Ant Edwards and the Timberwolves fall to Golden State in the first game of the series
After the Minnesota Timberwolves lost the first game of the Western Conference semifinals, despite the early exit of Stephen Curry, star of the Golden State Warriors, Minnesota coach Chris Finch questioned the performance of Anthony Edwards, the franchise star.
“It starts with Ant,” Finch said after the Wolves’ 99-88 loss on Tuesday night. “I thought he struggled and then you could see the light go out a little bit for a while.”
Chris Finch
Edwards, who was number 4 in the league in scoring average during the regular season with 27.6 points per game, only scored 1 point at halftime with 0 of 8 in shots. Minnesota was losing 44-31 at halftime.
He missed his first 10 shots before making a basket, and finished with 23 points on 9-of-23 shooting (1-of-5 from three-pointers).
Even after Curry’s left hamstring strain forced him to leave the game after scoring 13 points in 13 minutes, the Wolves couldn’t make much of a dent. Golden State went up by as many as 23 points and Minnesota never cut the deficit to single digits in the second half.
Finch said addressing the spirit of Edwards, 23, shouldn’t be something he has to coach at this stage of the postseason.
“What’s there to talk about? You’re the leader of the team,” Finch said. “You have to go out and set the tone. If your shot’s not falling, you still have to maintain the energy. If I have to talk to the guys about having the right energy going into a second-round game, then we’re not on the same page.”
Chris Finch
Edwards, who had two steals in the first half as Minnesota held Golden State to 44 points on 37.2% shooting at halftime, pointed to his defense as proof that his effort wasn’t as deficient as Finch believed.
However, the three-time All-Star accepted any criticism that might come with the loss.
“People are going to try to blame whatever, blame whoever, they can blame me,” Edwards said. “[But] we just didn’t play well enough.”
Anthony Edwards
He wasn’t the only Wolves player who underperformed. Julius Randle, who averaged 22.6 points on 48.1% shooting in their first-round victory over the Los Angeles Lakers, hit just 4 of 11 shots and had as many turnovers as rebounds, with three. Starting point guard Mike Conley didn’t score, going 0-for-5. Donte DiVincenzo scored 7 points on 3-of-11 shooting (1-of-7 from 3-point range) off the bench.
“You’re the leader of the team. You have to come out and set the tone. If your shot’s not falling, you still have to maintain the energy. If I have to talk to the guys about having the right energy going into a second-round game, then we’re not on the same page.”
“It’s frustrating, but I feel encouraged,” Randle said. “There’s a lot of things that as a team we can do better. … We can’t hurt ourselves, and we felt like we did that tonight.”
Rudy Gobert, the Minnesota center, said that the Wolves’ long wait to start the second round, while the Warriors battled the Houston Rockets for seven games to advance, impacted the team.
“Maybe we needed to prepare to play a high-intensity game,” Gobert said. “Not playing for six days, even though we practiced, I think we weren’t really feeling that intensity.”
Rudy Gobert
The Wolves went 0-for-15 from three-point range in the first half, the team’s first half in any game without a three-pointer since 2018 and the first half in a playoff game without a three-pointer since 2004, and only 5-for-29 in the game.
Between their first-round victory over L.A. and Tuesday’s second-round opener, the Wolves had the worst two-game 3-point shooting stretch in NBA playoff history, going 12 of 76 (15.7%).
“We didn’t shoot well tonight, but tonight is over,” Edwards said. “So next game we’ll shoot really well.”
Anthony Edwards
Finch also criticized his team’s transition offense, as they managed only 10 fast-break points, despite the Warriors committing 18 turnovers.
“Our decision-making in transition was diabolical,” Finch said. “We obviously couldn’t make shots, but I didn’t like the fact that we couldn’t generate good shots repeatedly. We should have been able to.”
Chris Finch
Conley, the 37-year-old veteran of the Wolves, said the Wolves will have something better prepared for Game 2 on Thursday.
“I expect an answer,” Conley said. “We all felt like we played as bad as we could. You have to give them credit, but we weren’t all the way there. A lot of mental mistakes, a lot of mental mistakes and a lot of things that we know we can change, so I think we’ll be ready.”
Mike Conley
