ESPN gave the Minnesota Timberwolves an 88% chance of beating the Charlotte Hornets on Monday night. Vegas had them winning by 13.5 points. Karl-Anthony Towns had a franchise-record 62 points. He became the first player in NBA history to have at least 10 made three-pointers, two-pointers, and free throws in a game. And the Wolves lost.
How is that possible?
“I have no clue,” said Anthony Edwards. “All I remember is being up like 20 in the fourth [quarter], and they walked us down.”
The Timberwolves led 107-92 entering the fourth quarter. JT Thor’s three-pointer that cut Charlotte’s deficit to 15 decreased Minnesota’s odds of winning from 99% to 98.4%. Towns missed a three to start the fourth quarter, and Thor hit another three. Jordan McLaughlin missed a three, and P.J. Washington hit another three. Towns hits a floater; LaMelo Ball hits a floater. The Wolves lead 109-100 with 10:44 to go. ESPN’s analytics give them a 93% chance to win the game.
Minnesota eventually lost 128-125, and Towns became the fifth player this century to lose a game despite scoring 60 points. The Timberwolves have beaten the Denver Nuggets, Boston Celtics, and the Los Angeles Clippers this season. But the most significant difference from last season is they’ve mostly taken care of business against sub-.500 teams. A year ago, the Wolves were 25-22 against winning clubs and 17-18 against losing teams. They were 5-7 against the NBA’s four worst teams, including two losses to the Detroit Pistons.
Entering Monday, they were 12-2 against losing squads. But losing teams had kept things close in two of Minnesota’s previous three games. Detroit had whittled the Timberwolves’ double-digit lead down to four points with just under four minutes to play on Wednesday. And the Ja Morant-less Memphis Grizzlies hung with the Wolves a day later and led 89-85 with just under 11 minutes to go before Minnesota took control of the game.
The Wolves have traded wins and losses in hard-fought games with the NBA’s top teams like Boston and the Oklahoma City Thunder. But some of their games against tanking teams have felt similar to their battles with the league’s best. The Wolves didn’t have Mike Conley in Boston, and he sat out against Charlotte on Monday. Minnesota lacked direction in both games, but Finch and the players felt they lacked focus from the beginning of the Hornets game. However, things really started to slip in the fourth.
Towns misses his next shot of the fourth quarter, and Thor blocks him on this next attempt. Thor blocks him again. Towns misses another three. Chris Finch calls timeout. The Timberwolves lead 113-108 with 8:27 left; ESPN gives them an 85.3% chance to win. Towns is hunting shots, but he’s the only player scoring consistently for the Wolves outside of Nickeil Alexander-Walker. Anthony Edwards is starting to heat up a bit, but he mainly acted as a facilitator for Towns. Edwards had no points in the first half and finished the game with nine points and 11 assists.
With just under nine minutes to go, most people sitting near me wanted Charlotte to keep the game close so Finch would keep Towns in the game. Towns wasn’t just trying to break Minnesota’s franchise scoring record. Joel Embiid had scored 70 points against the San Antonio Spurs, and it was the 18-year anniversary of Kobe Bryant famously scoring 81 points against the Toronto Raptors. The Timberwolves had outscored the Hornets 38-28 in the third quarter. If they start to run away with the game in the fourth, Finch inevitably will pull Towns. It’s a Monday night game against Charlotte. All anyone wants to see is Towns have a career game and go home.
The Hornets didn’t flip the odds in their favor until Washington hit a floater with 3:21 in the fourth to put Charlotte ahead 122-121. ESPN still gave Minnesota a 72.5% to win when Terry Rozier hit a floater to make it 119-117 Wolves with 4:13 left. Nick Smith Jr. hit a three-pointer to give the Hornets their first lead since 8:25 in the second quarter, but ESPN’s analytics still favored the Wolves. Edwards’ layup with 3:39 to go boosted Minnesota’s odds to 57.6%. But Washington hits a floater to retake the lead, and the Hornets took control of the game.
“It was an absolutely disgusting performance of defense and immature basketball,” Finch said after the game. “So it really didn’t slip away. It had been there from the jump. This is what happens when you have that type of approach.”
At halftime, he said the Wolves needed to return to who they are and play defense. He alternated between man and zone coverages, imploring them to compete and play defense. The message didn’t get through. “It’s a long season,” he added. “You’re going to have bad games. I was hoping that we were beyond it, but until you go through it all, you really can’t tell. We’ve been better in not having any of these types of performances.”
Towns wouldn’t take any consolation in the loss coming in the middle of the season. “There’s no silver lining. No moral victories,” he said. “It was cool, and we were saying that when we were 15-30 and stuff like that. That’s the time you want to try to pull out the old moral victories. But we’re No. 1 in the West, one of the best teams in the NBA. There ain’t no time for moral victories, silver linings, great nights.”
It’s usually wise to have a short memory in professional sports. But the Wolves must acknowledge how they’ve been playing recently. Detroit and Memphis hung with them for three quarters. They turned the ball over 21 times in a winnable game against Oklahoma City, and they’ll waste a 30-11 start if they continue to be careless with the ball. On Monday, the team became fixated on feeding Towns the ball; he hunted shots, and they lost to the tanking Hornets.
The Timberwolves have done a lot of good this season. They’ve integrated Rudy Gobert into their team in a way they didn’t last season, and people’s perception of the trade has changed. Edwards continues his ascent to stardom, and Jaden McDaniels remains one of the league’s best players. Minnesota is beating good and bad teams. But they can’t fall into the bad habits they had last season. Monday’s game felt like it belonged in 2022. That sentiment reflects how far the Wolves have come and how far they have to go.
