Anthony Edwards received a technical foul with 3:56 left in the first half of Wednesday night’s Denver Nuggets game. Referee Che Flores had called Edwards for traveling with a minute to go in the first quarter, and Edwards had complained on and off with the officials throughout the second quarter. Jamal Murray missed the technical free throw, and the game moved on.
But Jaden McDaniels picked up a flagrant foul in the third quarter when he shoved a Denver player from behind. The officials had called a personal foul on McDaniels five seconds before, and his shove felt like the result of frustration. The Minnesota Timberwolves made it a point of emphasis to be more disciplined after battling with the officials last year. They had the second-most personal fouls in the league and led the NBA in technical fouls.
“Leading the league in technicals is not something we’re proud of,” Chris Finch said at media day. “That’s got to change. We were, I think, 7-13 against the bottom six teams in the league last year. So a little bit immature in our approach, readiness, [and] stuff like that.”
Edwards and McDaniels’ fouling hardly affected the game’s outcome. The Timberwolves handed the reigning champion Denver Nuggets their first loss of the season, 110-89. Furthermore, the Wolves held onto a 19-point halftime lead 48 hours after blowing a 19-point halftime lead on Monday, an early sign of progress. But the Atlanta Hawks game was also concerning. Minnesota had a second-half meltdown against an inferior team, reminiscent of demoralizing losses from last year.
“We all realize that in the game today, no lead is really secure,” Finch said Monday in Atlanta. “I didn’t think that we necessarily lost focus. I do think once we missed a bunch of shots, we let our defense down. That’s the biggest thing. I don’t think we came out lackadaisical.”
A “big film session” at practice the next day confirmed some of Finch’s fears. “We watched a lot of our offensive shot selection, decisions in the paint,” he said. “I was always fearful when the lights come on, and they start counting the stats, that things tend to get a little bit sticky. Or guys try to go and do it all by themselves. We played ourselves right out of rhythm.”
The Atlanta game felt similar to Minnesota’s first game of the season when their offense jammed in a 97-94 loss in Toronto. The Timberwolves played fluid basketball and went 5-0 in the preseason. Finch played the starters extra minutes to build chemistry after Karl-Anthony Towns’ illness and Rudy Gobert’s Eurobasket fatigue led to a slow start. But the Wolves looked different in their first regular season game. They stopped passing and played hero ball.
“A lot of times when the lights come on and they start counting things for real, the ball tends to get a little stickier than it does in the preseason,” Finch cautioned before the game.
“There’s two sides to this,” Kyle Anderson offered. “Everybody wants to be invested in the team. It’s also a business. Guys gotta feed their families. Maybe we were caught in between.”
Everyone involved with the Timberwolves – coaches, fans, and players – hoped that they had left their demons in the past. The Wolves retained most of their core, believing the continuity would allow them to build off the past two seasons. They have stated that they want to make it out of the first round of the playoffs this season. But they have to start by being more mature. That means holding onto first-half leads, like they did against Denver, and playing more disciplined. Mike Conley admitted that last year’s blown leads may have seeped into his teammates’ minds in Atlanta.
“It might’ve been too much focus on the past,” the veteran guard admitted. “You hear a lot of people saying, ‘Get off to a good start in the quarter.’ We gave up leads in the past. You get that in your head, and it happens sometimes. I think a lot of us need to play free.”
Vegas has Minnesota’s over-under at 44.5 this year, meaning the oddsmakers feel the Wolves are a better team than Toronto (34.5) and Atlanta (40.5). They already have two losses to inferior teams this year and one major blown lead. Beating Denver (54.5, second-highest in the league) is a step in the right direction. But they still have more to prove early this season. “Maturity comes when you stack performances like this on top of each other,” Finch said on Wednesday. “So that remains to be seen. But this was a great focused effort.”
It’s human nature to give in to your worst impulses. Every player wants to win, and many feel they give their team the best odds to succeed by taking the game into their hands. But fluid ball movement results in productive offense. Similarly, Edwards may have been right about a ticky-tack traveling call, and McDaniels may have been frustrated after picking up a personal foul. But hero ball rarely works, and the Wolves must be more disciplined to be a better team this year. Whether or not they exorcise their demons or succumb to them will be the difference between sneaking into the playoffs and being a contender.
