March 27, 2021
John Wall meets with the media after the #Rockets 107-101 loss to the Timberwolves
Rockets back at it tomorrow against the same Minnesota team
Our coverage begins at 6:30PM pic.twitter.com/DetG91Uhow
— AT&T SportsNet SW (@ATTSportsNetSW) March 27, 2021