TORONTO - Playing in front of his hometown did not faze Canadian Andrew Wiggins, telling reporters after the game, "once that jump ball goes up its all just about basketball".
Wiggins made nine of 19 field goals to finish with 26 points, but his young Timberwolves fell to the more experienced and more talented Raptors, 105 - 114, on Wednesday night at the Air Canada Centre.
The closely contested game was all tied at 101-101 before Raptors All-Stars DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry hit four 3 pointers in a row with just over 3 minutes remaining. DeRozan led all scorers with 21 points and four rebounds.
Apart from Wiggins, Gorgui Dieng played exceptionally well and scored 21 points, pulled eight rebounds and blocked two shots.
Wiggins told reporters he thought Gorgui played like a "beast" tonight. Both Dieng and Wiggins will play for their respective countries in the FIBA Qualifying Tournament in Manila this July.
PhilBoxing.com caught up with Gorgui post game and asked him if he feels good about the future of this young Timberwolves team.
"Definitely, I think we get better every game. There's a lot of game in the summer time that we might say, we could have won this game and that game, specially this game tonight. I think we play good basketball, we just need to be more mature and understand time and score," he said.
Wiggins feels the same way and said "Definitely, we have a very young team, we have great vets that show us the way and lead us...we definitely have something special."
Photo: In his Canada homecoming, Andrew Wiggins (R) couldn't carry the Wolves past the Toronto Raptors, who won 114-105.
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