Minnesota Timberwolves savor a San Francisco treat with surge past Golden State Warriors

SAN FRANCISCO – To his coach and teammates, Anthony Edwards got going in the Timberwolves’ 102-97 Game 3 victory over the Warriors when he took flight for a highlight-reel dunk over Kevon Looney with 1 minute, 48 seconds to play in the third quarter.

But to hear Edwards tell it, he got going a few minutes earlier, when he had the unfamiliar feeling of someone putting him on a poster, when Jonathan Kuminga dunked on him at the 4:18 mark.

“I felt like when Kuminga dunked on me, it got me going more so, if anything,” Edwards said.

That jolt came just in time, and Edwards came alive in the second half to score 28 of his game-high 36 points Saturday as the Wolves took a 2-1 lead in their series against the Warriors with Game 4 on Monday in San Francisco.

But there was someone else giving Edwards a lift on Saturday night — his teammate Julius Randle. Randle continued to rewrite the narrative of his postseason career, as he became just the second player, behind Kevin Garnett, to record a triple-double in Wolves postseason history.

Randle finished with 24 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds.

“He’s a grown man, that’s all I got to say about it,” said Naz Reid, who scored nine points. “I think this has been the most healthy playoffs he’s had. Just him being him. We’re following their suit, him and Ant.”

Nine of Randle’s 12 assists came in the second half, and six of those went to Edwards.

“He was incredible, man,” Edwards said of Randle. “Finding everybody on cuts. Finding the open guy time after time. Just pushing the pace. That’s what we asked of him, and he’s been doing that at a high level. We can’t ask for nothing better, man. He’s been making the game a lot easier for me, so I appreciate having him.”

They carried the Wolves through a dicey game in which they committed 21 turnovers but played well enough in the fourth quarter to come away with the win. Jimmy Butler had 33 points for the Warriors, who were again without Stephen Curry (left hamstring strain).

The Wolves trailed 82-77 with 8:16 to play in the fourth but went on a 9-0 run and never trailed again. They took an 84-82 lead on a three-pointer from Edwards, assisted by Randle, with 6:16 left. Edwards, who has struggled with his three-point shot of late, went 3-for-5 from three-point range even as the Warriors have made a concerted effort to run him off the line. His last three of the night put the Wolves up 96-89 with 1:17 to play. He said playing off-ball more in the second half helped him score more.

“It’s kind of crazy because teams don’t usually want me to get to the hole. Now they don’t want me to shoot threes, step-back threes,” Edwards said. “... I think just playing off the ball is better for me playing versus this team because everyone [on the Warriors] is locked in on the game plan.”

The combination of offense and defense in clutch-time situations has been a 180-degree reversal from how the Wolves handled those situations in the regular season. They are now 4-0 in clutch-time games this postseason.

They got enough defensive stops late, with 37-year-old Mike Conley putting his body on the line multiple times, including drawing an offensive foul when he hit the deck after a moving screen from Looney. Conley joked afterward his body had nothing left in it at that point, that if he hadn’t fallen down he didn’t know if he could have kept running.

“We’re just more confident now than we have been in the past,” Conley said of the clutch-time play. “We saw it tonight being down a couple points late in games, and we don’t seem to panic. We tend to kind of double down on what we do defensively. Offensively we got a good rhythm. After now getting more chemistry with … Julius, we now know who and where to go to and how to get guys involved late and get easy opportunities for ourselves.”

BOXSCORE: Wolves 102, Golden State 97

The Wolves are in a race with the calendar and the healing power of Curry’s hamstring to close this series out before Curry can make it back. Golden State made no secret of its game plan Saturday — muddy the game with defense and hope to get enough offense from Butler and others to squeak out a victory while Curry is on the mend. Jonathan Kuminga contributed 30 points to that effort.

But on Saturday, as coach Chris Finch said, “I was proud of our guys because we got right down there in the mud with them.”

Then Edwards and Randle found the way out for the Wolves.