On April 11, 2014, the Minnesota Timberwolves hosted the Houston Rockets in a game in which stars Kevin Love and Kevin Martin didn’t play.
Corey Brewer didn’t seem to mind. The defensive specialist – who averaged 8.7 points per game in his career – went off for 51 points in a 112-110 Minnesota win.
“To think that he could put up 51, if you had said before the game Corey’s going to get 50+ tonight, they would have laughed in your face,” Timberwolves voice Dave Benz said on The DA Show. “It was just one of those kind of nights. It was a magical night.”
Brewer played in 81 games that season. He scored fewer than 15 points in 53 of them. He scored 20+ points only six times.
But on that night, he was unstoppable. He shot 19-of-30 from the floor and 11-of-15 from the foul line. He only made two three-pointers, but one was from near mid-court.
“It was just ridiculous,” Benz said. “Anything that he was putting up was going in, so they just kept giving him the ball. The shots were not textbook shots. They were awkward shots that he was just throwing up, and everything was just falling.”
Brewers’ fellow starters that night? Dante Cunningham, Ricky Rubio, Gorgui Dieng, and Robbie Hummel. Minnesota overcame overcame 33 points from James Harden and 27 from Chandler Parsons.
“Everybody on the bench was thrilled for [Brewer],” Benz said. “If you want to talk about the all-time great guys, all-time most liked guys in the Timberwolves’ franchise history, Corey is definitely on the Mt. Rushmore of that group. The fan base just adored Corey Brewer, his teammates adored him – he was just a really, really effervescent personality. He was so charismatic and so well-liked. Everybody was thrilled to see him having this huge night and etching himself into the Timberwolves record book – because at that point, it tied the franchise record for the most points in a single game.”
Mo Williams broke the record with 52 points against Indiana in January 2015. Karl-Anthony Towns is the current record-holder, as he scored 56 points against Atlanta in March 2018.
“Corey Brewer and Mo Williams have two of your top three all-time scoring nights,” Benz said. “That was really an unusual list for the Timberwolves, but everybody was thrilled, man. Corey ended every interview that he did while he was wearing a Timberwolves uniform by just looking into the camera real quick and yelling, ‘Go Wolves!’ Fans loved him for that. Just a really good, good guy. Everybody was thrilled to see him have his moment.”