One hundred fifty-three teams in NBA history have fallen behind 3-0 in a playoff series. Only four times has a team down 0-3 forced a Game 7, and the trailing team has never returned from the deficit. After the Minnesota Timberwolves outplayed them for the third straight game, the Phoenix Suns entered Game 4 of the first round on the wrong side of history.
Not only was their season on the line, but so was their pride.
“I’ve never been swept a day in my left, so I’ll be dammed if that happens,” Bradley Beal told the media following Phoenix’s 126-109 Game 3 loss. “[Game 4] is going to be a tough ass game, and I’m sure that’s going to be in the back of their mind. It’s something [the Wolves] want to go out there and get done. I’ve been in a 3-0 situation, and you just want to put that team to bed, so they are going to come out playing their best basketball on Sunday.”
A lot has to go wrong to go down 3-0 in the first round. For the Suns, it has been a lack of consistent composure, especially coming out of halftime, as the Wolves had a +34 point differential in the third quarter through the first three games.
“That third quarter is kicking our ass, aint it? S—, I don’t know what else you want me to say,” said Beal after Game 3. “The crazy thing is, we do a good job on Ant and KAT early in games and making them force tough shots, KAT got in foul trouble. Start of the third, I’m looking up; KAT has three open-ass threes. Like, we just shoot ourselves in the foot with a lot of stuff.”
Phoenix’s energy was much better off the jump in front of their home crowd in Game 3. But as the night progressed, they slowly became disconnected on both ends. They weren’t technically facing elimination on Friday, but they were ahead of Game 4. As history proves, climbing out of a 3-0 hole is almost impossible. Devin Booker and his team approached Game 4 in the desert with a play-by-play mindset with their season on the line.
“Just play free. Take it possession by possession,” Booker explained after Game 3. “I remember going down to the bubble, and it was the same thing. We had to win eight [games] to even have a chance [at making the playoffs]. You just break ‘em down. [Each game] has its own personality, and you can only focus on one at a time.”
The Suns went with a small-ball lineup early in the fourth quarter in Game 3, moving Kevin Durant to the 5 for the first time in the series. They rattled off a 9-1 run over the next over the next 1:34 minutes. It seemed like Frank Vogel would go small more frequently in Game 4. When Jusuf Nurkic picked up two fouls 3:20 minutes into the first quarter, the Suns replaced him with 6’3″ Eric Gordon and slid Durant to the 5.
Expectedly, the team facing elimination was making desperate moves.
With 2:40 left in the first quarter, each team had already committed 11 fouls: six on the Suns and five on the Wolves. Neither team produced much offense, either. Phoenix was 6 of 15 from the floor and 1 of 4 from deep, while Minnesota was 4 of 17 from the floor and 1 of 8 from deep. But that’s what you like to see in a closeout game. One side is fighting to keep its season alive, and the other is trying to advance to the next round.
The Timberwolves thrive in physical, scrappy, fight-it-out games. Despite shooting 22.7% from the floor, they trialed by one after the first 12 minutes. Minnesota’s defensive rating through the first three games was 103.4, five points lower than their regular season average. It made its elite defense felt in the first frame on Sunday. However, Phoenix’s small-ball lineup kept them afloat. The Suns were -4 with a center on the floor through the first three minutes and +5 without a center to close the quarter.
The Wolves started the second quarter with Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert on the floor. Meanwhile, Vogel elected to roll with 6’6″ Nassir Little next to Durant to form his frontcourt.
Chris Finch must have told his guys in the huddle to assert their size and get into the paint against the Suns’ ridiculously small lineups because all five of Minnesota’s first attempts in the second came within the restricted area. They connected on four of them, which seemed like it might have been a precursor to what was coming. However, Phoenix’s small-ball defense was swarming and forcing the Wolves into tough shots outside of the paint and inside.
With 8:43 left in the quarter, Jaden McDaniels – who started the game hot – missed a triple from the left wing, which sparked Booker’s fastbreak layup. Mike Conley came down on the other end and missed a layup, resulting in another open-court situation for the Suns and a wide-open triple for Gordon as the Footprint Center crowd erupted.
That sequence, which gave the Suns a three-point lead, singlehandedly proved that Game 4 was trending toward playing out differently than the first three games.
Minnesota’s airtight defense started to leak as halftime approached. Durant and Booker got a few wide-open layups off as Edwards and Towns incorrectly overplayed them from the corners. After that transpired, Royce O’Neale connected on an uncontested pick-and-pop three. 3:05 minutes remained in the quarter, and Finch decided to burn one of his timeouts. The Wolves were down by two points, but it felt necessary for Finch to get his guys settled down.
After that short hiatus, Phoenix outscored the Timberwolves 11-8 throughout the rest of the first half. Towns hit two threes, accounting for Minnesota’s only field goal in that span. The Wolves generated some open looks, but they failed to connect on them, allowing the Suns to pay precisely how they wanted – quickly in transition to avoid battling Minnesota’s elite halfcourt defense. Phoenix owned a 9-1 fastbreak points advantage and a five-point lead at halftime.
Minnesota went 4 of 18 from three-point range in the first half. Towns had a team-high 15 points and was responsible for three of those makes. The Suns frequently lost track of KAT in pick-and-pop plays and off the ball. In the second half, the Wolves designed more sets to engage Karl because Phoenix was willing to leave him open. The Wolves just needed to start hitting their open shots, starting with Towns.
As I expected, KAT came out of the intermission aggressively. Gobert picked up his fourth foul 55 seconds into the third, making it even more critical that No. 32 drove offense.
Towns had four quick points in the low post on Minnesota’s first two possessions. He was a tone-setter because, after his five-foot shot with 10:36 left in the frame, the Wolves ripped off a quick 8-3 run that featured back-to-back Edwards threes and a poster dunk from McDaniels.
The Timberwolves entered Game 4 with the best playoff third-quarter point differential in the NBA (+34). They erased Phoenix’s five-point lead at halftime and retook a two-point lead.
After Minnesota went on a 12-5 run through the first 3:35 minutes, the Wolves and Suns went blow for blow the rest of the way. After every bucket or free throw from either team, the opposition came down on the other end and responded with points of their own. The Timberwolves also weathered an unfortunate whistle from crew chief Scott Foster and his crew. Booker attempted eight free throws in the third quarter, while Minnesota as a team attempted four.
Despite that, it was just a two-point game entering the fourth quarter.
Through the first three games, Booker averaged 20.3 points on 43.2% from the floor and 26.7% from deep. But he had a breakout in Game 4. Booker made a layup and followed that up with a three-pointer early in the fourth, which extended Phoenix’s lead to four and gave him 42 points on the night. He was incredibly physical and aggressive, fed off Minnesota’s misses and turnovers, and received a favorable whistle. It was the perfect storm that felt inevitable in this series.
D-Book may have caused a thunderous storm, but Ant proved he is the true bringer of rain.
After Booker connected on a triple with 9:41 left in the game that put the Suns up 99-95, Edwards was responsible for Minnesota’s next five points, three as a scorer and two as a passer. Ant recorded 14 points the rest of the way, including this gravity-defying poster in the face of his basketball idol.
Edwards scored 40 points in Game 4, 31 of which came in the second half. He willed the Timberwolves to a 122-116 win, producing the first sweep in franchise history. He also became the fifth-youngest player to score exactly 40 points in a playoff game, behind Amar’e Stoudemire, Russell Westbrook, Bob McAdoo, and Durant.
It should have been a perfect, euphoric night. However, Conley accidentally ran into Finch late in the fourth quarter, dampening the celebratory emotions. Finch fell and immediately grabbed his right knee while grimacing in pain. Minnesota’s training staff helped him off the court, and the team announced after the game that he had suffered a right patellar tendon rupture.
Because of the freak injury, assistant coach Micah Nori stepped up in his place and took questions from the media postgame. Like always, Nori was upbeat and joking around. However, he also offered a great breakdown of Edwards’ growth from last season to now.
It’s just another year of seeing it, responded Nori. As a young kid, he’s 22 years old; when you go through it every year, things start to slow down. They always put two on him at times, and now he is just constantly making the right play. As things slow down, he sees where he’s open from. He does a lot of film work with all the coaches, PD guys, Pablo [Prigioni], and [Chris] Hines. They help just show him where those plays are, so I think a lot of it is that experience.
But the other thing is he knows that USA Basketball was good for him to be around that level of competition all summer and continue to play. At the end of the day, he’s experience, being around Mike, Rudy, and Karl – pros – have continued to talk to him and be around him. He’s making the right plays, and he’s got that it factor.
All of Edwards’ hard work and preparation culminated late in Game 4. The four-year, two-time All-Star put together a Hall of Fame performance in the season’s biggest game and on the biggest stage. Not only did he become the second player under 23 years old to record 40 or more points in a game to complete a sweep on the road, but he also received praise from the player he grew up idolizing.
So impressed with Ant. My favorite player to watch. He has just grown so much since he came into the league at 22. His love for the game shines bright. That’s one of the reasons why I like him the most because he just loves basketball, he’s grateful to be in this position, and he’s taken advantage of every opportunity he’s gotten. I love everything about Ant. I’ll be watching him going forward. I know he’s going to go out there and play extremely hard every single night. I was really impressed with him. He’s somebody I’ll be following for the rest of his career.
