The Timberwolves have a chance to end historic losing streaks in Toronto and Boston

On November 22, 2024By Littum

The schedule is about to get significantly tougher for the Minnesota Timberwolves over the next two games. Not from a technical strength-of-scheme perspective, but from a more unusual and historical point of view.

In the next two games, the Wolves travel to the Toronto Raptors on Thursday and the Boston Celtics on Sunday. While one of these games looks particularly challenging on paper and the other doesn’t, there’s more to unpack here.

Toronto and Boston may be nice, friendly cities to most outside visitors, but they have treated the Timberwolves unusually harshly in recent memory. Incredibly, Minnesota is currently riding a 36-game losing streak combined between the two cities.

This ridiculous losing streak dates back about two decades. The last time the Wolves won a game in Toronto was in January 2004, and their last win in Boston came in March 2005. Both of those wins came when Kevin Garnett was still on the roster.

It’s time…

The Wolves embark on a 2 game road trip to TOR & BOS, 2 cities where they have lost a combined 36 games in a row.

19* streak in TOR with last win in January ’04.

17 series in BIM with last win in March ’05.

*2/14/21 win at TOR was played in Tampa.

— Alan Horton (@WolvesRadio) November 20, 2024

Losing consecutive games like this in not one but two cities is almost unthinkable. Looking at Toronto’s losing streak, some may have gone straight to Basketball Reference and noted that the Timberwolves actually won a road game against the Raptors in 2021. This would invalidate the streak, right?

Normally the answer would be yes. However, during the 2020-21 season, the Raptors were forced to relocate from their home country to the United States during the COVID pandemic frenzy. As such, they played their home games at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida that season.

As such, the Timberwolves’ record for consecutive losses in the city of Toronto technically still stands. Fortunately, they’ll have a solid chance to end that run on Thursday against a struggling Raptors team that currently has just a 3-12 record in the Eastern Conference. Granted, we also thought last season’s contest in Toronto on opening night would be a gimme, and Minnesota lost there.

Ending the streak against the defending NBA champion Boston Celtics should prove to be a much tougher challenge. But either way, the Timberwolves will have some extra motivation in the back of their minds to take care of business in the next two games.