Just a month ago, Anthony Edwards said Timberwolves players “all thought” they were play-in bound.
“We just knew it was gonna happen,” he said.
It sure felt like it at the time. Back-to-back losses at the end of February to the Lakers and Utah left the Wolves just three game above .500. That’s a play-in team in the Western Conference.
But Minnesota managed to flip the script over the final six weeks of the campaign, winning 17 of its final 21 games — the most recent of which came as a 116-105 win Sunday at home over Utah — to sneak into the top six.
The Wolves are the No. 6 seed and will face the Lakers in the first round of the playoffs. The series will start next weekend in Los Angeles, with the exact date and time of Game 1 still to be announced.
“I told the guys, (I was) super proud of their body of work this year,” Wolves coach Chris Finch said. “We didn’t make a big trade in the middle of the season to sort things out. We didn’t fire coaches to try to sort things out. They sorted it out themselves. Those guys made the right adjustments and sacrifices, and they figured out who they needed to be as a team. We’ve still got a lot in front of us, but all credit to those guys because it mattered to them to figure out, and we did, and they did.”
The Wolves did so over the weekend, handling downtrodden Brooklyn and Utah.
The Jazz were far more competitive. Minnesota’s lead was just one at the break on Sunday. But Edwards exploded for 18 of his 43 points in the third frame to give Minnesota ample breathing room and effectively punch the team’s fourth consecutive ticket to the playoffs.
Edwards hit seven 3s in the win, giving him the NBA 3-point title this season. The guard hit 320 triples this season, one more than Pistons guard Malik Beasley. Edwards said he was “super excited” about the league-leading mark.
“A little reminiscent of the other day in Memphis,” Finch said of the third frame. “I kind of felt going in we needed to clean up some game-plan stuff. I thought we were a little loose on some game-plan stuff and made some adjustments, and guys did a good job of carrying that out to the floor. We were able to get out and run. We had some transition stuff coming out of our defense at the right time. We needed that.”
Wolves guard Donte DiVincenzo admitted some players even felt the Wolves were destined for the play-in tournament after they blew a 24-point fourth quarter lead in Milwaukee on Thursday. But a door was re-opened when Golden State was upset by San Antonio on Wednesday.
“We were fortunate enough to have other teams lose, as well,” DiVincenzo said. “We just knew we had to handle business, and that was our focus.”
It was fitting even that Minnesota’s final week featured a little adversity. It wouldn’t be the Wolves if there wasn’t a bump in the road. But they managed to navigate that one, as well, to conclude a rocky season on a high that can carry them into the playoffs.
“Just overcoming adversity, keep our belief in ourselves and in one another. Trusting the process,” Wolves center Rudy Gobert said. “We knew that when I got here it was a process. It was a lot of adversity and we learned how to overcome that and get better from that. This time, after the (preseason) trade, I think our team became a little bit different. We had to all, individually and collectively, learn how to adjust to one another and get better. We went through some adversity, but we stayed with it. I think everything that we went through as a team just got us closer together and got us, mentally, more resilient.”
Now they’ll head into a Lakers series in which they’ll be an underdog as they try to topple two of the league’s elite talents, but armed with the knowledge that they aren’t likely to crumble under the weight of any presented challenge.
“I think this locker room is really connected, from the youngest to the oldest guy on the team, everybody is communicating with each other, and everybody can hold each other accountable,” Wolves guard Donte DiVincenzo said. “I think that’s huge. We’re going to need it going forward, because everything only gets harder.”
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