Home playoff games were trouble for Timberwolves last season

With their series against the Lakers tied 1-1, the Timberwolves will end up advancing to the second round if they can just hold serve at Target Center for the remainder of the series.

That’s easier said than done for this team.

The Wolves were 3-5 at home last season in the playoffs, a head-scratching number considering how well they played on the road (6-2).

Then during the regular season, the Wolves were only one game better at home (25-16) than they were on the road (24-17). Earlier in the season, coach Chris Finch expressed some befuddlement as to why that was, but as the Wolves gear up for Friday night’s Game 3, Finch didn’t seem as concerned about his team’s performance at home.

“We just told the guys, our performances in L.A. and the results out there, all’s we’ve done is earn the right to be able to be great at home,” Finch said. “That’s what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to come out with a big start tomorrow. It should be a lot of fun and get the series back in our advantage.”

There should be some extra energy in the building Friday night, in part because the 8:30 p.m. tip time should accommodate those who might want to swing by a happy hour before the game. But also because the Lakers tend to draw a decent amount of their fans wherever they go. Center Naz Reid said that wasn’t a worry to him, especially if the Wolves take care of what they need to do.

“Even throughout the season, it’s kind of difficult because you are at home so you are a little bit laxed,” Reid said. “But it’s the playoffs. Have that sense of urgency, being mindful and understanding of the time and situation we’re in right now.”

If there’s one downside to games at Target Center in the postseason, it’s that the nervous energy courses through the building quickly when things go wrong for the Wolves. The team can sometimes feel that, and there can be a snowball effect. That dates back to the 2022 playoffs, when the Wolves let some large leads slip away at home against the Grizzlies.

Then last season, current Lakers guard Luka Doncic helped the Mavericks come from behind in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals with a three-pointer to win it 108-105 in the final seconds.

“We have to not be too worried about where we’re at. When we’re on the road, there’s no distractions and you’re just trying to silence a crowd,” point guard Mike Conley said. “At home, we need to find a way to pick up our crowd, get our crowd involved and make it a very, very tough and hostile environment like teams can be … when we go on the road.”

The Wolves turned in one good and one not-so-good performance on the road in the first two games, with a lot of talk headed into Game 3 centering on how they can combat a rejuvenated Lakers defense. The Wolves didn’t see much that was schematically different for the Lakers in Game 2 from Game 1. Instead, the Lakers upped their intensity and physicality, and the Wolves didn’t make the right plays against their defense.

“I thought we fell back into a lot of poor habits in Game 2,” Finch said. “Offensive decisionmaking, shot selection, complaining to the refs, all that led to poor transition defense. Ball-holding, not playing with the pass early enough, not getting off of it in a crowd. Then when we got down, everybody tried to get themselves going.”

Conley has often spoke of the team’s need to repeat the same processes that work, how they can’t get bored with success if doing the same things on offense — such as making the right passes, taking the right shots — leads to that success. They can’t get complacent with the things that lead to good ball movement.

“Doing the easy thing can sometimes be the hard thing for us,” Conley said. “We just need to continue to do the easy reads, continue to make the quick decisions and communicating on defense. The stuff that we ask ourselves to do every single night, every single game, those are the things we sometimes slip up on. We try to do too much or try to overthink certain things and make it a little more difficult than it needs to be.”

When asked if the necessary motivation will be there Friday night to match the energy of the crowd, Conley said Finch was making sure of that.

“If you’ve ever been in a film session with Finchy after a loss, we’ll be motivated,” Conley said. “We’ll be motivated and ready to go. So I have no doubt that our guys will be ready.”