Five things to watch for ahead of a critical Wolves vs. Thunder Game 3

It’s not really a playoff series, they say, until one of the teams wins a road game.

If that’s true, this Western Conference finals is not a series yet because the Wolves most certainly did not win either of the first two games in Oklahoma City.

The Thunder looked like the 68-14 squad that trounced almost everyone during the regular season in rolling through two wins by a combined 41 points.

Can the Wolves rebound as the series shifts to Target Center for Game 3 Saturday night? Here are five things that will help determine the answer:

Will Minnesota (and its home crowd) bring energy from the start?

One of the more disturbing qualities of the Wolves’ losses in Games 1 and 2 was their lack of urgency in a lot of situations. They seem like a team that downshifted through a businesslike series win against a Steph Curry-less Warriors team and didn’t crank things back up until a desperate-but-far-too-late fourth quarter Thursday.

The Wolves need to bring that urgency from the opening tip Saturday. Players will feed off the crowd and vice versa, but that can work both ways. We’ll know in the first four minutes Saturday which way it is going.

Can the Wolves avoid a third-quarter meltdown?

The start of the game will tell us a lot. The start of the third quarter will, too. Oklahoma City outscored the Wolves by 14 points in the third quarter of each of the first two games, turning relatively close games into large final margins. The Thunder outscored Minnesota by 29 points combined in the third quarter of both regular-season wins as well, while both of the Wolves’ regular-season wins were close to even in the third.

Minnesota can’t let mistakes compound in the third quarter. If the Wolves can get to the fourth quarter with a lead or at least within reasonable striking distance, they might be able to use their home crowd and playoff experience to secure a victory.

What adjustments will the Wolves make in style or personnel?

Rudy Gobert has struggled in both games of this series. Oklahoma City’s ball movement and ability to hit midrange shots has negated his defensive prowess, and Gobert has looked lost on offense. Naz Reid hasn’t made a three-pointer in this series (0-for-12). Donte DiVincenzo is a minus-47 in two games. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has topped 30 points in both games and looks very comfortable.

Might head coach Chris Finch consider limiting Gobert’s minutes? Deploying a small-ball lineup that includes ninth and 10th options Jaylen Clark and/or Terrence Shannon Jr.? Sending a swarming defense at SGA to get the ball out of his hands, as the Wolves did with some effectiveness in the fourth quarter of Game 2? All of those options should be on the table, at least in stretches, because what the Wolves have been doing isn’t working.

Are the Wolves destined to make more threes or is OKC’s perimeter defense just that good?

Three-point-shooting defense in the NBA was for a while considered an outlier stat, a product of luck more than skill.

But OKC’s opponents shot just 34.2% from deep this season, the lowest mark in the NBA. Watching how much the Thunder put pressure on offenses leads me to conclude that at least some of that is a credit to them and not just randomness.

The Wolves, a top-five three-point-shooting team during the regular season, have missed plenty of open looks this series in going 26-for-90 (28.9%) from deep over the first two games. But they also seem to be hurrying their shots just enough to get out of rhythm. They will need to settle down and make their truly good looks in Game 3.

Is Oklahoma City just too good?

The question nobody really wants to answer is the one I keep coming back to in all of this. We can analyze and pick apart fine points of the series, but the reality is that the Thunder are a juggernaut who won 16 more games than any other Western Conference team this year (and 19 more than the Wolves).

Imagining the Wolves winning four of the next five games to take this series is daunting. But they can only go one game at a time, and they must remind themselves that in the last round Denver pushed OKC to the brink in a seven-game series.

The task is difficult but not impossible, as great as the Thunder are.