Timberwolves pull away in fourth quarter against winless Nets

Chris Hine, The Minnesota Star Tribune on Nov 3, 2025

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NEW YORK – When your opponent comes into the night winless, you never want to be the team that allows it to get its first win.

Even though it wasn’t always smooth, the Minnesota Timberwolves avoided that fate in a 125-109 victory Monday night over the Brooklyn Nets, who dropped to 0-7.

The Wolves have had some odd games the past few seasons at Barclays Center. They have won, but they haven’t really played their best in this building. That trend continued Monday as turnovers and foul trouble hampered them, especially early. But the Wolves did enough to stave off embarrassment and get an easy victory, putting their record at 4-3 with their second consecutive road win against an Eastern Conference team.

Jaden McDaniels scored 22 points and shot 9 for 11 from the field, while Julius Randle had his first triple-double in the regular season with the Wolves with 19 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists.

Donte DiVincenzo, playing with a broken nose, scored 25 points, including six 3-pointers, while Naz Reid added 21 points. The Wolves briefly fell behind in the third quarter but then pulled away by outscoring the Nets 34-21 in the fourth.

Cam Thomas had 25 points for the Nets, 19 coming in the first half.

How it happened

Once again, McDaniels stepped up in the scoring department in the absence of Edwards, who was cleared for “contact basketball activities” as he recovers from a right hamstring strain.

McDaniels had 14 points on 6-for-8 shooting in the first half as the Wolves overcame an odd first quarter to take a 63-59 lead at the half.

The Wolves shot 60% in the first half but had nine turnovers, which enabled Brooklyn to hang around. Coming out of halftime, the Wolves were getting some separation on the scoreboard for the first time all night, but McDaniels picked up his fourth foul as the Wolves took their largest lead of the night at 12.

Brooklyn came back to take a one-point lead later in the quarter before the Wolves took a 91-88 lead in the fourth quarter as coach Chris Finch leaned into his bench. DiVincenzo also had four fouls through three quarters.

Once they returned to the floor, Finch switched to zone with a frontcourt of Randle, Reid and Rudy Gobert, and that slowed down Brooklyn’s scoring while the Wolves kept humming. After leaning on his bench to get by most of the third, Finch relied heavily on his starters and Reid to close out the night.

Multiple times last season, Randle flirted with a triple-double without ever getting there. He had one game with 10 assists all last season but had seven rebounds in that one. In three games he had nine assists, he had 10 rebounds or more.

Randle was stuck on nine assists for most of the second half and fourth quarter Monday until one of his final plays of the night got his that elusive 10th assist. He found Reid for a corner 3 with just over three minutes to play, and shortly after that, Finch emptied his bench.

Sloppy start

The Wolves weren’t quite ready to play from the tip. They had six turnovers in the first six minutes of the game, with Gobert accounting for three of them.

The Wolves have had issues in past seasons playing down to the level of their competition, and Monday showed that may still be an issue. They also couldn’t play defense without fouling early on, and they committed nine fouls in the first quarter. The Nets attempted 15 free throws, but they hit only eight of them.

Another masked crusader

DiVincenzo became the latest Wolves player to sport a face mask after he suffered a broken nose in Saturday’s win over Charlotte. Rob Dillingham recently had to play with one for a few games after fracturing his nose against the Lakers in the second game of the season. Rookie Rocco Zikarsky also broke his nose in the preseason.

Player of the game

Hard to pick just one, but Randle’s first triple-double deserves recognition, and for keeping Brooklyn from gaining too much hope early by gaining any kind of lead.

Up next

The Wolves will shift from Brooklyn to Manhattan on Wednesday night when they play Karl-Anthony Towns and the Knicks in Madison Square Garden to complete this three-game road swing.

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