Wolves' Rubio providing quite the assist

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Ricky Rubio's passing acumen has never been questioned. Lately, Rubio has gone the extra mile in lending a helping hand.

In Minnesota's past two games, Rubio has recorded 32 assists. That's the second most for any player in the NBA this season, behind just 34 by the Clippers' Chris Paul. Only Oklahoma City's Russell Westbrook and Houston's James Harden have had 31 or more assists over a two-game span in 2016-17 thus far.

Rubio can tie or pass the best three-game assist mark this season Friday, needing 14 to tie and 15 to pass the Thunder's Russell Westrbook, who happens to be Minnesota's opponent. Westbrook had 46 assists in a three-game span from Nov. 25-28.

Compiling 10+ assists in three straight games is not a feat Rubio hasn't already accomplished.



Eleven times in his career Rubio has a streak of at least three games with 10+ assists, most recently from March 11-16, 2016.

Of those 11 occasions, three times Rubio has had a streak of four games and once, from Feb. 27-March 9, 2015, he went six consecutive games with 10+ assists, which is the longest streak for the Wolves this century.

In fact, he's the only Minnesota player this century to have a streak of four or more games with 10+ assists. Terrell Brandon, Stephon Marbury, Pooh Richardson and Michael Williams all did it in the 1990s, with Richardson holding the franchise record with a nine-game streak.

One of the benefactors' of Rubio's dishes has been Shabazz Muhammad, although the Wolves forward has been on a hot streak no matter who is getting him the ball.

Since Christmas, no player in the NBA has a better 3-point shooting percentage than Muhammad, who has made 59.1 percent of his shots from downtown over that span. The next-closest player is Indiana's Aaron Brooks at 55.0 percent.

Other notes:

-- The Timberwolves have shot 54+ percent from the floor in back-to-back contests (2-0). They have never made 54+ percent of their field-goal attempts in three consecutive games in a single season.

-- Muhammad came off the bench to pour in 20 points against the Rockets on Wednesday. The Timberwolves have now won their last three games when Muhammad has 20+ points off the bench (2-0 in 2016-17) after going just 3-11 in his first 14 career such performances.

Statistics courtesy STATS and basketball-reference.com