This weekend was historic for the Minnesota Timberwolves. For just the fifth time in franchise history, and the first time since 2017-18, the Wolves sent two players to the All-Star game. It was also the second time in team history that Minnesota’s coaching staff won the right to coach the All-Star game by having the best record going into the break. Chris Finch became the first Timberwolves head coach to earn the honor since the legendary Filp Saunders in 2004.
As it usually does, the All-Star game itself left something to be desired. Defense was optional, which makes sense given that the players in the game do a lot of heavy lifting for their teams during the regular season, and this is technically supposed to be a break for them. And because there is no real reward for winning, players aren’t incentivized to play hard, especially if they are nursing an injury like Anthony Edwards.
However, there was still a lot of fun stuff to come out of the weekend for Wolves fans. Karl-Anthony Towns put up 50 points to become only the fourth player in All-Star game history to score 50 or more. Even better than that was that the Timberwolves put their great team chemistry on display under the bright lights of post-game media sessions.
A reporter asked KAT if he was aware of his point total and if he was thinking about trying to break the record. “I knew I had a lot,” KAT responded. “But I knew Ant was the one, as always, it’s always Ant, was looking at me saying –” Towns paused to hold up his fingers, showing how Ant was helping keep track of his point total from the bench. “So he was breaking down the points for me on the bench, and I knew it was something special because even Steph [Curry] got up and was like ‘get 50, get 50.’”
It’s always fun to hear stories about teammates hyping each other up. But this was an especially heartwarming story given that it came from their first All-Star game together.
When Ant was asked in his post-game interview how he enjoyed the day, the first thing he said was, “It was great, man. My boy had 50 tonight, so I had a great day.”
Jon Krawczynski followed up by asking, “ I saw him cheering for you, you’re cheering for him, what was it like being out there on the floor together?”
“It’s fun being out there with your brother, celebrating each other,” Ant responded. “I think we both were excited for each other, and it was a super good experience.”
Later in the interview, Ant was asked how it felt to see KAT playing and having a good time at the All-Star game, after being injured last season. “It made me happy,” Ant responded. “Seeing KAT happy, I think it makes everybody happy. The whole bench was smiling, super happy for him. He’s a great dude off the court, not just a great basketball player — a great person. So [it was] super exciting to play alongside him.”
Finally, at the end of the interview, a reporter noted that there have been star duos in the past who were jealous of each other’s success, using Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, and Kevin Garnett and Stephon Marbury as examples. Then the reporter asked Ant why he and KAT don’t have that dynamic.
“That’s a great question,” Ant responded. “I think we just put our egos to the side because if you wanna win, you can’t be jealous of anybody you play with, I feel like. And I’ve dealt with that throughout middle school, elementary school, high school, college. So when I got here, I just tried to put my ego to the side, and I was never a jealous person anyway. He’s not a jealous person. So we just mesh, and it’s a great thing to see for sure.”
Ant and KAT’s relationship is special and has been an underrated part of Minnesota’s recent success. In a sport full of players with large, often well-deserved egos, it is refreshing to see two stars set aside their individual accolades for the team’s goals, especially at such a young age. Superstars aren’t often able to put their egos aside until later in their careers, either after they’ve matured or just realized that they can’t win on their own.
Many great teams in basketball history have broken apart because star players were unable to set aside their conflicts, including the Michael Jordan-era Bulls, whose team chemistry issues were well documented in the Last Dance. As a Wolves fan, I’m thankful that there has been no perceivable conflict between the two All-Stars. They regularly go out of their way to praise each other and their other teammates. It shows not only that they are true professionals, but that they have a brotherhood that goes beyond the court.
Ant and KAT also went out of their way to praise Minnesota’s coaching staff during their press conferences. Towns credited his teammates for helping him score, saying, “In the All-Star game, when you’re big, you never know what’s gonna happen, but to be in a position where my teammates trusted me and wanted to get me the ball was just a huge honor and a blessing.”
Then KAT went on to crack some jokes about the coaching staff, saying, “I really gotta say I think it was great coaching, I think the coaching really, the play calls and stuff like that, I mean I think they’re fantastic. I would love possibly one day to be able to play for this coaching staff if everything lines up.”
A reporter asked KAT about the defense, and he responded, “ET [Elston Turner]? Our defense was not that good tonight. You know, usually [they’re] the number one defensive coaching staff in the whole entire world and NBA, and we found a way to double, giving up more than 100.”
Minnesota’s defensive rating this season is 108.2, meaning they only give up about 108 points per 100 possessions. So the 211 points that the Western All-Stars gave up really did almost double what the Timberwolves would allow in a normal game. It was good to hear KAT poke fun at the defense while also reminding everyone just how good the Wolves coaching staff has been throughout the year.
Questions about shot selection became a bit of a running joke throughout the night for Minnesota’s players and coaching staff. Ant was also asked how he thought the coaching staff felt about the shot selection and defense. “I honestly think the shot selection was in his favor, it was more threes than anything else, so I think he was happy about that,” he responded. “But I don’t think ET liked the defensive effort, I think it was a problem, but we’ll be alright.”
Then during Chris Finch’s press conference, Ant crashed the interview to ask Finch about the shot selection and defense. I’m not sure which interview happened first, so it’s hard to say if Ant was asking Finch because he had just been asked the same thing and was making a bit out of it, or if he was genuinely curious. Regardless, Finch was half laughing the whole time as he responded to Ant. “It was good, they just didn’t go in,” he said. “They made a lot more threes than we did.” Ant then asks him what he thought about the defense, and Finch responded, “Yeah, no, we’re gonna have to talk about the defense,” and then laughed about it before saying goodbye to Ant.
Finch laughed when a reporter asked what it was like to see KAT put up 50 points in the All-Star game. “It was good,” he said. “Hopefully, we can continue that. There’s no post-game meltdown now by me.”
He made this joke in reference to KAT’s 62 points in a loss to the Charlotte Hornets earlier this season. Finch ripped the team’s defense and tunnel vision on trying to get KAT points, rather than praise him for the personal record he set. Although Finch has since stated that he felt he shouldn’t have been so harsh on the team, given KAT’s historical performance, Finch’s call-back joke was perfectly timed as part of the All-Star game and showed his self-awareness and humility as a coach.
A reporter then asked Finch how it felt to be the first All-Star coach to give up 200 points. “Well,” he responded, “you’ll have to talk to Elston about that one.”
Although Turner was brought up in all three post-game interviews as a way for Finch, Ant, and KAT to joke about how the defense wasn’t their fault, I think it also serves to show how much respect they have for him as a coach. Even though the responses were jokes, the answers still suggested that if reporters want to know about Minnesota’s defensive philosophies, then they should ask the defensive coordinator.
ET has done an incredible job helping the Wolves be the best defensive team in the league all year. Within the jokes there was credit given to Turner. That’s important for assistant coaches who rarely ever get publicity, especially on such a big stage like the All-Star game. It shows that there is comradery between members of the coaching staff and the players.
Micah Nori also got a chance to show his sense of humor during a fake halftime report via the Timberwolves’ YouTube page. Nori noted that “we traveled to Indiana for All-Star [weekend], we left our defense wherever we were coming from. So I don’t know if our defense is in Cabo, I don’t know if our defense is wherever we’re going from here on out, but we have to find it. 104 points, absolutely unacceptable.”
Nori then made up a story about what Finch was saying to the players in the locker room. “Finchy was in there — jumped them,” he said. “I haven’t seen a speech like that since Vince Lombardi in Super Bowl I. It reminds you of Training Day, it reminds you of the Longest Yard, any sports movie, Rudy.”
Minnesota’s team and coaching staff chemistry is a joy to watch. Their ability to carry on a bit as a team between interviews, and laugh together at inside jokes that only they and hardcore Wolves fans understand shows that there is a true sense of comradery amongst the group on the court, in the locker room, and beyond. This dynamic makes the Good Vibes Wolves not only more fun to watch but also allows them to communicate and work together during tense moments, of which there are many throughout even the most successful NBA team’s season. We’ve come a long way from Rudy Gobert throwing a punch at Kyle Anderson during one of the most important games of last season, a true sign of the growing maturity of this special Wolves team.
