Sometimes the circumstances can pile up to the point of crushing. The Minnesota Timberwolves fought to stave off those weighty circumstances, that much was obvious, they expended every last ounce of energy they had remaining to try and escape the Phoenix cauldron without seeing their four-game win streak squished. But it’s a tiny tightrope to tiptoe, and even without those circumstances the Suns are a team who can torch even the league’s hottest outfits.
The game ends 107-100. The circumstances got them in the end. They amalgamated into tendrils of poisonous fumes that crept into the Wolves’ mental and physical output. Half of the team, generously, were battling an illness sent from the basketball pits of hell to extinguish Minnesota’s momentum while the entire roster were fighting uphill against a heavy schedule. Kevin Durant, who even on an off-night is one of the silkiest scorers the universe has ever seen, was back to light an inferno under Phoenix’s already combustible fanbase.
And, of course, there was the cherry on top of the foul-tasting cake. Every time the Wolves were able to dodge and weave around the uppercuts thrown by the myriad of circumstances, they were kicked in the teeth by a refereeing crew who only had one result in mind.
In the end, it was all too much to overcome. This wasn’t a story of a team excelling in every facet and coming up short; Minnesota were far too sloppy with their passes, they could never stop Phoenix’s torpedoing guards and forwards from snagging offensive rebounds, and the ball was too often velcroed to tired hands in their own offensive forays. Some of those things are prone to happen on a tired and sick roster and some of those things can be negated a reasonably fair whistle, but they’re also issues that have weaved their way through the entirety of this season’s tapestry.
It feels dangerous to hurl any loss into the moral victory bin, especially considering how much the playoff landscape shifts each and every night, but this was a commendable effort in a game that was edging scarily close to a scheduled loss. Throw in those pesky circumstances and this one, while still sitting sour and rotten on the palette, was at least stomachable.
Mike Conley: 4/10
The team goes as he goes. Most of the time, that’s a good thing. He’s a miniature metronome with nerves of steel and balls of solid brass, so when he is governing an offense it’s usually going to lead to cascading fountains of goodness. However, on the dirty nights like this one where the shots bounce the wrong way and the shiftiness is ever so slightly sapped by that lingering ailment, then the team can often feel the trickle-down impact. He looked leggy, and the team responded with lethargy of their own.
He was never there as a shot-maker, paint-puncturing menace, or pick-and-roll dime-dropper, but he does deserve some credit for sneaking in for a big helping of rebounds. While the rest of his wing and guard cohorts stood around like their legs were fucking painted on, he was in there scrounging for every piece of loose change the tall rebounding timber dropped.
They’re going to need him more than anybody for this final playoff push, and they’ll need him to be better than he was in this one.
Finished with 7 points (26.9% TS), 9 rebounds and 4 assists in 32 minutes — -14.3 net rating.
Anthony Edwards: 9/10
There he is. Lathered in the thick stench of a stomach bug, clearly still finding his conditioning levels after the ankle sprain, and dropped into the deep end against a Finals contender, there he is. Standing there like fucking Hercules. He wasn’t flawless — nobody was — but he found the same sort of throat-tearing gear that has been missing since he returned from injury.
The burst to slice through traffic and finish around awaiting shot-blockers at the rim was almost all the way back, the deep-jumpers still seemed a bit jaded but the mid-range game was laced in crisp footwork and silky touch, and the ability he has shown to hold his team aloft during tough stretches made a timely return.
A goose egg in the rebounding column was a dark demerit point against his name, but it was the only one.
Finished with 31 points (66.5% TS) and 6 rebounds in 40 minutes — -7.3 net rating.
Jaden McDaniels: 7/10
A weird night to track.
Sure, Kevin Durant was coming off a long layoff — as if that’s ever stopped him from lighting shit up before — but look how hard McDaniels made him work. Every field goal he attempted, every dribble he dribbled, every step he stepped, featured a gangly vine creeping up his leg and curling around his neck. As he always does, The (sigh) Seatbelt used up all the fouls allotted to him, but he made the most venomous scorer in league history work hilariously hard for every point he got.
First team.
However, he just never found that same sort of flow and cadence on the other side of the ball. Both of his catch-and-shoot treys were bricky, his aggressiveness was lacking as a driver, and he felt like somebody Phoenix could hide the washed-up defensive stylings of Chris Paul on. In the end, perhaps because of that offensive frailty or because the officials were going to target him no matter what, he watched on from the pine as the game clock dwindled away.
A weird night to track.
Finished with 6 points (13.3% TS) and 3 rebounds in 25 minutes — -17.2 net rating.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Howls and Growls to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.