The Toronto Raptors (14-15) started their season at 2-8 and it's been a battle to return to the .500 mark ever since.

For the second time this year, the Dinos will have a shot to even their record when they take on the Minnesota Timberwolves (7-22) at the Target Center in Minneapolis on Friday night and hope that things will go better than last Sunday's meeting with the same team.

You can catch Tangerine Raptors Basketball: Raptors vs. Timberwolves LIVE at 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT on TSN4/5, on TSN Direct, the TSN App and streaming on TSN.ca.

The Raptors head into Friday night's game buoyed by convincing back-to-back wins over the Milwaukee Bucks on Tuesday and Thursday night to bring the team just two games back of the Bucks for third place in the Eastern Conference. Friday night will provide the team an opportunity to exorcise the demons from what was perhaps the team's worst game of the season on Sunday night against the T-Wolves.

With Karl-Anthony Towns limited to just nine games this season through a spell with COVID-19, the dynamic duo that many envisioned comprised of Towns and D'Angelo Russell has yet to materialize. The chances of the duo clicking this season lessened even more this week with the news that Russell will be out for the next four-to-six weeks after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery. Towns and Russell have played just five games together this season and it's no surprise then that their sluggish offensive and passive defence have led the T-Wolves to a league-worst seven victories. With Russell sidelined, veteran Ricky Rubio, back with the T-Wolves for a second stint, steps in as starting point guard.

Even with the Timberwolves' fourth-worst offensive rating (107.41), they looked like juggernauts against the Raptors last Sunday in their 116-112 win with a 37-point third quarter and shooting .690 in the second half. Towns and Malik Beasley each dropped 20 points with first overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, Anthony Edwards, adding 18 points.

While the Raptors have OG Anunoby back in the lineup after a 10-game absence, the team will be without the services of Kyle Lowry again on Friday. The Raptors' talisman sat out Thursday night's win over the Bucks with a thumb injury. Rookie Malachi Flynn was recalled from Raptors 905 of the G League with Lowry unavailable.

Friday night will be the Raptors' second shot at .500 this season. Previously, the team entered a Feb. 11 contest with the Boston Celtics sitting at 12-13 on the year and proceeded to get hammered by the team that put them out of the 2020 playoffs by a score of 120-106.