Monday night marked the third straight game the Minnesota Timberwolves scored fewer than 20 points in the fourth quarter. On Monday, they yielded 43 to the Orlando Magic in a complete meltdown. Fourth-quarter woes have plagued the Wolves all season.
Chris Finch’s squad had an impressive win last week over the Milwaukee Bucks on the road. While beating the defending champions on their home floor was the stand-alone headline, what happened in those final 12 minutes didn’t go unnoticed.
The Wolves looked scattered defensively, and they repeatedly settled for tough shots on offense. The result was a 15-point lead at the start of the quarter evaporating into a two-point cushion with 36 seconds to go. Minnesota hung on to win by five points, but only after being outscored 29-19 in that final quarter. Winning solves a lot in sports. Because of that, it was easy to brush aside the near disaster for the Wolves and relish in a big-time road win in Milwaukee.
Minnesota followed that up by scoring 18 points against the Denver Nuggets in the fourth quarter of its next contest. Nikola Jokic and Co. scored 24 and edged out a two-point win. This was a much lower-scoring game where defense reigned supreme. But it was much of the same from the Wolves on offense. They struggled to find any easy looks towards the basket.
The Timberwolves rank 28th in fourth-quarter points per game (22.2) in the NBA entering play on Tuesday night. Even more blinding, they are dead last in the fourth-quarter scoring margin at minus-7.8. Boston ranks 29th at minus-6.4.
Perhaps this is all the result of a relatively young team trying to find out who to go to in crunch time. However, it doesn’t take an expert to recognize the offense should work through Anthony Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns down the stretch.
Another possibility is a team feeling the pressure to finish off these close games that they have so frequently fumbled away. This team felt a bit different coming out of training camp. There was far more optimism surrounding it than in recent years. Time and again, Wolves fans have been on edge, even with double-digit fourth-quarter leads. This team was supposed to flip that narrative around. So far, the final quarter has been the barrier to their success.
It all came together in stomach-turning fashion on Monday night. The Magic entered the game 1-6 and had shown few signs of a pulse. Jalen Suggs, a Minnesota native and a rookie first-round selection by Orlando, was the headliner entering the game. However, a Franz Wagner and Cole Anthony party broke out.
Orlando outscored Minnesota by a staggering 43-19 in the fourth quarter and grabbed its second win of the season. Towns and Co. led by six points entering the quarter and got shredded by 18 once the final horn sounded. That’s hard to do in the NBA, and it has the Wolves and looking for answers.
It doesn’t appear to be a team that’s pressing or panicking. Instead, the Wolves aren’t adjusting well to the flow of the game buckling down. As a result, they have resorted to low percentage looks. After Monday’s debacle, Finch noted that they don’t have many players who can get to the rim and get a bucket.
“We’re getting to the right shots. We don’t have a lot of guys who can put their head down and just drive the ball to the hoop, we have guys who can rise up and make some shots. And they’re just not making them right now.”
Ant is one of those guys who can put his head down and drive to the hoop. The issue is he isn’t much of a facilitator at this stage in his career. Therefore, putting him in a more ball-dominant position might not drive offense in the fourth quarter.
Minnesota will welcome the Los Angeles Clippers for back-to-back games at Target Center next. LA is slumping without Kawhi Leonard and sit at 2-4 to start the season. Everything revolves around Paul George, but the Clippers have managed to play some stingy defense despite being two games below .500. It’ll be an opportunity for the Wolves to show they can solve the riddle of their fourth-quarter woes against a team that doesn’t boast a great record but plays stout defense, especially in crunch time.
