The Minnesota Timberwolves beat the Golden State Warriors 119-99 at the Target Center on Sunday to end their two-game losing-streak.

Karl-Anthony Towns had a double-double of court-high 26 points and 11 rebounds for the Timberwolves. He also delivered two blocks. But Towns was not the biggest contributor to his team's victory at home. His teammates that played off the bench outscored their Warriors counterparts 57-38. The Timberwolves' backup squad turned the game a gone conclusion with a 20-3 run in six minutes in the fourth quarter.

Jaylen Nowell and Malik Beasley scored 17 and 16 points respective off the bench. Naz Reid missed one point and one rebound for a double-double.

"We're really close. We like to see each other succeed. That right there is one of the hardest things to find in teams, I feel like," Nowell said. "None of us on the team are selfish."

"We don't just want be in the play-in game. We want to be set in the playoffs. We're trying to figure out how to get a nice little win streak to get us above the hump," Beasley said. The Timberwolves are ranking seventh in the Western Conference with a 21-22 record after Sunday's win. They are 1.5 games away from the sixth Denver Nuggets who don't need to compete in the play-in tournaments for playoff qualification.

The Warriors suffered their biggest loss this season at Target Center. In their defense, neither Stephen Curry nor Draymond Green appeared in Sunday's game because of injuries. Without their offensive engine and major orchestrator, the team lost their usual smooth ball movement, which partly explained why they took 42 attempts from downtown.

Unfortunately, the Warriors only made 13 triples. Neither did they protect the ball well as the team committed 15 turnovers in front of the aggressive defense by the Timberwolves.

Jonathan Kuminga, who was drafted by the Warriors with the seventh-overall pick in 2021, received as much as 33 minutes on the floor. His lack of shooting range was obvious. Kuminga was 1-6 at the 3-point line but tried to make it up by charging the rim. He went 5-6 under the rim and drew 10 free throws, making six of them.

Kuminga's athleticism, size and energy are what the Warriors' need, but if they want him to share the duty of Green, the 19-year-old still has a lot to learn.

Rudy Gobert is Jazz' promise for victory

The Utah Jazz defeated the Denver Nuggets 125-102 at Ball Arena on Sunday, ending their four-game losing-streak.

The last time the Jazz won, they also beat the Nuggets 115-109 on the road on January 5. The Jazz have already beaten the Nuggets three times this season.

Three-time Defensive Player of the Year (DPOY) Rudy Gobert returned for the Jazz on Sunday and sitting on five games due to COVID-19. He had a double-double of 18 points and 19 rebounds plus two blocks, which were pretty stats, but not good enough to tell how integral he was to the team.

Despite the big win, three of the Jazz' five starters were in the minus side of plus/minus in Sunday's game, including Donovan Mitchell and Bojan Bogdanovic who scored 31 and 21 points respectively. By contrast, the team's bench unit had no minus players. Jordan Clarkson, Eric Paschall and Joe Ingles were +29, +21 and +21 respectively.

Mike Conley in the starting-lineup was also +21, but Gobert was higher than all of them with +36. Though the French giant was still clueless over how to stop Nikola Jokic, when Gobert was in the paint, other players of the Jazz did not have to close in or switch much defensively at the cost of allowing open 3-pointers.

As a result, the Nuggets, which went 23-40 from downtown against the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday, missed 32 of their 43 triple attempts against the Jazz on Sunday. The Nuggets shot too many tough 3-pointers within four feet to the defenders.

Jokic dropped a triple-double of 25 points, 15 rebounds and 14 assists. However, having played back-to-back, he could be there for the Nuggets in every of the 48 minutes. Jokic already played more than 36 minutes in Sunday's game, but when he was not on the floor, his team would immediately fall into blackout offensively.

The nuggets trailed by only three points (91-88) when the fourth quarter began. Nonetheless, when Jokic returned at 9:18, his team already trailed by 14 points (102-88) after a 11-0 run by the Jazz.

Other games on Sunday (away teams come first):

Phoenix Suns 135-108 Detroit Pistons

Houston Rockets 118-112 Sacramento Kings