DENVER – Timberwolves point guard Ricky Rubio has made a career out of assisting others, so when it came time for teammate Andrew Wiggins to make a little piece of history in Wednesday's 112-99 victory at Denver, he willingly obliged.
With his team leading by eight points late in a contested game before a nine-day schedule break, Rubio deferred what ordinarily would have been his penalty free throw taken after Nuggets' talented big man Nikola Jokic was called for a dead-ball foul.
Rubio agreed when Wiggins asked to step to the foul line with 90 seconds remaining instead. He made it after he already had missed two in the fourth quarter; it became his 40th and final point of the night.
"He let me have it," Wiggins said. "Ricky, he's a good vet."
It made him only the second player in franchise history to score 40 points in consecutive games; Wiggins reached 41 in Tuesday's home loss to Cleveland.
Wiggins' scoring (17 points in the first quarter alone) and Karl-Anthony Towns' rebounding (19 total) set the tone on an evening when the Wolves beat a Denver team that competed without five players.
The Nuggets didn't let those injuries and illness stop them from making an NBA record-tying 24 threes in Monday's thumping of mighty Golden State. Just two nights later, the Wolves limited them to 11 threes made (and 34 attempted) and held them to 39 second-half points while the Wolves' offense committed only seven turnovers.
The Nuggets lost at home for just the second time in their past 10 games playing at a mile's elevation.
