NEW ORLEANS – Taj Gibson stared at the floor and began talking to himself, often punctuating his words with curses. Then he got up and went to the showers, trying to wash off the latest Wolves disappointment, a 123-114 loss to the Pelicans at Smoothie King Center.
"I'm still scratching my head wondering what happened," Gibson said.
What happened was the Wolves couldn't take advantage of a New Orleans squad that was without All-Star Anthony Davis, who was a late scratch because of an illness.
But Davis' New Orleans teammates picked up the slack while the Wolves defense slacked at the wrong moments, specifically in guarding the three-point line, where the Pelicans hit 14 of 25 attempts. That included 5-for-8 shooting from Darius Miller (21 points), who provided a key shot to put the Pelicans up 115-109 with 1 minute, 16 seconds to play. Miller's night, combined with 33 points from Julius Randle, had Gibson and some of his teammates shaking their heads after the game.
"Until we play defense for 48 minutes, it's going to be hard to win," Wolves coach Tom Thibodeau said.
Karl-Anthony Towns had 28 points and 17 rebounds for the Wolves, who were again without point guards Derrick Rose and Jeff Teague, both nursing injured ankles. Their absence showed up in the play of the bench, which couldn't hold an 89-88 lead the Wolves gained after making up a 12-point halftime deficit. No bench player was better than minus-12 in the plus-minus column while the starters were in positive figures.
"It's discipline. Everyone's got to do their job, but it wasn't just the bench," Thibodeau said. "We can't pick and choose when we're going to do things."
Specifically, Thibodeau said, the Wolves were "closing short" on New Orleans' shooters. And, Gibson said, the Pelicans were fortunate, especially in the first half, when Randle and E'Twaun Moore (17 points) combined to shoot 14-for-20.
