It was a special night in downtown Minneapolis on Saturday as the [Minnesota Timberwolves](http://canishoopus.com) brought back their popular Prince-inspired jerseys and the new court to go along with it in a matchup against the Denver Nuggets.
It was a rough start for the Wolves who fell by ten points right at the start of the game, reminiscint of the first matchup between these two teams back in October. Even with Christian Braun and Cam Johnson out for the Nuggets, the Wolves were still not able to contain the Denver offense, leading to a 17-7 deficit.
The defensive struggle for Minnesota was contained to the first few minutes though as they were able to slow Denver down for the remainder of the first half. The Wolves specifically did a good job defensively on Nikola Jokić who only scored seven first-half points.
Once the defense started getting stops, the Wolves got back into the game. Naz Reid had his best half of the season with a team-high 17 points in the first half, bringing the Wolves from down double-digits, to up by as many as seven points in the second quarter.
The Wolves would head into the halftime break with a 60-55 advantage. To start the third quarter, Jokić matched his scoring output from the first half in just a few minutes, putting up seven points in rapid succession to give the Nuggets the lead back, putting the Wolves down by one heading into the fourth quarter.
The Timberwolves were unable to capitalize in the minutes with Jokić on the bench to start the fourth quarter as Aaron Gordon hit multiple contested shots.After a Jonas Valančiūnas tip-in, the Wolves found themselves down by eight points with seven minutes left.
The missed opportunity of the non-Jokić minutes was too much for the Wolves to overcome as they were unable to string together enough made baskets to cut into the lead as the Timberwolves four-game winning streak was snapped 123-112.
The Timberwolves continue their third game of a four-game homestand, taking on the struggling Dallas Mavericks. The last game between the two teams was in January of last season, just two weeks before Luka Dončić was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers.
The game will tip off on Monday, November 17, at 7:00 PM CT on FanDuel Sports Network.
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