Anthony Edwards cascaded across the half-court line late in the fourth quarter Friday night. He had scored the last five points for the Minnesota Timberwolves and was looking for a heat check, pulling up from the Target Center logo nearest the Orlando Magic bench.
Jaden McDaniels was confident the shot would fall, blowing a 3-point sign to the crowd as the ball flew through the air. The fans were ready to explode. The shot – which Chris Finch probably felt was ill-advised – clanked off the back of the rim. Julius Randle climbed to get the rebound in one motion and threw in a thunderous putback dunk with two hands.
“Maybe earlier in the season, we don’t run that down and dunk it,” Finch said in his postgame debrief after Minnesota beat the Magic 118-111 to claim its seventh-straight win.
Randle flexed after the putback, as did McDaniels, who had a mean mug on his face. Edwards missed his heat check heave that set up the putback, but he was more excited than anyone else in the building of nearly 19,000.
Individual success meant nothing to anyone on the team at that moment. Early in the season, maybe Randle doesn’t split the gap to get the putback. Perhaps he starts backpedaling on defense as the shot is in the air. Most likely, the Wolves would not have put themselves in the position to win the game in the first place.
The Magic punked the Wolves in the third quarter, outscoring Minnesota 29-16. Had that happened earlier in the season, the Timberwolves probably would have played more individually rather than coming together and outscoring Orlando 40-24 in the fourth.
Through all the trials early in the season, Finch remained the rock Minnesota greatly needed, never wavering in his mental approach to each game and staying even-keeled. Occasionally, he looked like an old man stuck in his ways. But now, his patience is what has the Wolves playing at a level that rivals their best stretch of basketball last season.
Finch explained Friday night that early on this season, players were on their own agendas, which messed with the chemistry and cohesion of the group.
“Guys were all worried about themselves, their game, and how everything we did was going to impact them,” Finch said. “Some of that is normal at the beginning of the season.”
The Wolves knew that adjusting to the Karl-Anthony Towns trade would take time. However, making such a seismic trade the Friday before the team reported to media day on Monday fueled fit issues for the Wolves and anxiety amongst the roster.
Randle wasn’t anticipating the trade that sent him to Minnesota. When he got here, Randle was figuring out where he belonged on the fly in an ecosystem next to Edwards, who has a different playstyle than Julius’s former co-star Jalen Brunson.
Donte DiVincenzo was chilling at his home in New York when he found out the Knicks were trading him. He then battled a slow start to the season. DiVincenzo was also trying to find where he fit with the Wolves while coming off the bench. McDaniels was also lost in the offense early.
“Post-trade, everything was just kind of up in the air,” Finch said. “We were trying to figure it out. Guys were bothered by lots of things. You don’t have that connectivity, then. It’s not selfishness. I think guys were figuring out how they could get themselves going. It wasn’t malicious, but it just had to let go of that and lean into what the team needed, and they’ve done that.”
Early this season, the Timberwolves were plagued by their success last season. Fans and the team had to let go of last season’s Western Conference Finals run. In the summer, ticket prices increased, and the expectation around the franchise was suddenly Finals or bust. Therefore, fans clamored for a starting lineup change when the Wolves started slow, Edwards called the team “front runners” in November, and Randle’s fit next to Ant and Rudy Gobert caused issues for the team offensively.
In early January, Finch ultimately made a change. He sent Mike Conley, who has had one of his worst seasons statistically, to the bench and replaced him with DiVincenzo. Many fans believed Finch waited too long to make a move. Many of those same fans also wanted Finch to bench Randle and replace him with Naz Reid.
The move would have been understandable, but it wouldn’t have been as easy for Finch to bench Randle as it was to bench Conley. It also would have messed with Randle’s confidence.
Randle has a $30.9 million player option this summer. He can opt into the option and stay with the Wolves, who could then trade him. Or, if Randle thinks he can pull more in free agency, he could opt out and hit the open market. Benching Randle before the trade deadline would have undoubtedly decreased his trade value. Perhaps that was part of Finch’s decision to keep him in the starting lineup.
However, that is unlikely. Finch has kept Randle in the starting lineup after he returned from his groin injury on March 2.
“Finch has worked his ass off trying to help me get acclimated and feel comfortable,” Randle said after Minnesota’s 125-110 win over the Charlotte Hornets on March 5. “We had a talk in Dallas [on Jan. 22], and we were just like, ‘Man, it’s going to happen when it’s supposed to happen.’ …I appreciate him keeping confidence in me. I keep confidence in him, obviously.”
From the moment Randle arrived in the Twin Cities, Finch has spoken nothing but high praise for him. Finch coached Julius as an assistant coach for the New Orleans Pelicans in 2018-19. Randle also believes Finch is an elite-level coach.
Randle and Finch have a uniquely tight-knit relationship. Finch kept Randle in the starting lineup early in the season, while Reid was the better fit alongside Edwards and Gobert. Fans perceived it as stubbornness. However, Finch believed in Randle from the beginning, the fruits of which Minnesota is fully displaying in March.
The Wolves are an almost unbelievable 13-0 in the last 13 games Randle has played in. Their eight-game winning streak also started when Randle returned to the lineup. During Minnesota’s winning streak, it is second league-wide in offensive rating (123.4), third in defensive rating (108.6), and first in net rating (14.8). The Wolves have also outscored their opponents by a total of 119 points, 38 points more than the Oklahoma City Thunder, the next closest team.
Randle has led Minnesota’s resurgence, averaging 18.3 points (second-most on the team), 6.9 rebounds, and six assists on 51% from the floor during the winning streak. He’s done so by playing quicker and more decisively than earlier in the season. Part of Randle’s newfound success is that he evaluated who he needed to be while injured.
The other part is Finch’s trust and patience throughout Randle’s learning process, which has trickled down to the rest of the team.
The confidence Finch instills in his team by staying patient has shown itself in many ways. The Wolves show it by moving the ball and trusting their teammates fully. They are showing it by committing to the team’s success rather than their own and letting everything play out from there. They show it by coming out of timeouts or between quarters with big runs, particularly when the opponent pulls closer. Sometimes, they show it by simply going for offensive rebounds late in games.
“It’s obvious when you don’t do it,” DiVincenzo said Friday night regarding everyone doing the little things. “At the beginning of the year, it was a little less obvious if you don’t do it because everybody is kind of snowballing. I think we are all on the same page right now.”
Everything the Wolves have done recently, both on a micro and macro level, has the team on the longest active winning streak (8) in the NBA after the Cleveland Cavaliers lost on Sunday and the Wolves beat the Utah Jazz. With every win, the Timberwolves become an even more threatening team to make a deep run in the playoffs.
Finch and his stubbornness, if you want to call it that, put Minnesota in this situation.
