After a season that has been bumpier than the pothole ridden streets of the Twin Cities, the Minnesota Timberwolves suffered another heartbreaking loss that threw them off their road to their first potential back-to-back playoff series in 20 years. The game almost perfectly encapsulated this season’s up and down nature. It repeated the cycle of giving fans a tangible reason to believe that the team is finally clicking, immediately before collapsing in a confusing mess of miscommunications and missed opportunities.
The Timberwolves started off the game looking sharp. The defense was reminiscent of last year’s scrappiness. Karl-Anthony Towns, Kyle Anderson, and Anthony Edwards all took turns playing help defense around the rim, as the Los Angeles Lakers tried to force the ball into the paint on almost every possession. Most people expected the Wolves to suffer defensively without their two best defensive players. However, every Minnesota player who stepped on the court brought an intensity and tenacity that kept LA from getting anything easy. Anthony Davis and LeBron James are always going to impose their will and score tough buckets in almost any game they play. Still, the Wolves did a good job of slowing down the two superstars, heavily contesting almost every shot they took. Taurean Prince and SloMo did an especially solid job of staying in front of LeBron in half-court defense.
Similarly, the Timberwolves offense was clicking in the first half. The ball was moving smoothly around the perimeter and Minnesota’s role players were making the most of their minutes. Prince did a good job taking on the role of three-point assassin in Jaden McDaniels’ absence, running off scenes and finding space on the perimeter for kick outs. Mike Conley was doing everything on the court, from running the offense, to hitting his first seven shots of the game. Conley finished the game 6 of 8 from the 3-point line. He did everything within his power to give Wolves fans one less past trade to fret about, while D’Angelo Russell had an off night overall.
Towns also played tough and physical in the first half, fighting through contact and going body to body with AD, one of the strongest centers in the league. Towns searched for his shot aggressively, found creative ways to make the Lakers pay on mismatches, and the team was a plus-23 in his first half minutes.
Unfortunately, as soon as the Wolves looked like they were getting on enough of a roll to run away with the game, they seemingly popped a tire, and deflated in the third, and collapsed in the fourth. We’ve seen it all season.
Davis dominated the glass all game, grabbing 9 of his 15 rebounds on offense. That led to far too many second-chance points, especially in the first half. AD’s rim protection also kept Ant from getting any easy shots in the paint all night. It was a large part of why Ant was forced into taking a ton of 3s on a night where he wasn’t shooting well already, eventually going just 3 of 17 from the field.
AD’s physicality took a toll on the Wolves down the stretch, especially Towns. He got into foul trouble early, which shipwrecked what was nearly his most dominant performance of the season. It felt like a turning point in the game when KAT inexplicably pulled AD down by the arm while fighting for a rebound in the fourth quarter, picking up his fifth foul. In KAT’s defense, AD shoved KAT with his body first and the refs didn’t call it. Still, when you’re one of the two most important players on the team, you can’t make avoidable mistakes that put you at risk of fouling out when your team needs you the most.
Things seemed to spin out of control after that. Chris Finch had to bench Towns. KAT played great defense throughout most of the game. However, he wasn’t able to play as aggressively in the fourth quarter, because he couldn’t risk fouling out when the team needed him to play heavy minutes down the stretch.
After that, the Wolves began to panic. They stopped moving the ball and started playing inefficient iso ball with Ant and KAT. They didn’t score for the final six minutes in the fourth quarter, until Conley hit three clutch free throws to send the game to overtime. To reiterate, the Wolves only scored 12 points in the fourth quarter. In the most important 12 minutes of the season so far, they weren’t able to get anything going and reverted to their old bad habits. It was a game the Wolves should have won. Instead, it became another unfortunate episode in a confusing and disappointing season.
Still, while disappointment may be the most present emotion, all is not yet lost for this year. The Timberwolves will still have a chance to get right and earn the eighth seed the hard way in a win-or-go-home play-in game against either the New Orleans Pelicans or the Oklahoma City Thunder. In good news for the Wolves, they will play their second chance game at home, and neither team they have the potential to face has a player the caliber of Anthony Davis, much less the modern GOAT LeBron James.
However, the Thunder and the Pelicans have given the Timberwolves trouble this season. Therefore, the Wolves will have to be on their A-game Friday to secure the eighth seed. It’s going to be an uphill battle from here. Even if the Wolves manage to win the final game, they will be facing the first-seeded Denver Nuggets in the first round.
Any playoff series without McDaniels and Naz Reid is going to be difficult, but it will be another story entirely against the two-time MVP Nikola Jokic. Because the bench is depleted, the starters are going to have to play heavy minutes every game, which is going to be taxing considering that the Nuggets will have had a week of rest by that time. Additionally, the team has to hope they can continue to get big performances out of Anderson and Prince, their key role players. Minnesota will rely on them to do more given their injury situation. Ant, especially, will have to find his shot if the Wolves are going to advance.
Still, this next game will be an opportunity for the Timberwolves, and many players on the team, to rewrite their narrative in the national media’s eyes. Rudy Gobert, who will be back for the next play-in game, has to prove to the world that he can be the same defensive monster that he was in his prime. He also has to show that he can get along with his teammates — or at least not punch them.
Karl has to prove that he can be the same dominant force he is on offense in the regular season. Ant has to show that he can lock in on the opponent’s best player on defense for an entire game, while still having the energy to perform on offense. That’s an incredibly difficult task for a 21-year-old to take on. Even players who are less in the spotlight, like Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Jordan McLaughlin, want to prove that they can be valuable rotation players in the playoffs, when every team is playing their starters heavy minutes.
A team with something to prove can be dangerous, both to other teams and themselves. If anything can give you an extra sliver of hope, it’s that almost every Wolves player has something to prove, and they are going to be determined to prove it in what could be their final game of the season. Their ability to bounce back almost every time something terrible has happened this season has become one of the defining characteristics of this particular group of players. It helped them achieve an above .500 record despite all the injuries and trade chaos. Let’s hope that resilience can continue to carry them further into the postseason.
