Ghosts of playoff failures past haunt Anthony Edwards, Rudy Gobert and the Wolves

By / / Sports / 7 minutes of reading


MINNEAPOLIS — Technically speaking, the Minnesota Timberwolves lost their game against the Memphis Grizzlies on the last possession of the game, when Anthony Edwards tried to take over the possession and hit a hero shot like he did against the LA Clippers last week.

The play was ugly, and not what coach Chris Finch drew up in the huddle coming out of the timeout. But in reality, the Timberwolves lost this game over the first three quarters of the game, when they gave the cold-shooting Grizzlies extra chance after extra chance to waste the best offensive game they have played in ages.

It was a performance that will no doubt bring PTSD back to Wolves fans who watched the Grizzlies destroy their team on the offensive glass in a first-round playoff series three years ago. Memphis was so overpowering in that department back then that new President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly’s first order of business was to swing a massive trade for Rudy Gobert to make the Wolves tougher up front. Gobert was ineffective in that area on Saturday night, grabbing just two defensive rebounds as Memphis racked up 25 second-chance points in the first three quarters of the game. The Grizzlies took a staggering 108 shots in the game, thanks to 21 offensive rebounds and 19 turnovers forced. Memphis took 25 more shots and the Wolves and scored 27 points off of turnovers.

“That was the game right there,” Donte DiVincenzo said.

It was a terrific, hard-fought, fistfight of a game between two teams that have built a rivalry over the last few years. But it was also one the Wolves had no business losing. They shot 57 percent from the field, hit 17 3-pointers and had 37 assists, producing the kind of ball movement and knockdown shooting they have been searching for all season long.

Jaden McDaniels made 9-of-12 shots, including three 3s, for 21 points. DiVincenzo hit six 3s and put up 27 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists, continuing his strong play since he was inserted into the starting lineup. And Naz Reid, who has struggled for much of the season from 3, hit 5-of-7 from deep. The Wolves led by six points with five minutes to go, were holding Ja Morant to 3-for-17 shooting and appeared headed toward their fourth straight win.

But Minnesota turned the ball over three times down the stretch and Morant hit two extremely difficult shots, including an off-balance floater with 18.6 seconds to go to put Memphis in front.

“It’s really that simple: take care of the ball and rebound the ball, and we win this game by double-digits,” DiVincenzo said.

The Wolves had two cracks at winning the game in the final eight seconds. Edwards missed a decent look at a 3 on the first one, but DiVincenzo leaped for an offensive rebound to retain possession. That’s when Finch drew up a final play that the Wolves have gone to often over the years to get a good look at a 3. Edwards inbounds the ball to the power forward, who then usually has his choice of shooters in either corner. It worked well with Karl-Anthony Towns last season.

Edwards is, essentially, a decoy on the play, drawing attention from the defense to open things up for the wing shooters. That was a smart strategy on Saturday night, when he was just 4-for-13 from the field, including 0-for-5 from 3, with six turnovers in a woeful performance.

In a perfect world, Edwards inbounds the ball to Julius Randle at or near the free-throw line, putting him in position to put the ball on the floor quickly and either get to the rim or kick out for a 3. But Grizzlies forward Brandon Clarke played Randle aggressively, resulting in him catching the ball out past the 3-point line, which is a less ideal scenario. Instead of staying down near the baseline, Edwards decided to go get the ball from Randle. Clarke made a great switch to get in front of him, preventing Edwards from turning the corner and getting downhill. So he ended up forcing a stepback 3 from the left wing, and it was nowhere close.

Watch DiVincenzo’s reaction in the corner:

“It’s one of our out-of-bounds plays,” Finch said. “We didn’t execute the back end of it.”

Maybe the play would have been doomed to fail. Mike Conley has been just OK from 3 this season, shooting 36.7 percent. Maybe having Gobert in there instead of Reid was a mistake, but his screens have opened up great looks for Conley for years. Maybe Finch should have called a play specifically for DiVincenzo, whose quick trigger and surging confidence make him an ideal candidate. But we’ll never know if it was the right call because Edwards, who left the locker room without talking to the media, made a snap judgment to go get the ball.

“I was reading it,” said Randle, who had 18 points, eight rebounds, eight assists and four turnovers. “Usually Ant pops to the corner. But they took that away and he came up middle. If he would’ve went corner, I would’ve went and tried to make a play. But he went middle, so I just tried to get him a dribble-handoff and let him attack.”

It was the wrong decision from Edwards in the heat of the moment, capping a frustrating game for him. The Grizzlies used a box-in-one strategy on him all game long, with rookie Jaylen Wells face-guarding him for 94 feet. Wells leaned on Edwards with his 6-foot-6, 206-pound frame any chance he could, crawling into his hip pocket and doing everything he could to keep the ball out of his hands. The approach appeared to wear Edwards down and fluster him. Most of his six turnovers came with him trying to create off the dribble and force his way into the game. He did have six assists and made some excellent passes to open shooters to take advantage of the Memphis approach.

McDaniels was 3-for-4 from deep, but Nickeil Alexander-Walker missed all four of his 3s in the fourth. Conley missed a great look and DiVincenzo came up empty in his lone attempt in the 22-point final period.

“They denied him when he didn’t have the ball at the top of the floor, they put two on him a lot of times,” Finch said. “I thought he did a good job of getting off of it and finding his teammates. We went through a period there where I thought we had a lot of really good looks and we just didn’t make them. I thought we had a chance to break the game open a little bit there.”

The Wolves could never get any separation from the Grizzlies because they got eaten alive on the glass. Grizzlies rookie Zach Edey dominated Gobert, pulling down seven offensive rebounds. The only reason he didn’t have more was Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins limiting him to 20 minutes. Jaren Jackson Jr. added four offensive boards to go with his 33 points.

After three straight double-digit rebounding games, Gobert had just four boards in 29 minutes.

On several possessions in the game, the Grizzlies grabbed three offensive rebounds, giving them four cracks at a bucket.

“That’s the game, to be honest,” Randle said. “You take 25 less shots, it’s going to be hard to overcome it. And we still gave ourselves a chance to win.”

If the Wolves can replicate this kind of offense, more wins should come. They are ranked 18th in offensive rating but have started to show signs of putting things together with the new rotation that includes DiVincenzo starting at point guard and Conley coming off of the bench. The Wolves put up 103 points in the first three quarters against Memphis, moving the ball and spreading the wealth even as Edwards struggled to get going.

Gobert hit all six of his field goals, working the pick-and-roll with Conley and DiVincenzo to solid effect. DiVincenzo stretched the defense with great shooting and McDaniels made the Grizzlies pay for leaving him all alone.

“We just gotta build on it,” McDaniels said. “If we play this way offensively every game I feel like we’ll be hard to stop. Everybody was contributing in some way.”

(Photo of  Anthony Edwards attempting a 3-point shot against Brandon Clarke: Jesse Johnson / Imagn Images)





Source link

About The Author

Avatar of Christi Melton
Christi Melton is a writer from The Newspring. She writes about lifestyle, books, sports, education and technology. Her hobbies include reading and playing tennis.

Start typing and press enter to search

Scroll to Top