Prior to Oklahoma City’s 101-96 win Tuesday in Minnesota, Kevin Durant lavished rookie big man Karl-Anthony Towns with praise, predicting that the leading R.O.Y. candidate would someday reach the Hall of Fame.
Kevin Durant on @KarlTowns: "He's going to be a Hall of Famer in this league."
— Jon Krawczynski (@APkrawczynski) January 12, 2016
Durant led the Thunder with a game-high 30 points, and held off the Timberwolves’ furious second half rally.
KAT ended up with 14 points and ten boards in Minny’s seventh straight loss.
Per the Pioneer Press:
At morning shootaround, the Oklahoma City Thunder star shared how he needed to grind through his early seasons, much like the Timberwolves continue to do. […] In the evening, Durant scored a game-high 30 points in Oklahoma City’s 101-96 win over Minnesota, which lost its seventh consecutive game.
Durant’s Thunder are 27-12, good for first place in the Northwest Division, but sitting on the Target Center baseline with ice on his knees Tuesday morning, Durant reflected on their 20-62 record in his rookie season and 23-59 mark as a sophomore. […] “When we came in, it wasn’t like we were expected to win 50 games and we had championship aspirations,” Durant said. “When I came in, it was about let’s get better every single day and it was a struggle just trying win games every night. That was our thing — our championships was every game,” said Durant, whose team won 50 games his third season. “If we won this game, it was like the top of the world.”
The Wolves are built through the draft, as the Thunder were. They have two stars in Andrew Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns, as the Thunder do with Durant and Russell (Westbrook). But they currently feel as if they are on the bottom side of every coin. They started 1 for 8 from the field Tuesday night and couldn’t fully recover.
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