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Washington Wizards @ Minnesota Timberwolves
January 13, 2011 8:00 p.m. ET
____WIZARDS_____TIMBERWOLVES
__WALL___________RIDNOUR___
__YOUNG_________BREWER___
__LEWIS__________BEASLEY___
__BLATCHE___________LOVE_____
__MCGEE_________MILICIC____
And the Old Man from Scene 24 Wants to Know the Answers to These Questions Three:
1. Can the Wizards avoid going 0-19 on the road?
2. Will Blatche be able to contain Love?
3. Will the Wizards have the longest win streak of the year?
The best performance of Nick Young's four-year NBA career helped the Washington Wizards escape with a wild overtime victory in their latest game.
It might take something truly superhuman to lift the Wizards to a road victory.
Washington tries to build off Young's 43-point effort and avoid falling to 0-19 away from home Thursday night against the Minnesota Timberwolves , who have lost five in a row and will likely be without Michael Beasley.
The trade of Gilbert Arenas in mid-December left a spot in the starting lineup open for Young, but the 6-foot-7 guard didn't made a huge difference in his first 11 games as a starter.
Young was averaging 13.6 points and taking 10.7 shots in 23.5 minutes per game off the bench, and though he upped his scoring average to 18.4 as a starter, he was taking 17.1 shots per contest while playing an average of 36.7 minutes.
He couldn't have been much more efficient Tuesday against Sacramento, however. Young's 43 points - 10 better than his previous career high - came on just 22 field-goal attempts, making 7 of 10 3-pointers to lift Washington (10-26) to a 136-133 overtime win.
"The rim looked like a hula-hoop," Young said. "I was in that zone."
Not everything came easy for the Wizards, though. Washington blew a 20-point, first-quarter lead, a six-point lead in the final 14 seconds of the fourth quarter and nearly lost a five-point lead in the last half-minute of overtime.
"Fifteen years, I've never seen anything like that in my life," coach Flip Saunders said. "Frustration, entertaining, you name it. The positive was we hung in there. We made some plays late, and so the consolation prize is that we won."
Frustration has been about the only emotion Saunders and the Wizards have felt on the road. Washington has lost 19 straight away from home, including 18 this season by an average of 14.5 points. Every other team in the league has at least two road wins.
A visit to Minnesota should give the Wizards a decent opportunity to avoid owning the longest road losing streak to begin a season since the 1997-98 Nuggets started 0-22. The Timberwolves (9-30) will be trying to avoid their fourth losing streak of at least six games after falling 107-96 at home to San Antonio on Tuesday.
"They know who they are," coach Kurt Rambis said of the NBA-best Spurs, who have won 16 straight versus Minnesota. "We're still trying to figure out who we are."
Rambis was ejected in the third quarter Tuesday, receiving two technical fouls in a stunning 10-second span in which the Timberwolves (9-30) picked up five in all.
The most concerning exit for Minnesota, however, was Beasley's. The team's second-leading scorer aggravated the sprained left ankle he originally hurt Friday against Portland, and left with less than four minutes to play.
Beasley said afterward he can't walk on the ankle, making it highly unlikely he'll be ready to go against the Wizards.
That would put more pressure to score on Kevin Love, who's coming off his sixth 20-point, 20-rebound game of the season. Love has averaged 15.8 points and 10.3 rebounds in four meetings with Washington - three losses.
The Timberwolves are 3-15 when Love leads the team in scoring, so perhaps they'll look to Wes Johnson for some offensive help. Minnesota is 6-6 when the rookie guard, replaced by Corey Brewer in the starting lineup the last two games, scores more than 10 points. Johnson hasn't reached that mark in three straight games, going 7 of 24 from the field.
Magnumt
