The Minnesota Timberwolves will wrap up their road schedule tonight with a showdown against the Detroit Pistons at The Palace.
Minnesota, which will close out the 2011-12 campaign by hosting Golden State and Denver, suffered its 11th straight loss in Tuesday's 91-84 decision versus Memphis. With Kevin Love (concussion) and Ricky Rubio (knee) both sidelined, J.J. Barea scored a season-best 28 points and dished out eight assists.
The Timberwolves have lost 27 straight games in April and their last victory in the month came April 8, 2009 at Golden State. Nikola Pekovic added 16 points and 11 rebounds for Minnesota, which hasn't won since March 28 at Charlotte.
"We did everything we could tonight," Barea said. "We played hard, we did everything right. I'm proud of the way we fought tonight."
The Wolves will try to stop a five-game road losing streak tonight and are 12-20 away from the Twin Cities.
Detroit will play two straight and three of four home games to wrap up the season and has lost six of eight games, including a 116-84 defeat at the hands of the Atlanta Hawks last night.
Greg Monroe finished with 17 points, while Walker Russell tallied 15 for the Pistons, who were coming off a blowout win versus the Cavaliers the night before.
"It was a role reversal," Detroit head coach Lawrence Frank said in reference to falling back into the loss column. "One day you play like a king, the next day you don't. I guess Atlanta was very very good."
Charlie Villanueva managed 14 points off the bench in the loss. Detroit will play its third game in as many nights Thursday.
The Pistons lost the first meeting with Minnesota, 93-85, back on Jan. 18 at Target Center and are winless in the last three matchups between the teams.
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