Playoff Player Ratings: Game Four | Memphis Grizzlies

Wolves bounce back and tie the series.

AP Photo/Craig Lassig

The Minnesota Timberwolves wanted a bounce back. After Thursday night’s crumbling, the Minnesota Timberwolves needed a bounce back. With the raucous crowing of a packed Target Center behind them, the Minnesota Timberwolves got their bounce back. Now, a series that seemed reduced to its final twitches just two days ago has a brand new burst of life injected into its bloodstream. A three-game series there to latch onto. The Wolves, as they say, are back.

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Game Recap

The game ends 119-118. A game that wound around every possible bend, slipped into every dark crevice, and emerged blissfully on every mountaintop. A win that felt like a certainty a million times and another collapse a million more.

Most of all, it felt like years passed between the opening tip and the final buzzer. The entire evening was once again being policed abhorrently by a gaggle of overzealous referees and littered with unexpected delays. The Wolves, perhaps, avoided the short end of the stick this time, but in a game that surpassed three hours in total, the real winners were everybody who willingly and gleefully sat through the blasting of whistles, the drawling of reviews, and the head-scratching of court-invaders.

There actually was a game in the warm spaces between those stoppages, however, and rewind all the way back to those opening 12 minutes and you’ll find that the Wolves jumped out of the gates again. They didn’t swing the early ax like they did in game three, but they found a way to limit Ja Morant from the jump, they flipped the series script at the charity stripe and they outrebounded the bouncy Grizzlies to set the tone from the get-go. They probably played better than their five-point lead, and it felt like a lead balancing on a knife’s edge in a series doing the same.

And that’s how it remained. Memphis edged the second period by a point, with the two teams shooting 46.7 percent from the field each — even with Desmond Bane raining 3-point hellfire on them — and traded jabs and straights until the intermission. So they emerged from the tunnels and they went again, like two heavyweight fighters slugging away, and the Wolves won the third quarter by two points, despite jumping out of the gates and then faltering under a barrage of sloppy turnovers, stagnant offense and spotty pick-and-roll defense.

Eventually, the players, coaching staff and fans limped into the fourth quarter. If they hadn’t aged an inordinate amount in the first three marathons then they surely did in the final leg. Every time Minnesota found their footing in the game and pushed their lead toward double-digits, the Grizzlies yanked the earth out from under them. Every time the Timberwolves shot themselves in the foot and allowed their foes a sniff of blood, Memphis bandaged it back up for them and sent them on their way. It took a Tyus Jones clanked jumper — thank you, city of Apple Valley — for Minnesota to escape with their third playoff win in 18 years, and now the series is well and truly back on.

*Player Ratings only apply to players who play 10 or more minutes*

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Player Ratings

D’Angelo Russell: 3/10

Ghostly. Of course, he made a tough, self-created mid-range jumper in the closing minutes, because he does that shit all the time and he’s literally got ice water running through his fucking veins, but before and after that he was ghostly. Invisible and impossible to pin down. You could see him, you just couldn’t feel him. His jumper was mostly flat and aesthetically putrid, he continued to lose his battle against pesky ball pressure and, despite a couple of sweet dimes, he wasn’t able to bend Memphis’ defense with his playmaking.

The Wolves were able to sneak away with the win despite another Russell no-show, but they could really do with the kind of play that usually accompanies a salary like his as this series continues to unfurl.

Finished with 10 points (36.3% TS), 2 rebounds and 7 assists with a +5.3 net rating.

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Patrick Beverley: 8/10

His series has been a weird one. This game was just as fucking weird. On the one hand, the bright and sunny hand, he was splitting nylon on crucial deep shots all night long, he was forming tweets in the fragile mind of Ja Morant off the dribble consistently and he made a couple of timely on-time and on-target passes. Overall, those things were an overwhelming positive.

On the other hand, of course, the uneasy and foreboding one, he had trouble staying in front of Memphis’ twitchy ball-handlers all night, he almost punted himself out of the game with a stupid swipe at Desmond Bane’s muscly fucking face and he missed two free throws late that made everybody’s sphincter tighten an unnecessary amount.

It’s been a weird series, but he was traded for Jarrett Culver and he is rotting away at the end of Memphis’ bench while they stumble toward the finish line against the seventh seed, so it could be worse.

Finished with 17 points (76.7% TS), 2 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 blocks with a +1.6 net rating.

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Anthony Edwards: 8/10

These are the nights of stars. Not the ones they have where they grab a game by the testes and swing them to and fro, although he will need to tap into those nights again at some point. This was one of the nights where he plods along, never really exploding in your face but always setting enough spot fires under the surface to keep Memphis’ feet burning.

He slithers to the rack a few times, he gets into a classic Anthony Edwards holy-fuckery-zone in the third term when he starts spewing wild pull-up triples, and he has a fistful of stocks on the night, despite a few defensive mishaps along the way. He has more to give, and we’ve seen what happens when he gives all he has, but if this is his baseline then the Wolves will have a puncher’s chance.

Finished with 24 points (72.1% TS), 4 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals and 3 blocks with a +2.9 net rating.

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Jarred Vanderbilt: 8/10

Watching him squirm his way back into the forefront of the series has been one of the best stories of the past two games. Like a little fucking worm burying his head into the helpless heart of Memphis. Like a slithering snake injecting his hustle-laden venom into their fucking brains.

The Timberwolves know what they’re going to get from him and the Grizzlies know how they can exploit him, but Vanderbilt is finding a way to combat those negative externalities and mold them into positive ones. Instead of always shrinking the floor and cramping Karl-Anthony Towns’ style, he is rocketing from the corner more often and catching dunker’s spot bullets to finish with a two-handed flush. It’s a seemingly small adjustment, but it allows him to pump out 35 high-intensity minutes while surviving offensively and thriving as a rebounder and defender. That’s important.

Finished with 12 points (75% TS), 8 rebounds and 2 steals with a +0.2 net rating.

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Karl-Anthony Towns: 9/10

There were still the boneheaded moments. A couple of strange passing decisions, a few weird moments at the end of the shot clock, some avoidable fouls. The difference is what he packed in between those moments. Whereas lately there have been flailing field goal clangs and useless high-post possessions, he jammed an insane amount of fucking beastliness into this one.

He strolls out of the gates with a smooth trey. He attacks quick off the catch all night and forces Memphis’ handsy defenders to panic and foul — Jaren Jackson Jr. is hearing the cawing of whistles in his nightmares as we speak. He makes a bevy of tough looks around the rim. He consistently redirects and recovers defensively. That was all wonderful, but it paled in comparison to the fourth-quarter takeover. That was fucking superstar shit. That was what we’ve been wanting to see. The tough jumpers, the timely plays, the (mostly) composure. That’s the shit that will keep Taylor Jenkins up at night and Ja Morant itching at his Twitter fingers.

Finished with 33 points (67.4% TS), 14 rebounds and 3 assists with a +5.3 net rating.

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Malik Beasley: 1/10

Apparently he was out there for 11 minutes. Did sweet fuck all. Stat-less and toothless.

Finished with 1 rebound and a +10.6 net rating

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Jaden McDaniels: 1/10

Averaged a foul every 30 seconds, watched all four of his field goal attempts dent the rim with a thud that could wake a hibernating bear, and kind of just floated in and out of the game like a fart in the wind. Not his best night.

Finished with 1 rebound and 1 block with a +3.7 net rating.

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Jordan McLaughlin: 10/10

The Wolves needed a hero. Even with Towns percolating, Edwards sizzling and Vanderbilt revving, the Grizzlies are a team dripping in heart, hustle, depth and skill — the Wolves need one of their role players to kick it up a notch every single game. They need a hero. They got a little fucking bald man with a luscious beard and a clutch song in his heart. They got a season-high four treys, they got giant-killing layups, they got ball movement and floor generalship. They got their fucking hero.

Finished with 16 points (116.3% TS), 2 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals with a +22.2 net rating.

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Play Of The Night

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Horns Elbow Down for Karl-Anthony Towns

This was the one. Chris Finch and his Timberwolves have been skating by throughout this series with very few set plays breaking their way. The Grizzlies are spectacular at pushing Minnesota into their second and third options and a lot of the time they are spectacular at just junking Minnesota into isolation rankness. But this is the one. A perfect quick-hitter, executed to perfection, pushing the dagger a little further into the hearts of their opposition.

It’s not like the Wolves haven’t whipped out this bad boy before. This has been a Finch favorite since day one. Minnesota’s sideline stroller and his coaching cohorts love their ‘Horns’ actions, but this one, involving an elbow catch for Anthony Edwards and a down screen from Patrick Beverley that frees Karl-Anthony Towns for a straightaway triple, might be the pick of his bunch. Any action that springs Towns free is one to cherish, especially in this series, and pulling this rabbit from the hat at one of the most pivotal moments in the series is … sumptuous.