“Sometimes there’ll be something on my mind I want to tell him. Sometimes it’s just a check-in because we haven’t necessarily chatted for a bit in that regard,” Finch said. “And I’m very conscious of giving our players space. There’s so many people that are drawing on them. I’m talking about just in our own environment, could be other coaches, front office, training room, community. So I try to pick my moments and be purposeful [with Edwards].”
Finch drew some attention for saying Edwards needed to be more of a tone-setter after Game 1 against the Warriors, but that moment doesn’t reflect Finch’s satisfaction with Edwards’ overall performance this postseason.
“We’ve played 10 games, and he’s maybe had two subpar games. That’s great,” Finch said.
The Warriors employed a similar tactic to the Lakers’ Game 5 approach — they blitzed Edwards and dared him to give up the ball, especially to Gobert. Earlier in his career, Edwards might have craved the moment. He might have wanted to shoot the Wolves into the next round in a clinching game. But the more measured approach in both series paid off, with Finch crediting Hines and assistant Pablo Prigioni for preparing Edwards to face “micro-situations” that pop up in each game.
“Sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes it’s drastic,” Finch said of the adjustments teams make on Edwards. “The other day, they were a little bit more aggressive on him, and he has 12 assists. That’s what you want, because now they’re taking the bet that he’s not going to make these plays.”
But this is where Edwards is in his evolution as a player. He will make the right plays, even after he said in January he was frustrated with all the double-teams he was facing. That moment seems distant. Over five seasons, he has learned how to deal with them, one late-night texting film session at a time.