All season long, members of the Minnesota Timberwolves had insisted to the coaching staff that things would be different come playoff time.
During a December back-to-back series in New Orleans, Anthony Edwards mentioned that the team was already looking forward to the playoffs.
IN DECEMBER.
Only four months to go!
So, all included, surely game one would wake a team up from a malaise of a season in which they said would get better once the postseason started, right?
Not quite.
“They kept telling me it would be different when we get there, and game one wasn’t any different…so we jumped their ass,” coach Chris Finch said at the podium after a rollercoaster game two. “They lied to us, and they responded.”
Did they ever. Over the last three games, the Wolves have played with a composure that has them sustaining runs and preventing the Nuggets from going on them, locking in defensively, and sharing the ball in the half court that allows them to get to the teeth of the defense.
None of this, and I repeat NONE, was visible in the regular season for multi-game stretches. Quarters? Sure. A game? Sure, I can hear that out. A whole run? No way.
“I knew it was there,” Finch said.
But he continued – and it’s worth the whole quote.
“It was very frustrating. Sometimes it was focus, sometimes it was effort, sometimes it was execution. We couldn’t sustain what we wanted to in order to be a top team at the time. Guys were admittedly probably bored. Some immaturity of two long runs in the playoffs and we thought we would take a step forward there, and we didn’t.”
He would go on to talk about the banter heading into the playoffs, and the ensuing game one loss and motivation that would follow.
But the product of all of this is a night that everyone will remember for a really long time. Donte DiVincenzo went down just 1:19 into the game holding his calf, the worst becoming true with a torn achilles. An injury of that magnitude that can surely take the wind out of the sails of a team playing so well up until that point, and starting out game four on a tear.
For a team that so often would pack it up and mail it in over the course of the season, a reason to do so dropped right into their lap. It’s a pretty traumatic event, and obviously shakes up a rotation well beyond what the coaching staff is going into the game expecting.
Then your best player goes down for the rest of the game. The powerhouse of the team.
Though Anthony Edwards was playing poorly up until that point, it’s never an actual good thing for a player of his caliber to leave the game, believe it or not. It left a team beginning to really find itself in an immediate place of searching for answers in a playoff setting they had been hoping to see all season.
Multiple people had just become more important at work.
Hampered with a shoulder injury, Naz Reid would need to step up his game beyond what he was giving. Bones Hyland would need to become a more important scorer and collapse defenses (he will moving forward as well). Terrence Shannon Jr. will need to become a version of himself that was expected heading into the season.
“These playoff games really matter,” Naz Reid said afterward. “Every possession, every moment, every second. Making sure that we make smart plays..we want to make things happen in our favor, try not to have boneheaded mistakes we had throughout the season, and right now it’s super crucial.”
Reid would go one to live by it, putting up his best game in over a month, and helping to chip in on the production left out on the floor by his injured counterparts.
Injuries independent, the theme now moving forward lies in the mentality of this group heading into game five.
I tried to ask as many members of the group as possible what they’ve found in the playoffs that they previously didn’t have in the regular season.
The hero of the night’s answer put it all in a bow.
“I’m not gonna lie, I knew we guarded like that, but the intesnity…each and every possession, just seeing the guys fight,” 43-point scorer Ayo Dosunmu said.
Just arriving in February, Dosunmu’s arrival was in the middle of the season’s doldrums, and the guard would have a unique perspective on the personality resurgence currently taking place.
“Everytime [Jaden] was on the court guarding Murray, he was guarding him like his life depended on it.”
Like their life depends on it.
Surely a mental place that this team has gotten to. But now, the challenge is much more unique. The Wolves will now head on the road to try and close a talented team out down two starters, and in desperate need of their bench to find the continuous life they did on Saturday night. More crucial will be showing one of the more talented two man pairings in the league that there isn’t a way forward in the series in Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray – smothered offensively for the last three games.
While things look positive, there is still basketball to be played.
More importantly, up 3-1, the Wolves will need to channel their their “life depends on it” mindset, even though it doesn’t right now – and fight off the demons that prevented a sense of urgency in the first place.
