Just when you think the Minnesota Timberwolves had filled their quota of dumb chaos, they prove that they still have plenty of ammunition in the arsenal. A cascading lava flood of dumbness. A gust of chaos that could blow any fan to their knees and shake the confidence out of even the most stout. And, in case those elements weren’t enough to deal with, the injury cloud that has hung over the franchise all season grew darker and more ominous, seemingly ready to piss acid rain all over this confounding campaign.
In a season that has balanced on the edge of disaster since opening night, it feels like this one could well be the tipping point.
The game ends 139-131. A million boneheaded plays, a dozen chances to win, and one more loss to plunge the team under 500. There is no doubting the excitement this game would have produced for the neutral, and the circumstances around Anthony Edwards’ game-ending injury give the Wolves a real excuse for dropping it, but the Wolves need to win and this one was served up to them on a shiny platter far too many times to end up losing.
It was an evening that needs to be segmented to be properly digested. The game was tracking toward any other before Edwards sprained his ankle and near-on shattered the season as a whole, but the Wolves galvanized and punched above their collective weight with a barrage of 3-pointers and a slick offensive mindset. They led by double-digits for most of the first half and went into the long break with a five-point buffer.
Then the second half was a dogfight. The Wolves never had the shot-creation to match Zach LaVine and the wily wonderfulness of DeMar DeRozan, but they managed to trade blows about as well as they could with their shorthanded roster. It was a performance that wafted the stench of team spirit and will to win.
Then it got weird. A big helping of nothingness led to a shot-less final possession and nothing was settled between either team in the first overtime period.
But, somehow, the Wolves kept fighting. They kept battling the weirdness and coming out the other side of it. Even with another bout of free throw fuckery weighing them down, they had the game wrapped up with a pristine little bow on it. Then along came the season’s worst turnover, lurking in the crevices of the game like a poisonous spider. A complete brain fart. A play that personified this team’s insatiable desire to make life hard on themselves. They handed the game back into the arms of Chicago and they simply waltzed away thankfully.
About as heavy of a gut punch as could be imagined.
Mike Conley: 10/10
Stepped up. Witnessed the team’s Superman fall and strapped on a fucking cape of his own. Career-high in made triples — that’s something special for a man with so many years in the bank — with the final flurry all feeling bigger and more important than the last. He was sneakily staunch defensively, standing up bigger opponents all night long and getting his active hands involved, and he was his usual metronomic self as a playmaker and table-setter.
All of a sudden, an enormous amount of this team’s fortunes are resting in his grizzled and calloused hands. That’s not what he or the organization signed up for, but that’s the predicament they find themselves in. This was a great start to what promises to be a fucking strange mini-era.
Finished with 28 points (94.1% TS), 5 rebounds, 6 assists and 3 steals in 46 minutes — -13.0 net rating.
Jaden McDaniels: 10/10
Had big swinging fucking nuts the whole night. Steel-plated stones. LaVine got off the chain as the night wore on, but he was forced to do his cooking over McDaniels’ outstretched levers for every minute they were matched up. It was his offensive game that shone like a heavenly beacon, though, a fountain of growth spraying droplets of potential on every fucker lucky enough to witness it.
This one never gets close to extra time (or extra time again) without his silky shot-making. The towering floaters over the trees, the catch-and-shoot treys, the finishes around the rim through pressure. It’s like watching your favorite child grow up to be the fucking president.
Even more than Conley, his time is right now.
Finished with 25 points (67.5% TS), 6 rebounds and 4 assists in 45 minutes — -15.2 net rating.
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