Raptors Beat Wolves 111-104

The Timberwolves fell back to .500 at home tonight, falling to the Toronto Raptors 111-104 at the Target Center. Kyle Lowry had a triple double, finishing the game with 18 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists. Kevin Love came close to a triple double of his own, scoring 26 points to go along with 11 boards and 9 assists.

The loss puts the Wolves at 31-31 on the season, and with Dallas notching a big win tonight over Indiana, the Wolves' already-slim playoff chances are looking worse and worse. Despite some feisty play from the starting lineup, they were forced to play catch-up for essentially the entire game, and never fully recovered.

"We just have to do it better. We can't hang our heads, it's a good team that we played," Rick Adelman said after the game. "They've [Toronto] been playing really well and they have a lot of veteran players. They did a nice job of getting the win. We can't hang our heads, we got beat. We got to turn it around and come back Tuesday and get a win."

The first half, mainly the second quarter, saw a couple of huge runs for both teams. The Raptors started it off with an 13-0 run to open the second quarter, breaking what was a 33-33 tie at the time. The Wolves quickly responded with a 17-2 run of their own, putting themselves back in the lead. These runs eventually evened themselves out, the Raptors held just a 1-point lead going into halftime.

Kevin Love had 8 of his 9 assists in the first 24 minutes of the game. Love and Brewer, who tied a career high with 6 steals tonight, had to play 20 minutes in that half, as the poor play from the Wolves' bench made their presence a necessity.

It felt like the Wolves were playing catch-up the entire second half. As the fourth quarter entered its final few minutes, the Raptors jumped on the chance to pull away and succeeded. DeMar DeRozan put the final nail in the coffin with an incredible baseline three pointer to put them up 10 with about a minute to go in the game. The Wolves weren't able to recover.

"It's nights like that that you give everything and you have to go home not happy because you lost," Ricky Rubio said in the locker room. "But you lost and gave everything you had and some nights you can't win."

The Wolves will remain in Minneapolis until Tuesday, when they'll take on the Milwaukee Bucks at the Target Center. It'll be at 7pm and broadcast on FS North.

A few final notes:

• A fact that was repeatedly brought up on the twitterspehere tonight, Kevin Love is the new record holder for three pointers in a season, passing Rashad McCants' total from back in 2007-08.
• Kyle Lowry is really fun to watch, and put on a show. I love his tenacious play, and he's turning into one of my favorite players in the league. Ricky was pumped all game as well. You could tell he really wanted this one, and was going all out to try to pull out a win.
• On a lighter note, SHABAZZ!!