After the Minnesota Timberwolves lost to the LA Clippers on Wednesday night – their third straight loss and second in Los Angeles – Anthony Edwards insisted it was a blip in a long season.
“It’s a bump in the road,” he said after Minnesota lost to the Clippers 153-128. “We’ll be alright. I’m gonna find us a way. We’ll figure it out.”
Edwards said the loss is on him, but he’s hardly the only player to blame. Edwards is averaging 28.0 points on .420/.333/.917 shooting splits (FG, 3P, FT) during Minnesota’s three-game slide, which started with a 119-92 home loss to the Orlando Magic on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Julius Randle is Minnesota’s second scoring option, and he’s averaging 13.0 points on .400/.200/.818 shooting splits during the slide. Jaden McDaniels has improved offensively this season. However, he’s shot .333/.100/.750 in the past three games, including an 0-for-9 night against Orlando.
Together, Randle and McDaniels make $55 million against the cap (35% combined). Only Edwards (29.45%) and Rudy Gobert (22.63%) take up more cap space.
As Minnesota’s star player, Edwards must drive winning. But he cannot do it alone.
“We’ve got to put a complete game together, come back together,” Chris Finch said after losing to the Clippers. “We know we’re a good team. It feels like we’re a million miles from where we were a week ago, but you know what? We’re not. Gotta go win the next game.”
Minnesota has oscillated between winning and losing streaks all season. They lost five straight games between January 16 and 25, then won four straight before losing three of four before the All-Star Break. The Timberwolves had won eight of nine games before their most recent losing skid.
Before Orlando and both Los Angeles teams blew them out, it was easy to dismiss most of Minnesota’s losses. The Utah Jazz beat them at the end of a road trip. ICE officers had killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday, Jan. 24, leading to an eerie-feeling postponed game on Sunday. It’s hard to beat any team twice in a row, even if it’s the Memphis Grizzlies.
Even the Magic game felt like an outlier. Everyone but Anthony Edwards (34 points) and Naz Reid (13 off the bench) looked flat, which sometimes happens during a weekend day game. However, the Lakers beat Minnesota 120-106 in a crucial game between two teams that are close in the standings. Then the .500 Clippers trounced them 24 hours later.
The Timberwolves reside among a glut of Western Conference teams that are behind the Oklahoma City Thunder and the San Antonio Spurs, and ahead of the 7-seed, which has to play into the playoffs.
Minnesota has beaten Oklahoma City and San Antonio, but the Wolves have also lost to the Sacramento Kings and Utah – the two worst teams in the West. As a result, every game the Timberwolves play down the stretch will be crucial. Despite winning six of seven games coming out of the All-Star Break, Minnesota’s three-game losing streak dropped them to the 6-seed.
The Timberwolves were the 6-seed last year and reached the Western Conference Finals for the second year in a row. However, last year’s team and the 2023-24 version were drastically different, yet they reached the same destination.
Anthony Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns led the 2023-24 team to 56 wins, one win from the top seed in the West. They won a dramatic series over the Denver Nuggets in the second round and lost as favorites to the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference Finals.
Meanwhile, last year’s team upset the Lakers in the first round. However, Stephen Curry missed most of the Golden State series, and Oklahoma City eliminated them in five games.
The Timberwolves only won 49 games in their first season without Towns. Still, they ran the team back, sans Nickeil Alexander-Walker, who signed with the Atlanta Hawks in the offseason. Minnesota’s roster has changed throughout the season, but Mike Conley is back after a brief detour, and they re-signed Kyle Anderson off the buyout market.
For better or worse, the roster is back together. At their best, the Timberwolves can beat any team. They can also lose to anybody. The Wolves have been inconsistent all season, but they’re losing crucial games by large margins in a tightly packed Western Conference.
If they don’t have a sense of urgency now, when will they? And if this team is going to do the same thing as last year – enter the playoffs as a 6-seed and fail to reach the finals – what was the point of running it back in the first place?