The good thing about a defensive battle is that it provides some incredibly compelling basketball, where every shot must be earned, and every make has been fought for. The bad thing about a defensive battle is that sometimes no one makes a shot for five minutes at a time, and you can feel the life force draining from you as you watch a 7’4” inhuman monster block every single shot that the Minnesota Timberwolves throw within 48 inches of him.
The best part about a defensive battle, however, is winning it. It’s that first gasp of air after a stressful game. May basketball is fun. There’s truly nothing better than this.
The return of Anthony Edwards loomed large heading into this one, as just over a week after nearly snapping his knee on live television, the superstar shooting guard stepped back onto the court just a few minutes into the first quarter.
However, with Ant on a minutes restriction and Ayo Dosumnu still out with a calf injury, the Wolves lacked any real 3-point shooting or self-shot creation. With that need in place, Chris Finch did what would’ve seemed impossible a day ago. He let Ant challenge the limits of the minutes restriction.
Edwards started off slow but found a rhythm in the fourth. He is clearly still hobbled; his verticality and burst are near zero comparatively, but still, he continued to push.
For Minnesota, Naz Reid and Jaden McDaniels performed admirably as offensive pressure valves, with Jaden finding shot after shot from inside the arc and Reid with a team-best plus/minus. However, there was a looming absence that continues to shape the Wolves’ rotation.
TJ Shannon and Jaylen Clark continue to figure into minutes distributions, largely due to the loss of not just Dosumnu but the ever-missed Donte Divincenzo.
It’s pretty obvious that losing a guy taking eight threes a game and making around 40% of them is gonna be a devastating event, but it’s especially bad when the San Antonio Spurs defense was hemorrhaging open threes and the Wolves just didn’t have anyone to shoot them.
The Wolves roster is shaped by its specialists. Bones Hyland being terrible tonight made the lack of healthy Ayo and Ant even more obvious. The impact of Jaylen Clark as a defensive ace gave Jaden just enough of a break to not foul out in the same with that his counterpart in Stephon Castle did.
In losing Donte, they lost that aspect of themselves. It was painfully obvious tonight.
Everything came to a head in the last three minutes of the game. After an aggressive Ant built a lead that Julius Randle maintained, the Wolves led by seven with 180 seconds remaining. A minute later, DeAaron Fox scored a fastbreak layup to bring that lead down to a more achievable five.
Clutch time was always a worry for the Spurs, who lack any real playoff experience beyond Harrison Barnes, but there is also the question of whether this will be a running theme or a one-off. The Wolves have been here; the Spurs have not.
That was not immediately obvious, though. While the Wolves floundered, San Antonio stayed alive. A couple of second-chance points given up to Julian Champagnie (of all people) pulled it down to four when it could’ve been game over with miss after miss still becoming points.
Free-throw shooting has long since been an issue for Minnesota. Maybe it started when Anthony Edwards went from around 85% to 75% near overnight. Maybe it became more obvious when Rudy Gobert joined the team. Maybe it just got particularly obvious when checking the box score and seeing those nine missed free throws.
Dumb mistakes have also been abundant. From Rudy Gobert forcing a three-second rule to turn over Julius Randle to ridiculous turnovers to the lasting memories, lackluster defense, and backcuts from so many different playoff runs. Tonight’s version was a cursed inbounds play.
All of that was nearly enough to sink the Wolves.
But that’s exactly the thing: nearly.
The Wolves didn’t blow it. They held on and won Game 1 to claim home court advantage in this series.
There are so many things to point at to blame for this game. The last three minutes were a comedy of errors. The inbound pass that led to a turnover to bring the lead down to two was horrifying. The final offensive possession from Julius Randle (who had an excellent game and even better fourth quarter) was mindbogglingly bad.
Anthony Edwards spent the entirety of his postgame presser talking about how terribly he played. Nine days after a major knee injury, he was upset with his lack of rebounding. He had a fair amount to be upset about and an upsetting amount of things that he should be fairer about.
There was no way this should have worked. This should have been a disaster. In anything outside of a Disney Channel movie, this ends in failure and pain.
But it didn’t really matter.
On a night where Victor Wembanyama challenged the playoff block record in only the first quarter, the Wolves did enough to win.
If he can have his own movie moment, the Wolves can have their own.
Additionally, the potential return of Ayo Dosumnu, echoing that of Ant tonight, could give Minnesota another extra boost when the Spurs are very much locked in on who they are. It seems this series will be the ultimate battle of basketball identity vs. team identity.
The Spurs know exactly how they play. The Wolves know exactly who they are.
That made all the difference tonight.
“We just want to win ballgames,” says Anthony Edwards. They have done that more than any era in franchise history. They did that tonight.
Goodnight Wolves fans. We’ll be back again on Wednesday night for Game 2, which likely won’t be nearly as neck and neck as this one was.
Phew. I have no other words outside of a few expletives and that aforementioned sigh. What a game. What. A. Game.
Up Next
Game 2 of this Timberwolves-Spurs series continues on Wednesday as the Wolves look to take the first two games on the road as they did two years ago in Denver. Tip-off is again at 8:30 PM CT, airing this time on ESPN.
