Minnesota Timberwolves at Toronto Raptors
Date: February 4th, 2026
Time: 6:30 PM CST
Location: Scotiabank Arena
Television Coverage: FanDuel Sports Network – North
Radio Coverage: Wolves App, iHeart Radio
And this is why Wolves fans can’t have nice things. Not the two seed. Not a calm week. Not a clean five-game streak that neatly erases the four-game faceplant from late January. Not even a simple “beat the short-handed team you just throttled two days ago” layup. The basketball gods see Minnesota reaching for stability and immediately reach for the Jenga tower.
Because Monday in Memphis was the kind of loss that doesn’t come with the usual “we got punched by a contender” dignity. It wasn’t the Brooklyn/Atlanta disaster-class. It wasn’t a fourth-quarter apocalypse. It wasn’t “burn the tape and pretend it never happened.” It was worse in a different way: it was a perfectly winnable game against a team missing key guys, and the Wolves played like they were hoping it would just sort of… resolve itself. Like the game would eventually get bored and award them the win for showing up in matching uniforms.
Minnesota trailed for most of the game, which tells you everything. They made their push late in the third, but then the whole thing got derailed by a parade of Memphis free throws to close the quarter. The lead ballooned back to double digits, the Wolves never really cracked the safe, and at times they were staring up at a 20-point deficit. Game two in Memphis turned into a scrappy, physical game, the kind where the team that wants it more looks like the better team regardless of talent, and the Grizzlies were absolutely willing to get their hands dirty. Minnesota, meanwhile, looked like they didn’t want to take a punch. And when you’re the team that doesn’t want to take a punch, you usually become the team that eats five of them in a row.
Yes, the officiating was… let’s call it “suspect.” During that third-quarter run, Anthony Edwards took contact on multiple drives that felt like they should’ve produced a whistle, a free throw, maybe a small apology note. He didn’t get any of that. But it’s hard to make the refs the headline when a little more cohesion, a little more urgency, and a little more “we’re actually trying tonight” probably flips the result. This was another entry in the Wolves’ growing 2025–26 scrapbook titled “Winnable Games We Didn’t Take Seriously”, a glossy coffee-table book no one asked for, yet here it is, expanding by the week.
The undefeated February dream is dead. The confetti has been swept up. The good news is that February still sets up as an opportunity month. The Wolves have a relatively friendly slate, and the standings are still compressed enough that a strong two weeks can change everything. They don’t need perfection. They need professionalism. They need to stop lighting games on fire and then acting surprised when they smell smoke.
Which brings us to the next item on the docket: the Toronto Raptors, and the most cursed basketball trivia stat in the Wolves’ orbit.
Minnesota hasn’t won a game north of the border in 22 years.
The last time the Wolves won in Toronto was 2004 when Kevin Garnett was an MVP-level force of nature, Sam Cassell was doing the big-balls dance, and Latrell Sprewell was giving the franchise it’s last good season before the long drift into two decades of basketball purgatory. It’s been so long that if you told a teenager “the Wolves used to win in Toronto,” they’d look at you the way kids look at rotary phones.
On paper, Minnesota should win this game. They’re better. They have more top-end talent. They have the kind of defensive ceiling that, when they actually decide to use it, can turn a regular NBA offense into a five-alarm frustration spiral. But paper doesn’t play the game. History doesn’t play the game. Curses don’t play the game… except when they do, because the Wolves are always the first team to prove that superstition can, in fact, defend the pick-and-roll.
So the question becomes: do they treat this like a business trip, or do they treat it like another night they can “figure out later”?
With that in mind, here are the keys to the game.
#1: Win the 50–50 plays like you actually care about the outcome.
Memphis came ready to brawl on Monday. The Wolves came ready to coast. That was the difference. Toronto may not turn this into a wrestling match the same way, but the principle holds: if Minnesota plays with real energy, the Raptors don’t have enough firepower to hang for long. That means diving on loose balls, finishing possessions with rebounds, sprinting back in transition, and taking pride in the little defensive wins that add up to big scoreboard separation. The Wolves swarmed the Oklahoma City Thunder the other night when they were locked in. Bring that version to Canada, and Toronto’s margin for error is tiny. But it’s about “want to.” The Wolves have to want to snap this 22-year streak, not just assume it’ll snap itself.
#2: Keep the ball moving
You could feel the offense get disjointed against Memphis, especially with the bench giving them basically nothing to stabilize the flow. That’s exactly how you lose these “we should win” road games: the possession quality drops, the ball sticks, and suddenly you’re taking tough shots against a set defense while the crowd starts believing. Ant is always tempted to go into “fine, I’ll do it myself” mode, and to his credit, he tried in the second half Monday. But there’s only so much one guy can do when the other team is loading up and the whistle isn’t friendly. The Wolves need Julius Randle and Ant to lean into the facilitator version of themselves and use gravity, draw attention, and feed the supporting cast. When the Wolves play unselfish, high-movement offense, they don’t just score, they demoralize you, because every stop feels temporary.
#3: Hunt high-efficiency looks first, then let the threes be the bonus.
There were stretches against Memphis where Minnesota made every shot feel like a graduate-level exam. Too many difficult attempts, too many possessions where the best idea was “somebody create something.” That’s the trap. The Wolves shouldn’t go into Toronto trying to win a three-point contest, even if they can get hot. The better approach is balance: get Gobert involved as a rim threat, get Randle to his spots for efficient bruising buckets, let Naz mix in drives and quick-hitter actions before he starts launching, and let the threes come off paint pressure and ball movement rather than early-clock randomness. If the threes fall, great – bury them. But don’t live and die by them, because that’s how you end up in the fourth quarter of a cursed building thinking, “How is this tied?”
#4: Protect the perimeter without using Rudy as a crutch.
Toronto has guards who can hurt you if you defend softly, and soft perimeter defense is the Wolves’ recurring horror movie villain. When Minnesota’s wings treat resistance like an optional subscription, everything collapses: dribble penetration puts Rudy in impossible situations, the corners open up, and you’re suddenly giving up layups and kick-out threes like it’s a charity event. Minnesota has to defend the point of attack. Crisp rotations. Urgent closeouts. No casual jogging back to shooters. Use Rudy as a deterrent, not as an excuse. The goal is to make Toronto take tough shots over length and pressure, not to let them waltz into confidence.
#5: Block out the trade-deadline noise and play like this group still matters.
This is the sneaky emotional one. Mike Conley, the adult in the locker room, the steady hand, and voice of reason was just sent to Chicago. Was this simply a tax-saving move, or the first domino to tumble? When you’re a team like Minnesota with swirling rumors and names being floated, everybody hears it. McDaniels hears it. Naz hears it. Randle hears it. Gobert hears it. Young guys like Rob Dillingham hear it. Even the deeper rotation guys feel the tremor. It’s human. But for one night, you have to put it away. Because who knows? This could be the last time we see this exact version of the Wolves. And whatever frustrations we’ve had, whatever “how did you lose that game?” moments we’ve endured, this core has also delivered: big playoff runs, real springtime basketball, the feeling that Minnesota is finally part of the league’s serious conversation again. If you’re going to honor that, do it the simplest way possible: show up on the road, play hard, play together, and finally remove the 22-year gorilla sitting on their back in Toronto.
They just coughed one up in Memphis. Fine. It happens. Too often, but it happens.
But if they’re serious about closing the gap in February, and making those late-January disasters feel like a bad dream instead of a defining trait, then this is where it starts. You don’t start another losing streak. You go into Canada, you play with purpose, and you come back with the kind of win that doesn’t just count in the standings… it changes the mood of the whole month.
Then we can talk again about nice things.
