Down 10, Warriors storm back in 4th quarter to defeat Wolves 116-108

As sporting streaks go, it doesn't rank up there with Joe DiMaggio or Cal Ripken Jr., but the Golden State Warriors nonetheless brought an NBA record of their own to Target Center on Sunday night and left with it lengthened after a 116-108 victory over the Timberwolves.

They haven't lost consecutive regular-season games since April 2015 — the year Wolves star Karl-Anthony Towns played for Kentucky in the NCAA Final Four.

That's also 111 regular-season games ago for a championship team that wiped away a 10-point deficit after three quarters Sunday and followed Saturday's lopsided loss in Memphis by outscoring the Wolves 38-20 in the decisive fourth.

The Warriors have lost consecutive playoff games — who will forget the blown 3-1 NBA Finals lead in June after a record 73-victory regular season? — but they haven't lost consecutive regular-season games since Andrew Wiggins and Zach LaVine were rookies.

"It's one of the most impressive streaks that I've ever seen, to go that long," Golden State coach Steve Kerr said afterward. "It's a lot of games, and the schedule often catches up to you in this league."

Individually, baseball's Ripken played in 2,632 consecutive games, while DiMaggio once hit safely in 56 consecutive games.

As for team play, the NHL's Montreal Canadiens went 164 games from January 1962 to March 1964 without losing two consecutive games. Baseball's Chicago Cubs went 97 games from July 1906 to May 1907, and the NFL's Green Bay Packers went 81 games from September 1938 to November 1945 without doing so.

"It's not DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak or anything," said Kerr, whose team with superstar Kevin Durant added has the NBA's best record at 21-4. "But it's a sign of the competitiveness of the team, and that's what I like about it."

The Warriors' 111-game streak now is 16 games longer than the NBA's next-longest such streak — 95 games, by Utah from November 1997 to March 1999.

"They're a great team," Wolves coach Tom Thibodeau said. "The way they play both sides of the ball, it doesn't surprise me. They're great competitors, too. I knew with them losing last night that we'd get great effort from them. They always play hard. You can never let your guard down against them. They can make three threes in less than a minute.

"Like we saw tonight, a 10-point lead dissipated in what seemed like a very short amount of time. I think it was five minutes into the fourth and it was tied."

Son of former Gophers great Mychal, Klay Thompson led the Warriors with 30 points, including 14 in a fourth quarter they started with a 28-6 run after the Wolves had closed the third quarter with a 14-1 burst.

Thompson also made four three-pointers six days after he scored 60 points in three quarters against Indiana.

Kevin Durant and Steph Curry each scored 22 points even though Durant made just four of his first 18 shots on a 6-for-21 shooting night. Meanwhile, the Wolves had three players — Towns, Wiggins and LaVine — each score 25 points in a game for the first time since March 2007.

Trailing 88-78 after three quarters, the Warriors opened the fourth quarter with that 28-6 run that gave them a 106-94 lead with 4½ minutes remaining.

"I saw that today," Towns said. "That was the motivation I had, I wanted to stop that. But that didn't happen. They're a great team. They deserve the respect they're given."

Afterward, Thibodeau again lamented his team's poor shot selection and "reckless" fouling in that fourth quarter.

When told the Wolves were hanging with the Warriors most of the game, LaVine said, "Beating them … they got running. They got to the foul line really easy, a little bit too easy. We have to fix those quarters we always have."