Denver sends Wolves to seventh consecutive loss

DENVER – He's just the tender age of 19, but Timberwolves rookie Andrew Wiggins already is figuring things out in a season when his team now has lost seven consecutive games and 13 of its last 14 after Friday's 106-102 defeat to the Nuggets.

He is learning how to find some consistency in a league where the next game often comes tomorrow night, as it does Saturday in Golden State for a Wolves team that has won just once since the night after Thanksgiving.

He followed Tuesday's outscoring of Cavaliers star LeBron James 27-24 in Cleveland with a second assertive, 22-point game three days later.

And he is learning some things really do come as advertised.

In a variation on a season's theme, the Wolves let a 91-86 lead with 5 minutes, 32 seconds remaining — and the game — get away when they once again failed to make free throws, this time when it mattered most.

Last week in Washington, the Wolves missed 15 of 35 shots on a night they lost by 14.

On Friday in Denver, they missed seven of 24 shots, but five of those misses came in the game's final 2:34 when the Nuggets countered the Wolves' 17-7 run early in the fourth quarter with a 19-10 run of their own down the stretch that won the game.

His eyes widened at such a revelation after he and young teammate Gorgui Dieng each twice missed one of two free throws and veteran teammate Thaddeus Young did it once. Those five minutes gave the Nuggets hope and life just when it appeared the Wolves had positioned themselves to win and perhaps deliver a damaging blow to Denver coach Brian Shaw's job security.

The Wolves have been here before this season, in at least a couple different ways.

"Missed free throws," Wolves coach Flip Saunders said, "and we just have to learn how to win down the stretch. That's always the big thing."

In the end, the Wolves couldn't make an uncontested 15-foot shot when they needed to most and they couldn't stop Denver star Kenneth Faried from living up to his nickname with a monstrous 26-point, 25-rebound performance that included 12 points and 11 rebounds in the decisive fourth quarter.

Faried's 25 rebounds were a career high for a guy they call the "Manimal." Twelve of them were on the offensive backboards.

"Free throws have been crazy this year, especially for me," Young said after a 23-point, six-rebound, four-assist game that included just one missed free throw, but one that came at a really bad time. "I've been missing a lot of them also. We just have to concentrate more, get to the gym earlier and stay a little later and just get better.

"We just have to know we can go out in the game and have the will to win. We were on the verge of that tonight. We missed a few shots and they made shots."

And even the Wolves made a shot, they missed.

Trailing 104-101 with fewer than 12 seconds left, Wolves veteran Chase Budinger made a three-pointer from the right corner that appeared to tie the score. That is, until an official whistled him for having his heel out of bounds just before he shot.

"The last thing I'm sure they wanted was Budinger to have the ball with two seconds [actually 11.8 seconds] and nobody within 10 feet of him," Saunders said.