– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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BOSTON — Ding dong, the curse of KG is dead!
The previous line may seem a tad hyperbolic, but not by much. The Minnesota Timberwolves have finally won a game in Beantown, and finally got one over those Salem witches casting spells on the team from the Great White North for more than two decades.
Again, hyperbole. And again, we’re only slightly exaggerating.
Bones Hyland scored 23 points while Jaden McDaniels added 19 as the Minnesota Timberwolves defeated the Boston Celtics 102-92 and snapped an 18-game losing streak in Boston. The last time Minnesota won in Boston was March 6, 2005 — 7,685 days ago — back when Kevin Garnett was on the Timberwolves and less than a year removed from winning the league’s Most Valuable Player Award. Oh, and Garnett was still two years away from being sent to the Boston Celtics and winning his only NBA championship there in 2008.
“Dang, that don’t even sound right,” Hyland said. “I was 5-years-old. That’s crazy.”
What might be even crazier is the fact that the Timberwolves broke the streak without the services of Anthony Edwards, missing his fourth straight game due to knee inflammation, and having to go up against a full-strength Celtics team now with Jayson Tatum back in the fold. Minnesota, who went down by as many as 15 points in the first half before going into halftime with a three-point lead, trailed 81-80 before Hyland’s three from the right wing gave the Timberwolves the lead for good with 9:05 to play. Naz Reid, coming back from missing a couple of games due to injury, had eight straight points later on to give Minnesota more breathing space.
“Naz found a little run. Bones was outstanding all night,” Timberwolves head cocah Chris Finch said. “It was just really the defense and the effort we just put in that kind of kept us in a position.”
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Sunday evening’s game, with photos taken by ALOST photo editor Erica Denhoff. After clicking on a photo to enlarge the picture, press the left and right arrow buttons on either side of the caption to scroll through the rest of the pictures that appear on the first page, Also, click on the numbers and/or arrow appearing immediately below the picture grid to load the next set of photos. There are 38 pictures in total.
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