MINNEAPOLIS – Karl-Anthony Towns was on a roll, unstoppable from wherever the Timberwolves' All-Star center shot.
With that, Mike D'Antoni considered his options at center and did the most D'Antoni thing of all.
He went with none of the above.
Ryan Anderson had been moved to a role off the bench, but there was no way D'Antoni was going to sit him. He instead went small and tested whether Towns and the Wolves could defend the 3-pont line as well as they could score in the paint.
They could not, with the Rockets repeatedly shooting over Towns on pick-and-pop passes to Anderson and mismatch 3s, until as reliably as Towns scored, as the Rockets pulled away for a 126-108 win, he could not change the basic rule of playing the Rockets that 3s are worth more than 2s.