Ice Cold Timberwolves Blown Out By Kawhi, Clippers in Dosunmu's Debut

The excitement around Ayo Dosunmu's Timberwolves debut turned into frustration over one of Minnesota's ugliest performances of the season. Kawhi Leonard scored 41 points, the Wolves had a nightmarish offensive day, and the Clippers cruised to a 115-96 win on Sunday at Target Center.

It's the second straight loss and the third in four games for the Timberwolves (32-22), who have not taken advantage of what looked like a fairly light stretch of schedule over the past week. It's also just the second time all season they've been held below 100 points, joining an 85-point outing in a blowout loss to the Warriors a couple weeks earlier.

Leonard was absolutely dominant for the Clippers (25-27), who have been hot for a while but recently traded away James Harden and Ivica Zubac. Neither of the players LA got back in those deals — Darius Garland and Bennedict Mathurin — played in this one. Kawhi did most of the work by himself, hitting five threes and recording four steals in an outstanding two-way performance.

Anthony Edwards had quite the poster dunk over Brook Lopez in the third quarter, but it wasn't a great day overall for the Timberwolves' superstar. Edwards scored 23 points on 7-of-18 shooting, hitting just 1 of 8 three-point attempts and turning the ball over five times. He had scored at least 30 points in four straight games prior to this one.

Dosunmu, who joined the Wolves in a deadline day trade with the Bulls, scored 11 points on 11 shots and was a game-low -33 in 25 minutes in his Minnesota debut. Brighter days are undoubtedly ahead for the Timberwolves' newest rotation player.

As a team, the Wolves shot 24 percent from three and turned it over 20 times. The Clippers shot 51 percent overall and 52 percent from deep (14 of 27).

To start the game, the Clippers jumped out to a 10-2 lead. Leonard had three early steals and scored 12 of LA's first 17 points. The Wolves made just 1 of 7 tries from beyond the arc in the first quarter and trailed 23-19. The Clippers then ripped off an 18-2 run late in the second quarter to gain some separation and took a 12-point lead into halftime.

Early in the third quarter, the Clippers got their lead up to 19 before the Timberwolves mounted a push. After Edwards' dunk over Lopez, the deficit was down to seven points. But from there, LA went on a 26-8 run to pull away and render most of the fourth quarter irrelevant.

Former Wolves guard Kris Dunn initiated a physical altercation with Julius Randle in the fourth quarter and was ejected from the game. Both sides finished the day with their reserves playing, which included Enrique Freeman and newcomer Julian Phillips making their Timberwolves debuts.

Next up for Minnesota is Nickeil Alexander-Walker's return to Minneapolis on Monday night. It's a 7 p.m. game against the Atlanta Hawks.

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