After a gut-wrenching 128-126 loss in Game 4, a reporter asked Donte DiVincenzo about Julius Randle and Anthony Edwards’ struggles to score.
“They had 19 offensive rebounds. We had 23 turnovers. It doesn’t matter who’s going to score. DiVincenzo said emphatically, “You can’t win a game with those numbers right there.”
Donte DiVincenzo on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams scoring output tonight
“They had 19 offensive rebounds, we had 23 turnovers, it doesn’t matter who’s going to score. You can’t win a game with those numbers right there”#wolvesback pic.twitter.com/hQG2NxdWN4
— Andrew Dukowitz (@adukeMN) May 27, 2025
The Wolves are down 3-1 in the Western Conference Finals and heading back to Oklahoma City for a chance to extend the series. As Nickeil Alexander-Walker explained postgame, it’ll be a desperate situation for the Wolves.
“We got to be desperate, we gotta play like there is no tomorrow because there isn’t,” Alexander-Walker said.
“Can we find a way to make winning plays relentlessly and consistently?” he continued. “And right now, if we want to win, it’s not about how much we can score, it’s about can we get the stops? Can we get the rebounds? Can we find a way to make winning plays relentlessly and consistently?
“So for us, that’s the focus.”
Nickeil Alexander-Walker on the mindset for game 5
“We got to be desperate, we gotta play like there is no tomorrow because there isn’t. And right now if we want to win it’s not about how much we can score, it’s about can we get the stops? can we get the rebounds? Can we find a… pic.twitter.com/GuJ68kNiz5
— Andrew Dukowitz (@adukeMN) May 27, 2025
People have asked questions about the Wolves all season. Can they make winning plays?
The answer was no in Game 4. Now their season will depend on it.
Still, there is hope for the Wolves. Despite everything going wrong, from turnovers to rebounds, they still had a puncher’s chance to win Game 4. In Game 5, they must clean up many of their missteps.
However, therein lies the issue.
A lot of the missteps have been season-long problems.
They occasionally committed abhorrent turnovers in Game 4, combining for 23 in total, which crippled the Wolves. In the first quarter alone, the Wolves had seven turnovers out of their 24 offensive possessions.
That meant 29.2% of Minnesota’s possessions ended in turnovers. Randle alone had three. Fortunately for the Wolves, their seven turnovers only amounted to six Thunder points in the first quarter.
By halftime, the Wolves were up to 12 turnovers, just 2.5 shy of Minnesota’s regular-season per-game average of 14.5, which ranked 18th in the regular season. Their first-half turnover percentage was 27.1%, meaning one of every four Wolves possessions ended in a turnover. The Timberwolves were lucky to have only given up eight points off turnovers in the first half, and thus they remained in the game down 65-57.
In the second half, the Wolves turned the ball over nine more times, allowing 14 points off those turnovers. They finished with a slightly better 24% turnover percentage, 9.4% higher than their regular-season average.
Although ball security was a major issue in Game 4, it has been an issue for the Wolves all season. In the regular season, they ranked in the middle of the pack. However, in some ways, that hides how much the Wolves have struggled holding onto the ball.
Among players who played over 50 games this season, regardless of minutes, Anthony Edwards ranked 17th in the volume of turnovers per minute, and Julius Randle ranked 15th. Minnesota’s two primary scorers averaged 6.3 turnovers in 36 minutes.
The Thunder led the NBA in steals at 10.3, defensive rating at 106.6, and forced turnovers at 17.0. That allowed them to take advantage of Minnesota’s middle-of-the-pack ball security.
The other fatal flaw the Thunder exposed in Game 4 was Minnesota’s rebounding issues, which have plagued them for years. Oklahoma City snagged 11 offensive rebounds in the first half against the Wolves and 19 overall, finishing with 24 second-chance points. By the end of the night, the Thunder had more offensive rebounds than defensive rebounds (19-17).
While the Wolves pulled out ahead overall on the glass, Oklahoma City converted its 11 offensive rebounds in the first half into 11 points, which helped spoil a fantastic shooting night by Minnesota’s role players.
Like turnovers, defensive rebounding has not been a strong spot for the Wolves all season. They rank 13th in defensive rebounding, collecting just 70.9% of defensive rebounding opportunities. However, the Thunder have not been a very good offensive rebounding team this season, ranking 20th by percentage of offensive rebounds (28.1%).
This is somewhat by design. The Thunder prioritize getting back on defense and setting up their half-court sets. However, against the Wolves, specifically with Chet Holmgren, it seemed to be a priority for him to crash the offensive glass hard. Oklahoma City took advantage of another area where the Wolves were not elite.
The series is now 3-1, and the Wolves will have to play desperately and focus on the things they can control, like turnovers and offensive rebounds. The Wolves have embraced being the underdogs all season and will now face their most significant challenge. If the Wolves can’t find a way to get back into the series, the likeliest reason will be the same reasons they struggled in the regular season.
Turnovers.