MIAMI – The Timberwolves missed four of six free throws and gave away multiple inbounds passes inside the last minute of their game against the Heat on Friday. One of those turnovers, with 1.9 seconds left, even gave the Heat a chance to win a game the Wolves should have won with room to spare.
Timberwolves scrounge up a victory over Miami, running their winning streak to four
The Wolves were playing on the road for the seventh time in nine games but found enough energy at the end.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
March 8, 2025 at 6:39AM
But inside their locker room, a road-weary team wasn’t dwelling on the negatives in a 106-104 “ugly win” over the Heat, as coach Chris Finch termed it.
This was their seventh road game in their past nine, and especially at this point of the season, when playoff positioning is paramount, the Wolves were happy to head into the rest of the Miami night as winners of their fourth consecutive game.
“We still feel good about it,” point guard Mike Conley said. “We’ve been in clutch games so much and haven’t been able to come out with a win, to find a way regardless of how the last minute and a half ended, it’s a good thing for us. We needed to see one go our way.”
Even if there were plenty of concerning moments. The first came at the start of the third quarter, when Anthony Edwards was absent. Finch said Edwards wasn’t feeling well, and Edwards joked with teammate Julius Randle afterward that he was always going to be there when the Wolves needed him most, despite his illness. He said afterward he was feeling fine. Some of his teammates didn’t really notice he was missing until play started in the third.
“I went out there and looked up and Donte was in the game,” Conley said. “Our whole mindset changed. Move the ball, whoever gets it, try to be aggressive.”
Conley had seven points while Edwards was out and provided a key 15 points (6-for-9) on a night that Wolves had seven players score from 12 to 15 points as they struggled at times with Miami’s zone defense. Conley was back in the starting lineup after sitting the previous game in Charlotte on the second night of a back-to-back, one of several the Wolves have had lately.
“There’s a correlation,” Conley said of his efficient night Friday. “We played a lot of games, man. A lot in the last two weeks where we stacked three in four nights, getting places at 4 o’clock in the morning. Being 37, you just don’t recover the same like you used to. It was good for me to rest in Charlotte. Guys took care of business.”
They did that just enough Friday. When he returned, Edwards didn’t look like himself, but he saved whatever energy he had for the end. He hit a three to put the Wolves up 95-92 with 5 minutes, 12 seconds remaining. He finished with 13 points (4-for-10), his second-lowest scoring output of the season. But he skied several times down the stretch to secure rebounds of Heat misses on his way to tying a season high with 13 rebounds.
“A lot of those were in the air and in traffic,” Finch said.
The Wolves got to the finish line of this game on the glass by limiting the Heat to one shot on each possession, and then Julius Randle, who finished one assist shy of a triple-double for the second straight game (13 points, 10 rebounds, nine assists), rebounded a missed Donte DiVincenzo free throw with 19.1 seconds left and the Wolves up five.
“It can’t just be the bigs. The guards have to get in there and rebound,” said DiVincenzo, who had 15 points, six rebounds and four assists. “Ant had like three or four huge rebounds for us. That’s the key to us winning — everybody getting on the glass, doing the little things.”
The rebounding helped make up for the near disaster that struck in the final minute. Not only did the Wolves miss four of six free throws, they turned the ball over twice on inbounds passes, once from Randle and once when Conley inbounded to Edwards with 1.9 seconds left.
The Wolves couldn’t challenge the call since they were out of timeouts, even though it appeared the ball was off Miami. They played on, but Bam Adebayo (29 points) didn’t come close on a three-pointer at the buzzer. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra expressed his dismay after the game that officials didn’t call Randle for a foul.
“Don’t fine me, I’m not doing histrionics up here. I’m fully in control,” Spoelstra said. “At any point during the game, that’s a foul. Did he mean to foul? No. Is that what we wanted? No. But I will tell you this, Bam Adebayo got fouled on that. He got clipped. If that’s in the first quarter, that’s a foul.”
That complaint wasn’t going to put a damper on the Wolves’ night. Edwards said in a brief conversation afterward that he was fine, and he was his usual talkative self as his voice filled the locker room, especially regarding the sartorial choices of the well-dressed Nickeil Alexander-Walker, who had on black loafers, white puffy socks and a black thermal underneath a black jacket.
“You can’t really be upset [after this win],” said Alexander-Walker, who had 12 points. “We’re 100% not going to be content, but at the end of the day, it’s a win. We’re stacking them and heading in the right direction.”
The Wolves got their center back after a 10-game absence and continued their winning streak.
