Nobody connected to the Minnesota Timberwolves was asking for adversity.
I mean, Sisyphus is no myth to this woe begotten franchise. Any boulders a Wolves team has arduously managed to shoulder up the hill during a noteworthy season have inevitably rolled back over them and come to rest at a spot very close to square one.
Longtime fans of the Wolves can recount their sordid history in shorthand. Stephon Marbury’s jealousy over Kevin Garnett’s contract, which couldn’t be matched because it was a clause in to the collective bargaining agreement. Sam Cassell’s injury and Latrell Sprewell’s delusional contract demands (which nobody ever met, ending his NBA career) dooming the only Timberwolves squad that has ever made it past the first round of the playoffs. The Ricky Rubio, Kevin Love and Rick Adelman era, whiplashed by rookie Rubio tearing his ACL after banging knees with Kobe Bryant; Love’s knuckle push-ups; and Adelman’s divided attentions and eventual retirement due to anguish over his ailing wife. The “TimberBulls” love affair, starring Jimmy Butler and Tom Thibodeau as witch doctors sticking pins in Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins in a supposed attempt to enlarge their hearts.
No, the Timberwolves have had more than their fill of adversity. In their rendition of the blues standard “Trouble in Mind,” the sun never shines in their back door.
But the 2023-24 Wolves have rearranged perceptions. For the majority of the season that now has just a month remaining, these Wolves have had the best record in the formidable Western Conference and the best defense in the entire 30-team NBA. Their meteoric rise from a ball club that won just a single playoff game a year ago to this place of longstanding supremacy began to foster a notion that seemed ludicrous last fall when the season began: What will happen when the Wolves are really tested, to the tangible point of fragility and doubt, when the lofty status quo they have created may no longer be tenable? How deep is the reservoir of their collective character and teamwork?
As fate would have it, the Wolves are finding out on this six-game road trip. Adversity arrived before the opener of the trip in Indianapolis when it was announced that KAT, the most fearsome long-range shooter and veteran matchup nightmare for an offense that has stubbornly remained in the bottom half of the NBA in terms of points per possession, had a torn meniscus in his left knee. Subsequent reports announced him shelved for at least the rest of the regular season.
The Wolves were already in a mediocre state, having punted clutch opportunities in an overtime loss to Sacramento and a one-point defeat against the Clippers to go with a third-quarter collapse that cost them a win versus Milwaukee and turned a promising seven-game homestand into a disappointing 4-3 slate. That was enough for the Oklahoma City Thunder to tie them for the best record in the West, with the defending champion Denver Nuggets just a single game behind.
Despite the lack of travel, the homestand was grueling, with seven games in a 10-day span, including three back-to-back encounters. Now minus KAT, the Wolves would open the road trip with another back-to-back, beginning in Indiana against the Pacers. That contest can be succinctly summed up as the greatest clutch performance of Anthony Edwards’ four-year career, and arguably the second-best in Timberwolves history, behind only KG’s magnificent performance in Game 7 of the 2004 Western Conference Semifinals against Sacramento.
Garnett was already crowned the team leader by that point. Before last Thursday night, Ant was anointed as such, and had a bevy of statement performances in the Wolves playoff series the previous two years to suggest he’d already earned team leader status. But in a game with his team on the ropes with KAT out and their conference rivals surging beside them, Ant sustained clutch brilliance for the final 18 minutes, when nearly every shot he took occurred with the teams within two possessions of each other.
But he saved the best for the final two minutes and 18 seconds, his performance necessarily ascending, a steadily rising crescendo that culminated in a sonic boom of athleticism that ended the game. With his team down one point and just four seconds left on the shot clock, he drove through the heavy of three defenders for a reverse layup. With 1:11 to play and the game tied, he used a Rudy Gobert screen to drain a trey. After the Pacers quickly cut the lead to two, he drove the left lane for a 14-foot floater with 22 seconds to play.
Indiana didn’t quit. The Wolves fouled a three-point shooter who made all his free throws; then the Pacers quickly fouled Ant with seven seconds to go. He made the first free throw – his 44th point of the evening and 16th of the fourth quarter – but missed the second one to hold the Wolves lead at two. Indiana grabbed the rebound and Aaron Nesmith raced down the court and seemed to have an opening for a tying layup with two seconds to play.
That’s when Ant seemingly launched himself off a trampoline by the corner baseline, suddenly dominating the tableau with what was actually a running leap into an elevation reserved for superheroes. It was a place in space where the worry wasn’t the block so much as avoiding a concussion from his head hitting the rim. His need to duck thrust him forward enough to throw him into a push-up position from 12 feet high, landing mostly on his right wrist and shoulder. But the coursing adrenaline took over. He popped up and flexed, just as all of his teammates were flexing, transfixed with the voltage of incandescent triumph.
I was lucky enough to be at the game. In the locker room immediately afterward, we had to wait a moment while Ant finished a conversation with the mother of his child on procuring and installing a car seat for their newborn. At the tender age of 22, he has daunting priorities, which include rearing his flesh-and-blood and providing his suddenly fragile basketball team with the kind of spectacular roadkill that salves frayed nerves and justifies the aches in their worn bodies.
But at this late point in the season, the toll is still too much for some and rosters get culled. The next night in Cleveland, backup point guard Monte Morris was out with a strained hamstring and a trio of others were listed as “questionable” from other maladies. The Cavaliers were more taxed, with three starters exempted due to injury.
The Wolves were game but error-prone in an overtime loss. Gobert earned a technical foul in the final minute of regulation by making a motion that suggested lead official Scott Foster was fixing the outcome to win a bet. He was subsequently fined $100,000 but the bigger hit was the free throw granted Cleveland because of the tech, which tied the game and enabled overtime.
Two nights later, the Wolves were vanquished by the Lakers in L.A., their frontcourt decimated by injuries to Gobert (hamstring) and combo forward Kyle “Slo Mo” Anderson (shoulder) that sidelined them along with KAT’s continued absence. Lakers center Anthony Davis ran roughshod, stacking 27 points, a whopping 25 rebounds, an eye-popping seven steals, five rebounds and three assists. Lebron James was two rebounds and an assist shy of a triple-double. Overall, the Lakers had 18 more rebounds and 20 more points in the paint, the marquee stats in their 11-point victory.
As the Wolves readied themselves to play their 66th game of the season – versus the other Los Angeles team, the Clippers, on Tuesday night – it was a time of peak adversity. Weaknesses were apparent up and down the dinged-up roster.
In terms of playmaking, starting point guard Mike Conley was enduring his worst stretch of games since being acquired from Utah last season. When I asked him after the Cleveland game what was wrong, he cited the usual vicissitudes of a long campaign. So, nothing physical? I asked. “A lot physical,” the 36-year-old point guard of 17 NBA seasons replied. “At this time of year we’re all banged up in some way.” And Conley’s backup, Morris, was again ruled out because of the hamstring.
In terms of the frontcourt, Gobert and Slo Mo were listed as questionable to play for the same conditions that sidelined them against the Lakers. With KAT out, Naz Reid has been getting a lot more time at center. Newsflash: Naz is no longer a center. When he actually played center in previous seasons, he was always undersized at 6-foot, 9-inches. As a rookie he was also chubby and slow, then, as he worked himself into shape, became increasingly svelte and thus unable to joust with talented bigs like Davis. Nowadays, he is legitimately closer to being a small forward than he is a center – he patrols the perimeter more effectively than the paint on defense and uses his dazzling dribbling and deadeye outside shooting to rack up points on offense.
If Gobert, KAT and Slo Mo (a combo forward who could play center in a pinch) are all out, the best option at center is likely, Luka Garza, at the bench on a two-way contract. He is a bucket, especially for a big man, on offense, but still inept on defense.
Throw in the fact that Wolves wing-stopper Jaden McDaniels has actually dipped below the “meh” standard he set earlier in the season and the Wolves were reeling. The losses had dropped them to third in the Western Conference – their lowest placement since Halloween – and this contest with the 4th place Clippers threatened to keep the downward spiral going.
The ugly fact was that, aside from Ant’s superhero turn in Indianapolis, the Wolves hadn’t beaten an opponent with a winning record for a solid month.
Gobert and Slo Mo suited up; ditto Ant, who was also questionable due to chronic ankle and leg woes. But their presence couldn’t prevent them from getting blown out in the first 17 minutes of the game.
With five minutes left to play in the first half, the Clips were up 22, 57-35. They casually strafed the Wolves’ NBA-best defense, hitting 61.3% of their field goals, two-thirds of the three-pointers, and 84.6% of their free throws. By contrast, the Wolves’ accuracy in those three areas were 36.1% from the field, 18.8% from distance and 75% from the line. Nobody on the team had more than one assist and a large chunk of their points came from rebounding their own misses.
Peak adversity thus far in 2023-24. And they sucked it up.
They got off the mat with a broader array of quality performances than Ant’s often one-man show in Indy, putting some character checks in the psychological bank for the playoffs.
A few things happened to catalyze one of the most capably thrilling comebacks in Timberwolves history – and their largest in a dozen years. First, the Clippers’ alpha star Kawhi Leonard left the game with back spasms after the first quarter and didn’t return. Second, Coach Chris Finch surrounded Ant and Gobert with the go-go backcourt of Jordan “J-Mac” McLaughlin and Nickeil Alexander-Walker (NAW), and veteran wing scorer TJ Warren, signed to a 10-day contract off the scrap heap earlier this month.
The Clippers missed Leonard and likely relaxed into their huge lead and J-Mac and NAW tromped the throttle at both ends of the court alongside Ant, who thrives in high-pace situations, and Warren, playing for a another spring contract and perhaps some playoff loot, not to mention a resurrection of his career. They blitzed the Clips 20-2, lopping the 22 point disadvantage down to four, which was bumped to eight by halftime.
In the locker room at halftime, the team got on Gobert to pick up the intensity (per Finch in his postgame presser) and the coach decided to replace Slo Mo with NAW among the second-half starters to keep pressing the pace.
Boom. NAW had the NBA game of his life, missing just one shot among four two-pointers, six treys and six three-throws en route to 28 points while also being a sage way-station for ball movement and adroit, active, defensive rotations. Conley broke out of his slump in a big way, canning 5-of-8 treys as the lion’s share of his 23 points. He was helped a lot by being able to play off the ball beside J-Mac, who makes decisions the way ballerinas move – with exquisite grace and equipoise, quick efficiency of movement and relentless, proactive purpose. The Wolves outscored L.A. by 24 points in the 17:03 J-Mac played and pounded them 83-43 in the final 29 minutes of the game.
Oh yeah, Ant had 37 points, eight rebounds, and four assists. Once again, everyone in the building knew he would dominate the team’s offensive usage, and once again he overcame defenses clustered to stop him, while providing his own defensive highlight by shutting down Paul George for a turnover a key point in the second quarter.
Gobert took a fall and hurt his ribs – his readiness for the next game is pending. As Conley said, everyone is banged up. It is a time for adversity, when the quality teams forge a path anyway. The Wolves have begun to demonstrate that they can be one of those teams.
Britt Robson
Britt Robson has covered the Timberwolves since 1990 for City Pages, The Rake, SportsIllustrated.com and The Athletic. He also has written about all forms and styles of music for over 30 years.
