Surely, he was running on springs.
Jumping on a trampoline.
Shot out of a cannon.
Something supernatural took place as Anthony Edwards took off in the final second Thursday in Indiana. Because there’s no logical explanation for a player leaping as high as the 22-year-old guard did — figuratively touching the heavens and literally slamming his head off the side of the rim — as he soared to reject Aaron NeSmith’s game-tying layup attempt at the rim to save Minnesota’s 113-111 road victory over the Pacers.
“I saw him at the lane, I knew he was going for the layup. I was like, ‘Man, I’m finna go get this,” Edwards said in his postgame, on-court television interview. “I ain’t ever jumped that high in my life.”
It was Superman lifting a building. Spiderman climbing a wall. Doctor Strange Teleporting.
Anthony Edwards saving the Timberwolves’ season.
No, one victory doesn’t define or salvage a campaign. But Minnesota was in need of a lift Thursday, or some type of reassurance that everything could possibly be alright. The news of Karl-Anthony Towns’ meniscus tear and impending surgery, that will keep him out of the lineup for at least a month, was enough to make everyone question whether this team’s goals, which stretch as high as a championship, are no longer attainable.
But Edwards provided another reminder Thursday that, when he is locked in and at the peak of his powers, he can lift Minnesota to unimaginable heights, almost on his own.
He scored nine of Minnesota’s 11 points in the final five minutes of the contest. Indiana continuously struck back on the other end, but Edwards found an answer time and time again. He scored 13 points in the third and 16 in the fourth while making Andrew Nembhard, Indiana’s best defender, look like a mere bug on his windshield.
“I found my second win in the fourth,” Edwards said. “And, once I found my second wind, I knew there was nobody that could stop me.”
In total, Edwards finished with 44 points in a game that was reminiscent of the performances he has delivered in so many other high-profile contests in the past, whether those be against some of the league’s top teams or in the playoffs themselves.
Indiana is not a top-tier foe. The Pacers are destined to be a play-in team in the Eastern Conference. But Timberwolves coach Chris Finch has always said Edwards has a feel for the moment.
And, in Thursday’s moment, Minnesota desperately needed a pick-me-up. The Wolves — and, perhaps more specifically, their fans — needed a reason to believe again, after their hopes and dreams were seemingly smashed just 12 hours earlier.
So of course Edwards stepped up to the plate. Superheroes have always been the ultimate sign of hope.
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