You know those movie scenes where someone is tied to the train tracks with the oncoming locomotive ready to squish them into smithereens?
That’s this Minnesota Timberwolves team sometimes. Whereas the protagonist usually finds a miraculous way to free themselves from their bonds and make a daring escape, the Wolves just lie lifelessly as the train turns them into human fucking soup.
The game ends 108-106. This Wolves team wins a lot of games. More games than they’ve ever won before. There’s no point disregarding the fact that this season has been one to savor every time they don’t win one, but it’s also hard to escape that every loss kinda feels the exact same as the one before.
It’s almost a written set of instructions: Build a lead, showcase their bulging potential, get way too high on their own supply, start to stumble, and then completely lobotomize itself in the fourth quarter. I wish that groundhog would die and quick and painful fucking death.
The Orlando Magic are a really fun team who are certainly equipped to beat the Wolves even on nights where they’re not insistent on beating themselves, by the way. They have stars, stoppers, role players and the unmistakable touch of great coaching littering their roster. Outside of Minnesota’s sumptuous first quarter performance, they were the better team who deserved to win this one.
Still, these familiar nights are becoming more bitter with each new edition. Whether it’s the befuddling decision making from All-Star players, the puzzling coaching decisions or anything in-between, it does feel like the Wolves have pressure points that are becoming increasingly easier to push.
At some point, they’re going to have to start dodging the train a little more often. Sometimes they won’t be able to slip from their restraints and that big rumbling bastard is going to crush them, but a little less often would be appreciated.
There’s playoff series (plural) to win and franchise history to be made, but those things will continue to be a pipe dream if that train keeps barreling into them.
Mike Conley: 3/10
Jarring.
Jarring to see him clanking those open triples that he usually buries with such consummate ease. Jarring to see him not coming through in the clutch. Jarring to see him struggle to produce any consistent offense both for himself and for his stodgy team. It was just fucking jarring and there’s nothing fun about jarring. I’m over jarring.
It’s almost hard to remember the beginnings of this game but it’s easier to recall how good he was back then. He had five dimes in an instant and everything felt calm and composed and razor fucking sharp with him at the helm. It’s something that the squad had been missing in his spotted absences and it was nice to have that back.
However, as the game wore on and the Magic started to percolate, he tailed off. Well, plummeted might be a better way to describe it.
When it came down to winning time, he deigned not to wrestle any offensive ascendancy from the flagging Anthony Edwards and, in the moments when he did have the final say, he couldn’t oblige with his usual reliability. His off-night hit a crescendo when he front-rimmed a go-ahead wide-open triple with 30 seconds left on the game clock.
Jarring stuff, really.
Finished with 4 points (21.2% TS), 5 rebounds, 9 assists and 3 steals in 28 minutes — -18.0 net rating.
Anthony Edwards: 2/10
At some point, the learning curve that we’re all rightly allowing him to travel along is going to start to become thorny. Like, real poke you in the fucking bum kind of stuff.
From a long view, it’s expected that a 22-year-old will struggle with the parts of the game that demand the highest levels of maturity, but in this zoomed-in world that we live in it’s getting hard to watch him traipse carelessly into the same bear trap over and over again.
The other team wants him to shoot those tough mid-range shots in crunch time. They fucking love it. They’d spend the night with it and leave their wives for it. They don’t want to see him coming out of off-ball movement toward the rim or getting off the ball quickly to put them into rotation. They don’t want to see him ending with a catch-and-shoot look and they’d be fucked if he started dovetailing more effectively with Rudy Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns.
So, it’s no surprise that that very same opposition go home with a grin after Edwards commandeers the offense and builds a shoddy house with his isolation bricks. Just like a handful of opposition outfits have recently. There’s some built in excuses about a nasty-looking knock to the knee and ankle that sidelined him for a little while, but he seemed to be moving fine physically. It was the mental side of the game that deserted him in this one and that’s becoming a theme.
He’s so far ahead of his overall development schedule it’s hard to fucking fathom, but it’s time for him to commit to a winning style of basketball before he becomes entombed by his inability to adapt.
Finished with 22 points (56.9% TS), 5 assists and 3 turnovers in 35 minutes — +9.5 net rating.
Jaden McDaniels: 2/10
When he went rogue and sent the Magic to the free throw line — down by three points with at least one more offensive possession to come — that was only the crest of the weird and immature and fucking stupid wave that he’d been surfing all evening.
That was a moment of madness. The type that McDaniels has coursing through his veins. It’s probably time for him to stop doing shit like that, but for now it’s a flaw that is baked into his pie. His entire game of missteps and mistakes was more of an outlier and more damaging to the final score, though.
At any given moment he was prone to a hurtful moment. Sometimes it was fumbling a ball driving into traffic, other times it was turning down a good shot for a bad one, and all game he seemed lethargic with everything he did. He had a hot start shooting the ball and a sprinkling of hearty defensive possessions, but his pile of vices shrouded his virtues.
He’s too important to have a night bristling with brain farts and still walk away with a win.
Finished with 10 points (50% TS), 4 assists and 3 turnovers in 32 minutes — -19.7 net rating.
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