As Terrence Shannon Jr. nonchalantly strolled onto the court for his pregame warmups Thursday, his opportunity was there for the taking. The opportunity to prove himself invaluable to his team on a night when they needed him more than ever before.
An opportunity that came a day after his head coach called him out for his defense.
“I don’t clean it up, he cleans it up,” Chris Finch told the media during practice on Wednesday. “The only way I can clean it up is by sitting him on the bench.”
Finch couldn’t afford to sit Shannon on the bench on Thursday. The Minnesota Timberwolves were banged up and clinging to a 3-2 series lead over the Denver Nuggets. Finch didn’t just need Shannon not to be a liability; he needed Shannon to be an impact player for the entire game. And Shannon needed to respond to his coach’s comments.
The opportunity was there for Shannon to do all of those things. Early in Minnesota’s 110-98 win, Shannon made it known that Game 6 was going to be different. His first made field goal of the night preluded a performance that would only warrant praise from his coach afterward.
Mike Conley poked the ball free of Cam Johnson’s grasp two minutes in. Shannon recovered the loose ball and flashed from one end of the court to the other, throwing down a dunk that matched the energy level that was in Target Center.
“I thought he’d give us a boost,” Finch said. “I didn’t realize it would be like this. Not just with his scoring, but I think he made a lot of emotional energy plays that got the crowd into it. Played with force. He let it be known he was going to be reckoned with.”
Shannon got word when he walked into the building on Thursday that he was starting in Game 6. Anthony Edwards (left knee hyperextension and bone bruise) and Donte DiVincenzo (right Achilles rupture) were already out. Then Ayo Dosunmu was downgraded to out with a right calf injury, and Kyle Anderson was out with an illness.
In Minnesota’s 125-113 Game 5 loss on Monday, where Dosunmu and Anderson played, Shannon scored 15 points on 6 of 10 shooting. But he only played 14 minutes off the bench because his off-ball defense was not sharp, and Finch was quick to sit him. He was defending at a level that Finch knows is far below his capabilities.
“Really good offensively,” Finch said after Game 5. “Defensively, I think his first shift was full of a lot of gameplay mistakes. I think we’ve got to clean that up for sure. But, offensively, he’s proven he can be a weapon for us.”
Shannon has had issues buying into the defensive side of the NBA. He has the tools — the 6’6” frame, the 6’8” wingspan, and the lightning-fast foot speed — to be a lockdown defender on the perimeter. Finch believes that Shannon can reach that level. But he wasn’t going to reach that level by Thursday. Shannon heard Finch’s comments about him, and all he was focusing on ahead of Game 6 was improving.
“It’s all about how you respond,” Shannon said. “You can’t sit and mope and have a victim mentality. You’ve just got to go out there and fix what you messed up, and do better the next game. That’s in the past.”
Shannon primarily guarded off-ball in Game 6. He acknowledged after the game that he wasn’t perfect defensively, but he certainly was better. He competed hard and wasn’t a glaring liability with a compilation of lowlights that would show up on the film session the next day.
Finch needed to see better defense out of Shannon on Thursday. But even more than that, he needed Shannon to be the high-voltage scorer that he’s been his whole career. Finch, with his season’s fate hanging in the balance, desperately needed someone whom he could give the ball to spark momentous, emotional, and loud buckets. The shots that Edwards, Dosunmu, and DiVincenzo can produce.
Shannon scored 12 points on 4 of 11 shooting in the first half. He broke a gap-heavy Denver defense almost immediately with his speed. Shannon’s play hit a crescendo when he broke free for a deafeningly loud left-handed dunk that sent the Wolves into halftime with a 57-50 lead and the momentum in a game in which there would have been no fault in the shorthanded Wolves to lose.
However, Shannon had an opportunity to maximize.
He helped pioneer Minnesota’s gutsy win. Jaden McDaniels set a new career high of 32 points on 13 of 25 shooting. He was the catalyst for the win. But Shannon — behind his 24 points on 9 of 20 shooting in 35 minutes — orchestrated the emotional field goals that feel like they are worth more than they are. Edwards is great at doing that. However, in Game 6, Shannon was the one converting clutch and-ones and three-pointers that made Target Center explode as the win came into focus.
Finch didn’t have much of a choice in Game 6. He was running low on playable bodies and had to lean on Shannon in some capacity, regardless of his production. Still, it was a high-leverage situation in which Shannon used to prove himself.
And thanks to him, the Wolves are off to the second round, where they will meet the second-seeded San Antonio Spurs. There is hope that Edwards could return during this postseason run. But until he does, and even after, Minnesota will continue to feed off Shannon playing as he did in Game 6 — being a threat to deliver explosive offense while putting in the effort on the other end that gives his head coach no reason to sub him out.
