Well, it can’t get any worse. Two days after getting destroyed by Karl-Anthony Towns and the New York Knicks, the Minnesota Timberwolves were back in action against the Golden State Warriors.
Both teams are coming off terrible performances as the Wolves 26-point loss on Thursday was outdone by the Warriors who lost by 51 points to the Memphis Grizzlies.
Right before the game was ready to begin, the officials noticed an issue with the rim, causing the game to be delayed. After more than 20 minutes, and multiple different members of the equipment staff taking a look, the rim was finally repaired allowing the game to start.
After a putrid offensive performance on Thursday, Minnesota continued to have issues scoring the ball. They would miss seven of their first eight shots to start the game, allowing the Warriors to jump out to an early seven-point lead.
Minnesota would finish the first quarter with only 15 points, which is three fewer points than they had in the disaster of a second quarter against the Knicks on Thursday. Minnesota would shoot 6-22 from the field and 1-8 from beyond the arc while adding in four turnovers along the way. The Wolves would trail by 11 points heading into the second quarter.
The offense would only get worse in the second quarter as the Timberwolves would not score a single point until the 5:38 mark of the quarter, totaling a more than seven-and-a-half-minute stretch without any scoring going back to the end of the first quarter.
The Golden State lead would grow as high as 21 points before the Wolves made a couple of 3-pointers down the stretch of the quarter to lower the lead to 50-37 heading into halftime.
Anthony Edwards struggled mightily in the first half, scoring only three points on 1-9 shooting. He was missing from everywhere on the court including shots from deep, mid-range, and at the rim. Stephen Curry led the way for the Warriors with 11 points including three makes from beyond the arc.
Minnesota’s offense would wake up to start the second half, making 11 of their first 13 shots from the field to improbably take a one-point lead. The sequence was capped off by a Naz Reid block and 3-pointer in transition.
The Warriors would recover over the final four minutes of the quarter to take a 79-75 lead heading into the final frame of play.
The entire fourth quarter would remain close as neither team would take a lead larger than four points. Ant would begin to make his mark on the game after a tough first half, making back-to-back shots from deep to tie the game.
In what has become a familiar story for this year’s Wolves, they would be unable to play well late in the game, allowing a 12-2 Golden State run. That run included a stretch where the Warriors scored on ten straight possessions late in the game including a barrage of 3-pointers from Curry, giving the Warriors a 104-94, a deficit that would prove the be enough.
The Wolves would go on to lose 113-103 for their second loss in a row. Edwards recovered with a better second half, finishing with 19 points on 6-20 shooting. Donte DiVincenzo also had 19 points including three makes from beyond the arc. Curry led all scorers with 31 points including seven 3-pointers.
Key Takeaways
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Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images
Offensive Struggles Continue
The Timberwolves scored only 38 points in the first half, shooting 12-44 (27.3 percent) from the field including 4-17 (23.5 percent) on 3-pointers. They were missing shots close to the basket, far away from the basket, and everything in between.
As has been the case so often this season, it was difficult to decipher what the Wolves were even trying to get to offensively. They even had a stretch of half a quarter of game time where they went without a single point.
The offense did rebound in the second half to score 65 points, finishing with 105, but it was too little too light as they ran out of gas late in the fourth quarter.
Chris Finch spoke on the podium postgame about how the Wolves can break out of the script of getting down early and rallying back just to fall short late.
“We have to put the ball in the basket. That’s why we were down tonight we weren’t down because of our defense we weren’t down because we had a bunch of breakdowns we just go make a shot. It happens. We’re not going to overreact to that part of it.”
There is certainly a case to be made that poor shooting plays a major role in these offensive woes. Tonight especially, the Wolves missed a huge number of shots around the rim that will likely go down in the future.
The problem with this line of thinking is that the Wolves defense has been struggling long enough to rule this out as the main factor. Over the previous 10 games before tonight, the Wolves ranked 28th in offensive rating, only outranking the Washington Wizards and Los Angeles Lakers.
As has been the case since Rudy Gobert arrived in Minnesota, the key to how far the Timberwolves can take this season is how well they can get their offense to perform. There have been stretches of this season, and at times tonight, where the Wolves offense has looked as well as it has in years. Right now though, the Wolves are nowhere near where they need to be.
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Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images
Ant’s Offensive Struggles
One of the biggest reasons for the Wolves’ struggles on offense has been the lessened scoring punch from Edwards. In the month of December, Ant is averaging less than 21 points per game 43.3 percent shooting from the field, both fairly sizable drops from his season and career totals.
So often in the past few years, Edwards would find a way to take over games late with a combination of ridiculous shot-making and intense defense. In the past month or two, that part of Edwards’ game has not been there as he has only scored 30 or more points in a game once in the past five weeks.
A large reason for Ant’s struggles is the lack of spacing around him on the court. Other teams are loading up on him when he drives to the paint, especially when Julius Randle and Jaden McDaniels are on the court, two shooters opposing defenses have not been respecting when they are spotted up beyond the arc.
Despite the lack of space, Edwards needs to do a better job of staying aggressive on the offensive end. He did so in the second half tonight, scoring 16 points on just 11 shots, but in the first half, he was a large part of the team’s offensive struggles, scoring just three points on nine shots.
While there may be plenty of team-wide reasons for the lowered output on offense, the Wolves are in desperate need of him overcoming these obstacles. Whether it’s fair or not, this version of the Timberwolves desperately needs more from him on the offensive end. Against good teams, they cannot survive a night when Edwards has three points in the first half and finished the game shooting 30 percent.
Any time in his career Ant has gone through a similar stretch, he has come out of it to give the Wolves exactly what they need. The expectation should be that he will do that again. The question is now, how quickly can he do it?
Ant and the Officials
When the media came into the locker room to speak with Edwards after the game, the only topic Ant wanted to discuss was the officials. Right from the first question, Ant didn’t hold back.
“F—in’ terrible, all of ‘em, besides the woman. But the other two dudes, terrible. Excuses, the reasons they call a foul, the reasons they don’t call a foul, that shit was terrible. They don’t want to talk back to my coach, they don’t want to talk back to me. I said one thing to the ref and he gave me a tech.”
The next question for Edwards was if the frustration with the refs carried over into the rest of the game.
“Nah, it’s just hard. Everybody keeps saying ‘play through it. Play through it.’ It’s easy to say that when you’re not dealing with it. That’s what’s frustrating.”
Following that, Ant answered whether the issues he had with the officiating tonight has been a consistent problem the entire season.
“Hell yeah it’s been consistent all year, but tonight was bad. They was getting ticky-tac fouls and weren’t getting nothing. So that’s just how I feel about the officials – the two dudes, not the woman.”
The fourth question Edwards was asked is if the lack of calls is affecting his ability to be aggressive on the offensive end.
“I get penalized for being stronger than my opponent so they give them to benefit of the doubt. They bump me the same way they bump everybody else and I never get the calls. I don’t know what got to go down, but something got to happen. Because that shit is terrible.”
Edwards was asked another question regarding changing his game due of the officials, but a Timberwolves official abruptly ended his media availability during his answer to that question. This is not a normal occurrence during player media availabilities, but happened due to the nature of what Ant was saying.
Ant may have a point about the officiating he receives. There may be times when he doesn’t get calls that other players would get, but the league doesn’t take too kindly to players airing out their grievances with the refs during their public media availability.
Edwards will almost certainly receive a hefty fine for speaking about the officiating in this manner and there may be the possibility of a suspension if the league feels his comments were more than just a normal case of criticizing the officials.
Up Next
The Timberwolves head out for a holiday road trip starting with the Atlanta Hawks on Monday night. That game will tip off at 6:30 PM CT, with fans being able to watch the game on FanDuel Sports Network North.
After that, the Wolves play the Dallas Mavericks on Christmas, their first game on the holiday in seven years. The game starts at 1:30 PM CT, airing on ABC, ESPN, and ESPN+.
