Oklahoma City – Can a match ruin a whole season?
For almost the entire 2024-25 season, the Minnesota Timberwolves were a story of perseverance and resilience. They resisted a business that shakes the earth just before the training camp, an overabundance of losses and injuries and the doubts of most through the league to scratch and cling not only to relevance, but at the door of the NBA final for the second consecutive season.
Their first four games against Oklahoma City Thunder included a 42 -point victory in match 3 and a 2 -point defeat in match 4 which was one of the most competitive and entertaining games of this season. What followed in match 5 on Wednesday was such a complete and embarrassing merger that it threatens to overshadow all the considerable achievements of this team in the 96 games that preceded it.
The Timberwolves entered a match to do or die and were in plates before the first quarter. A team that prides itself on playing its best when the back of its players is against the wall seemed completely unprepared for the moment. When the final buzzer sounded on a 124-94 Victory of the series series by the ThunderThe Timberwolves broke the field with a stain in an impressive season.
The Wolves scored only 9 points in the first quarter, missing 17 of their 20 shots and turning it over four times to delay 17 points. They dragged 65-32 at halftime, a bigger deficit than their total marked points. They had 14 reversals during the first two quarters and only 12 goals on the ground.
“Once this buzzer sounds and you are just able to feel everything, it hurts,” said striker Julius Randle. “It hurts. So, really, that’s where I’m right now. It’s almost like a mourning stage of the season and it hurts, really. But we will be back.”
There is a sentence that lives in infamy in the sports tradition of Minnesota: “41-Donut”. He refers to the 2001 NFC championship match, a defeat of 41-0 from the Vikings to the Giants of New York. In a state that has seen as much disappointment with its male sports teams as any other, this game is above the rest for the induced level of nausea.
These Thunder, who won 68 games in the regular season and had the biggest point differential in the history of the league, are much better than these giants were perhaps the only thing that saves the Wolves’ performance to join it at the top. They dragged up to 39 points in the match.
Randle may have been the best story of the first two rounds of the playoffs, putting aside a story of the failures of the playoffs with an incredible race through the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round and the Golden State Warriors in the second round, with an average of 23.9 points, 5.9 rebounds and 5.9 assists and apparently relying for a large contract extension. But after having openly admitted to be a “spectator” in matches 2 and 4 of the conference final, Randle was completely offbeat in the first half on Wednesday.
During its first 12 minutes on the ground, when the match was really decided, Randle collected 3 points and three reversals. The Wolves dragged 30-11 at that time. He started in the second half and finished with a strong 24-point line and five rebounds, but the match was finished for a long time when his shots started to fall. He has a player option for $ 31 million next season, and both parties had to explore a longer -term agreement. But he scored 6 points in match 2, 5 points in match 4 and experienced more turnarounds (four) than shooting (three) in the first half on Wednesday.
“Super disappointing,” said Randle. “But just the series in general, I am disappointed. I have the impression that we are a better team than what we have shown. So, a lot of motivation in summer, that’s for sure.”
Naz Reid also has a player option on his contract for next season and thought of being online for a considerable increase, either in Minnesota or elsewhere. He collected 2 points and three reversals in first eight minutes, dribbling a ball on an opportunity to escape first half. He finished with 11 points, five reversals and four faults.
Nickeil Alexander-Walker is the third player that the Wolves will have to make a decision on this summer. His contract expires, he will therefore be a free agent, but he was an essential element of their ascent in the Western Conference. It was one of the best deals in the league, winning only $ 4.3 million this season and is online for a significant increase. He was great in the defeat of match 4 against the Thunder, marking 23 points to report on a non-presentation of Randle and a quiet evening by Anthony Edwards. But in the last game of the season, Naw was 0 for 8 with two reversals and was part of a defense which was absolutely shredded by the Thunder Fme.
Rudy Gobert’s offensive struggles were so important that he couldn’t play much in this series. He had 2 points and a blow in 19 minutes. His teammates did not trust him to pass him the ball because he could not catch him properly, leaving five defenders of Thunder to keep four wolves.
“The way they associated themselves with and things like that, we have to do a better job to maximize it as an offensive player, and the little ways we can and that we have done in the past this year was not a good job on this part,” said Finch.
Chris Finch led Wolves deeply in the playoffs in consecutive sources, but has not yet brought into the final. Against OKC, he had no answers. (Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
Finch is, in all respects, the most successful coach in the history of Timberwolves. He brought a level of competitiveness to this team which has never been seen before, and he became the leader of the franchise in the victories in the playoffs earlier during the offseason. His players escape his ability to keep them responsible and the confidence he even places in the most difficult moments. But when a team fails spectacular in such an important moment, it must take part of the blame.
The Thunder is a monster of a team. They were the heavy favorites entering this series for a reason. But Finch could not find schematic answers for the suffocating defense of OKC or the cruelty of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in attack. While Mark Daigneault found ways to attack Minnesota’s defense and get an easy SGA and Jalen Williams look, everything was so difficult for Timberwolves.
“We were beaten by the best team. So you fight, you fight, you fight, but they play better, they are better,” said Finch. “So, at that time, I am not one of those guys who takes losses with me. We will learn and we will group together, but the best team has won this series, and I am proud of our guys and our organization to arrive here.”
Edwards was surrounded by defenders at any time, and yet the Wolves could not charge thunder to sell so completely to stop him. Over the series, he seemed to wear out a little, tiring to get hit and hit and beat in his places. He was similar to last season against the Dallas Mavericks, when he said he had to get in shape to undergo a long race in the playoffs.
Edwards collected 19 points on the shooting of 7 out of 18. He missed six of his seven 3, most of which were strongly disputed.
“He has to find easier buckets. I have to help him do so,” said Finch. “I think we have never been able to establish something compatible with him and it is on us as much as anyone.”
After the match, Edwards brought an equally optimistic tone as he did after being eliminated by the Mavericks. As a person who lost his mother and grandmother because of cancer at the age of 14, he always said that he was not injured by what is happening on a basketball court. He is embraced by what is to come.
“I don’t know why people would think it would hurt. It’s exciting for me,” said Edwards. “I am 23 years old. I can do it a lot of times. I am more injured for Mike (Conley). I came short for Mike. We tried last year, we could not get it. We have tried this year. We will try again next year. But injured is a terrible word to use. I’m good. “
So can a game ruin a whole season? Probably not.
In the misery that wrapped the Wolves’ post-match changing rooms, they found moments to watch the situation as a whole. This team faced a climb up from the start of the season. Nothing came easy, and yet the Wolves have never gave in and built their way to the playoffs for the fourth consecutive season, an impressive feat since they missed the playoffs 16 times in 17 years before Finch was hired as a coach. They spent 20 years between the final of the conference before last year’s race, and it took them exactly a calendar year to return.
“It was definitely a difficult season in many ways,” said Finch. “They stayed with that. They stayed with each other. They stayed with me. It was not always pretty, but we played our best basketball when it was, which was at the bottom of the line.”
This bite loss. It was embarrassing, for players, coaches and fans. It will persist much longer than most unique losses. And he should. Wolves must use this ignominy to supply them.
Basketball president Tim Connelly, Finch and Edwards have established a new standard in Minnesota. With that, real expectations, and that is why a loss like it hurts so much. No one cared a lot when the Wolves lost a match in April to fall at 31-51 in 2017. These losses are important. These losses are observed.
Leave it to Conley to sum up it best.
“It’s disappointing for us, disappointing for our fans, disappointing for everyone at the moment,” he said. “But guy, we work, we do the right things, we are coming early, let’s go late. We do everything we can to try to prepare for this long season and at the ups and downs.
“This is something that we must continue to build ourselves, continue to learn. Unfortunately, the best lesson is to go through it with your own experiences. These guys feel it. Obviously, I felt this situation. I hope we can simply learn and get better for that. ”
(Top photo of Anthony Edwards: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
