PORTLAND, ORE. – Anthony Edwards was asked what were the biggest issues in the Timberwolves’ three-game losing streak, and after sitting back in his chair, he said he wasn’t sure.
Timberwolves’ slide continues with latest of now-daily losses to Trail Blazers
Portland defeated the Timberwolves for the second day in a row, giving up only 15 points in the second quarter and leading to a search for answers.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
November 14, 2024 at 6:08PM
“I don’t know what to say,” Edwards said.
He asked someone nearby for a boxscore from the latest in this string of calamities, a 106-98 loss Wednesday to an undermanned, rebuilding Portland team that was without three key players in Anfernee Simons, Robert Williams and DeAndre Ayton. The Wolves were only down Mike Conley (rest) but still lost to Portland for the second time in as many nights.
Edwards scanned the boxscore for any answer in the numbers. His and the Wolves’ three-point shooting was abysmal; Edwards (24 points) was 0-for-9, the team 7-for-39 (18%). But that wasn’t why the Wolves also lost the previous two games. Then he offered this about the team’s once-vaunted defense:
“The effort is there. Just processing it in our minds isn’t there,” Edwards said. “Once fatigue kicked in, everybody as a team we just forget low man, gap, stunt … and it’s a domino effect.”
But the first and largest domino of the Wolves defense is Rudy Gobert, and when he is wobbly, it’s hard for the others to stay upright. Gobert said the past two games were on him, that he didn’t lead the Wolves defense as well as he should have. The best big man on the floor was Portland rookie Donovan Clingan, the former Connecticut Huskies center who had 17 points, 12 rebounds and eight blocks.
“Those two games are mostly on me defensively,” Gobert said. “I need to set the tone for the team, and I haven’t done it these last two games.”
Edwards referred to the team missing the “chip” on its shoulder from last season. Gobert spoke of the team not having the same edge as a year ago. Whatever the term, the Wolves don’t have that intangible quality that propelled last year’s group to the Western Conference finals. They also don’t have Karl-Anthony Towns and now have Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo. It hasn’t been a consistently smooth transition. DiVincenzo continues to struggle with shooting (he was 1-for-10 for two points), while the two-man offensive chemistry that had popped at times between Randle and Edwards has fizzled.
“We got to get that chemistry, that connectivity back a little bit,” coach Chris Finch said.
To Finch, the issues with the Wolves are “fixable.” More serious issues such as competitiveness or effort aren’t the problem, but the problems seem to be popping up Whac-A-Mole style the past three games. Sunday it was late-game execution. Tuesday was a slow start followed by a subpar defensive effort and a season-high 23 turnovers. Then Wednesday came a bad shooting night and more inconsistency on defense.
Edwards made sure to say the issue wasn’t coaching, that it’s on the players to execute game plans and schemes better.
“We got the answers. The coaches give us … the answers,” Edwards said. “We just not doing it as a team, one through 15. They give us the answers every night. We come in here at 35 [minutes] on the night, and they tell us what we need to do to win the game, and somehow we don’t do it every night. We got to get back to it. We got to mature, man.”
When asked if these issues could be ironed out in practice or film sessions, Randle said those things have been tried. It’s up to the players to make a “personal decision” to improve.
“We talk about it and we drill it every single day,” Randle said. “It’s on us as players. We got to take responsibility, look ourselves in the mirror. We got to fix this. When we decide we gonna do that on a consistent basis, we’ll win games.”
To Gobert, the Wolves are playing like a team that was happy it made the Western Conference finals a season ago, not a team trying to erase the feeling of losing it by going farther. They have a lot of work to get back there.
“None of us liked the way it felt,” Gobert said. “We need to find a way to carry that mindset over. Not being the team that is happy that has been to the Western Conference finals, being the team … that’s ready to take that step. I think we have that in us. Just got to cultivate it.”
High-profile victims in Minnesota include Mike Conley of the Timberwolves and Twins co-owner Jim Pohlad.
