Oklahoma City at Minnesota preview

By Addam Francisco

The Minnesota Timberwolves will host the Oklahoma City Thunder Tuesday night in Minnesota. The Timberwolves have lost their last six games but head coach Sam Mitchell is trying to stay optimistic.

“All the teams that are winning right now, they lost at some point.” Mitchell said to the teams website. “We’re playing hard every single night and I think that our guys are getting better. This record is going to flip one day where 12-26 and one day in the near future we’re going to be 26-12.”

This is actually the first match up between these two teams this season but dating back to last year, OKC won all four games against the Timberwolves. As a matter fact in the last game played between these two teams on Apr. 15 Russell Westbrook scored 37 points with 8 rebounds and 7 assists. Dion Waiters also added 33 points to cap off a 138-113 victory. In that game Kevin Martin, yes former thunder shooting guard Kevin Martin scored 29 points and young Andrew Wiggins added 23 points. Zach LaVine scored 19 as well.

The Thunder are fresh off a disappointing 115–110 loss to Damien Lillard and the Portland Trail Blazers' late-game heroics. In that game Kevin Durant let the team with 28 points along with Russell Westbrook finishing with 25 points, 15 assist and 9 rebounds, a near triple double. Stephen Adams continues to play very well after posting a double-double as well, scoring 17 points and collecting 10 rebounds, which turned out not to be quite enough to beat that Portland squad.

The most exciting match up to think about going into this game against Minnesota is point guard Ricky Rubio against Westbrook. That's a tall order for Rubio considering Russell's size and the fact that he is averaging 25.5 points and 9.5 assists. Really Russell isn't the only player the Timberwolves need to be concerned about. Oklahoma City still has Kevin Durant who's averaging 26.5 points per game along with 7.6 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game. The Thunder really should not have a hard time beating this young Timberwolves team, but if Minnesota can contain everyone on Oklahoma City's roster to a subpar game both defensively and offensively, along with playing a good offense of game they may be able to pull off the upset.

Neither team has any injuries so we will see all of the active players play tonight. Tonight's game will be at 7 PM at the Target Center in Minneapolis Minnesota.