Timberwolves’ Game 5 meltdown threatens to overshadow impressive season

OKLAHOMA CITY — Can one sport smash a whole season?

For almost everything of the 2024-25 season, the Minnesota Timberwolves have been a narrative of perseverance and resilience. They weathered an earth-shaking commerce simply earlier than coaching camp, a glut of losses and accidents and the doubts of most throughout the league to scratch and claw their method not simply to relevance, however to the doorstep of the NBA Finals for the second straight season.

Their first 4 video games in opposition to the Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder included a 42-point victory in Sport 3 and a 2-point loss in Sport 4 that was one of the vital aggressive and entertaining video games of this whole postseason. What adopted in Wednesday’s Sport 5 was a meltdown so full and so embarrassing that it threatens to overshadow all of this crew’s appreciable accomplishments within the 96 video games that preceded it.

The Timberwolves went right into a do-or-die sport and have been flatlining earlier than the primary quarter was midway over. A crew that prides itself on enjoying its finest when its gamers’ backs are in opposition to the wall regarded solely unprepared for the second. When the ultimate buzzer sounded on a 124-94 series-clinching victory by the Thunder, the Timberwolves trudged off the courtroom with a stain on an in any other case spectacular season.

The Wolves scored simply 9 factors within the first quarter, lacking 17 of their 20 pictures and turning it over 4 instances to fall behind by 17 factors. They trailed by 65-32 at halftime, a deficit larger than their whole factors scored. That they had 14 turnovers within the first two quarters and solely 12 discipline targets.

“Once that buzzer sounds and you’re just able to feel everything, it hurts,” ahead Julius Randle stated. “It hurts. So, really, that’s where I’m at right now. It’s almost like a grieving stage of the season and it hurts, really. But we’ll be back.”

There’s a phrase that lives in infamy in Minnesota sports activities lore: “41-donut.” It refers back to the 2001 NFC Championship Sport, a 41-0 loss by the Vikings to the New York Giants. In a state that has seen as a lot disappointment from its males’s sports activities groups as every other, that sport stands above the remaining for the extent of nausea induced.

These Thunder, who received 68 video games within the common season and had the most important level differential in league historical past, are a lot better than these Giants have been, maybe the one factor saving the Wolves’ efficiency from becoming a member of that one on the prime. They trailed by as many as 39 factors within the sport.

Randle may need been the most effective story of the primary two rounds of the playoffs, placing apart a historical past of playoff duds with an unimaginable run by the Los Angeles Lakers within the first spherical and the Golden State Warriors within the second spherical, averaging 23.9 factors, 5.9 rebounds and 5.9 assists and seemingly setting himself up for a giant contract extension within the offseason. However after overtly admitting to being a “spectator” in Video games 2 and 4 of the convention finals, Randle was fully out of kinds within the first half Wednesday.

In his first 12 minutes on the ground, when the sport was actually determined, Randle had 3 factors and three turnovers. The Wolves trailed 30-11 at that time. He bought going within the second half and completed with a robust line of 24 factors and 5 rebounds, however the sport was lengthy over by the point his pictures began falling. He has a participant choice for $31 million subsequent season, and either side have been anticipated to discover a longer-term deal. However he scored 6 factors in Sport 2, 5 factors in Sport 4 and had extra turnovers (4) than made pictures (three) within the first half Wednesday.

“Super disappointing,” Randle stated. “But just the series in general, I’m disappointed. I feel like we’re a better team than what we showed. So, a lot of motivation going into the summer, for sure.”

Naz Reid additionally has a participant choice on his contract for subsequent season and figured to be in line for a substantial elevate, both in Minnesota or elsewhere. He had 2 factors and three turnovers in his first eight minutes, dribbling one ball off his foot on a breakaway alternative within the first half. He completed with 11 factors, 5 turnovers and 4 fouls.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker is the third participant the Wolves must decide on this summer time. His contract expires, so he can be a free agent, however he has been an important a part of their rise within the Western Convention. He has been among the best bargains within the league, making simply $4.3 million this season and is in line for a major elevate. He was terrific within the Sport 4 loss to the Thunder, scoring 23 factors to account for a no-show from Randle and a quiet evening from Anthony Edwards. However within the closing sport of the season, NAW was 0 for 8 with two turnovers and was a part of a protection that was completely shredded by the hungrier Thunder.

Rudy Gobert’s offensive struggles have been so vital that he couldn’t play a lot on this collection. He had 2 factors and one shot in 19 minutes. His teammates didn’t belief him to catch the ball as a result of he couldn’t catch it cleanly, leaving 5 Thunder defenders to protect 4 Wolves.

“The way they were matching up and stuff like that, we’ve got to do a better job of maximizing him as an offensive player, and the little ways that we can and have done in the past this year was not a good job by us in that capacity,” Finch stated.

Chris Finch has led the Wolves deep into the playoffs in back-to-back springs, however has but to get them into the finals. Towards OKC, he was out of solutions. (Matthew Stockman / Getty Photographs)

Finch is, by any measure, essentially the most profitable coach in Timberwolves historical past. He has introduced a degree of competitiveness to this crew that has by no means been seen earlier than, and he grew to become the franchise chief in playoff victories earlier this offseason. His gamers rave about his potential to carry them accountable and the belief he locations in them even in essentially the most tough instances. However when a crew fails this spectacularly in such an essential second, he has to take among the blame.

The Thunder are a monster of a crew. They have been the heavy favorites getting into this collection for a cause. However Finch was unable to give you any schematic solutions for OKC’s suffocating protection or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s ruthlessness on offense. Whereas Mark Daigneault discovered methods to assault Minnesota’s protection and get SGA and Jalen Williams simple seems, all the pieces was simply so arduous for the Timberwolves.

“We were beat by the better team. So you fight, you fight, you fight, but they play better, they’re better,” Finch stated. “So at that point in time, I’m not one of these guys that takes losses into the summer with me. We’ll learn and we’ll regroup, but the better team won this series, and I’m proud of our guys and our organization for getting here.”

Edwards was surrounded by defenders always, and but the Wolves couldn’t make the Thunder pay for promoting out so fully to cease him. Because the collection went alongside, he appeared to put on down a bit, tiring of getting hit and bumped and crushed to his spots. It was much like final season in opposition to the Dallas Mavericks, when he stated that he needed to get in higher form to endure a protracted playoff run.

Edwards had 19 factors on 7-for-18 taking pictures. He missed six of his seven 3s, most of which have been closely contested.

“He’s got to find some easier buckets. I got to help him do that,” Finch stated. “I think we were never able to establish something consistent with him and that’s on us as much as anybody.”

After the sport, Edwards struck a equally optimistic tone as he did after they have been eradicated by the Mavericks. As somebody who misplaced his mom and grandmother to most cancers when he was 14 years previous, he has all the time stated that he doesn’t get harm by what occurs on a basketball courtroom. He will get emboldened by what’s to come back.

“I don’t know why people would think it would hurt. It’s exciting for me,” Edwards stated. “I’m 23. I get to do it a whole bunch of times. I’m hurt more so for Mike (Conley). I came up short for Mike. We tried last year, we couldn’t get it. We tried again this year. We’ll try again next year. But hurt is a terrible word to use. I’m good.”

So can one sport smash a whole season? Most likely not.

Within the distress that enveloped the Wolves postgame locker room, they did discover moments to take a look at the larger image. This crew confronted an uphill climb from the beginning of the season. Nothing got here simple, and but the Wolves by no means gave in and bulldozed their option to the playoffs for the fourth straight season, a formidable feat on condition that they missed the postseason 16 instances in 17 years earlier than Finch was employed as coach. They went 20 years between convention finals appearances earlier than final 12 months’s run, and it took them precisely one calendar 12 months to get again there once more.

“It was definitely a challenging season in a lot of ways,” Finch stated. “They stuck with it. They stuck with each other. They stuck with me. It wasn’t always pretty, but we played our best basketball when it mattered, which was down the stretch.”

This loss does sting. It was embarrassing, for the gamers, the coaches and the followers. It is going to linger far longer than most single losses do. And it ought to. The Wolves have to make use of this ignominy to gasoline them.

President of basketball operations Tim Connelly, Finch and Edwards have set a brand new normal in Minnesota. With that comes actual expectations, and that’s the reason a loss like this hurts a lot. Nobody cared all that a lot when the Wolves misplaced a sport in April to fall to 31-51 in 2017. These losses matter. These losses are seen.

Go away it to Conley to sum it up finest.

“It’s disappointing for us, disappointing for our fans, disappointing for everyone in the moment,” he stated. “But man, we work, we do the right things, we come in early, leave late. We do everything we can to try to prepare ourselves for this long season and the ups and downs of it. To be back in this situation says a lot about our team, our coaches, our players’ resiliency throughout the season.

“It’s something we’ve gotta keep building on, keep learning from. Unfortunately, the best lesson is going through it with your own experiences. These guys are feeling it. Obviously, I’ve felt this situation. Hopefully we can just learn and get better for it.”

(High picture of Anthony Edwards: Matthew Stockman / Getty Photographs)