Minnesota Timberwolves roll into Western Conference finals hungrier and healthier this time

After the Timberwolves defeated the Warriors 121-110 Wednesday to advance to the Western Conference finals, the locker room was a much different scene than it was a year ago in Denver, when the Wolves advanced past the second round in a seven-game slugfest.

Media was everywhere in the locker room that night in Denver, as were ice packs on the shoulders and knees of multiple Wolves players. Those that didn’t need the ice had buckets of water to soak their feet as the Wolves celebrated what was perhaps the greatest win in franchise history. The Wolves were elated, but they were also worn down, a fact that became evident as they lost in the Western Conference finals to the Mavericks in five games.

Contrast that with Wednesday night, which felt more like a regular-season victory than one of the most momentous nights in franchise history as the Wolves advanced to the conference finals for just the third time.

There wasn’t evidence of an extended celebration. Nobody lingered in the locker room. Players got their postgame work and treatment in, and they got out of there in a relatively short time. There wasn’t much savoring of the moment. After getting this far a season ago, there was a sense the Wolves know they can’t be satisfied again with just making it this far.

“It feels good, but there’s really nothing to celebrate yet,” Jaden McDaniels said.

Said Anthony Edwards: “There is no satisfaction. We just got here. We haven’t did anything yet.”

Then Rudy Gobert followed Edwards’ words.

“It feels good to get to that step, but the stomach is not full. Not at all,” Gobert said. “It’s just one step.”

But that step was still a significant one, no matter how the players downplayed it after. The Wolves beat the Warriors 4-1, all four wins coming after future Hall of Famer Stephen Curry strained his left hamstring in Game 1. That injury opened the door for the Wolves to win the series before Curry could get back, and indications were leaning toward that being a possibility if the series went to a Game 6 on Sunday. But the Wolves, a team that suffered from a lack of focus and intensity throughout the season, kept the Warriors down for the count. They also gave themselves some time to rest after keeping this a short series.

Julius Randle was a major reason why. While Edwards has his awe-inspiring bursts of brilliance, Randle has been the steady hand all postseason.

“Julius Randle was incredible,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “What a series. He’s always been a really good player in this league. I think he has taken a leap.”

Randle had 29 points on 13-for-18 shooting to go with five assists. He’s averaging 23.9 points per game in the postseason. He had five turnovers, but the Wolves had 21 as a team against a pesky Warriors defense, and when they didn’t turn the ball over, their ball movement was in peak form. They had 36 assists on 49 field goals while shooting 63% in a close-out game.

The veterans set the tone for the Wolves. There was Rudy Gobert with 17 points and eight rebounds, and Mike Conley, who had 16 points and eight assists. After last season, Edwards told the 37-year-old Conley he would be back in the conference finals. Edwards kept his word.

“What you learn about him, he believes everything he says, no matter what it is. And at that moment last year, I believed him, I believed that we’d have another opportunity together and this wasn’t the end of the road,” Conley said.

Even if that road felt like it had a lot of dead ends during the course of the season. The Wolves started the season with the controversial move of trading Karl-Anthony Towns for Randle and Donte DiVincenzo, who had 13 points on Wednesday. The fit, to say the least, was clunky, and halfway through the season, the Wolves were underwhelming. The fan base and the team could feel it. But Randle and coach Chris Finch figured out his fit, the team played its best basketball after he returned from a groin injury (17-4) and they’ve kept rolling ever since. They are now 25-6 since Randle came back from that injury.

“I was talking to my agent, Aaron Mintz, and he was always telling me, ‘Just be engaged with your teammates, even though you’re on the sidelines. I think that was another moment of growth for me in a way,” Randle said of sitting out. “Because even though I wasn’t playing, just being engaged, cheering for the guys, encouraging them, being able to use my voice in a way that maybe I haven’t been comfortable in the past with. … After I came back, my mindset was just how can I help this team win, and it’s as simple as that.”

Randle helped put the Warriors away after they cut a 25-point lead to nine in the fourth quarter; he had eight points in the quarter. Edwards finished with 22 points but had 12 assists, his best total in a playoff game.

“The most together team and the most mature team is the team that wins around this time,” Edwards said. “It’s not about who gets 30 points, who gets the most shots, who gets all the blame for winning the game. It’s not about none of that. It’s about coming together as a team. Can we defend at a high level? Can we limit the other team to one shot? It doesn’t really matter about offense.”

BOXSCORE: Wolves 121, Warriors 110

Those kinds of words from Edwards reflect the culture Finch has tried to build since he became the coach in Edwards’ rookie year. Earlier this season, Finch spoke about wanting to build a culture that could make consistent deep playoff runs, while keeping in mind something his boss, Wolves President Tim Connelly, often says: “The path to success is not always linear.”

“It doesn’t mean just because you went so far in the playoffs, you’re going to go one step further,” Finch said. “You might not always do that, but come back the next year and put in place the lessons that you learned. I think I can see some of that.”

But Finch challenged the group not to take a step back anyway. From Day 1, he said he framed it this way to the team: Did they want to be a Western Conference finals team, or a team that happened to make the Western Conference finals?

“There’s only one way to prove that: Go out and do it again, and that was our mission all year,” Finch said. “We went through a lot of growing pains, but the team has come together at the right time and playing its best basketball.”

The Timberwolves wandered the basketball wilderness in the post-Kevin Garnett years. The franchise passed twice on Curry and saw Warriors forward Jimmy Butler tear through the organization in 2018. It vanquished Butler (17 points Wednesday), along with, perhaps, excising some of the angst from passing on Curry.

In the process, the 2024-25 Wolves became what Finch challenged them to be: a Western Conference finals team. But this time, that’s not a good enough goal.

“[Last year] we weren’t mature enough to handle that yet,” Gobert said. “We were aware of it. This year, we’re mature enough.”