Timberwolves’ Anthony Edwards, Rudy Gobert in search of ‘poetic justice’ against Mavericks
The The Minnesota Timberwolves have struggled a bit this season, just one year after they advanced to the Western Conference Finals. The pressure to live up to those expectations combined with little roster turnover has seen the Timberwolves struggle through a lot of adversity this season, and now they’re stuck trying to climb the standings.
Of course, that deep playoff run was snapped by the Dallas Mavericks in the conference finals before the Mavericks eventually fell to the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals. Wednesday night, The Timberwolves and Mavericks will reunite in the rematch of that series, and the game feels just a little more important as a result.
Before the game, the Timberwolves play the stars Anthony Edwards and Rudy Gobert talked about what that means to get some revenge on the Mavericks.
“It will be poetic justice,” Edwards said. “It’s going to be beautiful.”
“I think they’re a really, really good team,” Gobert said. “They beat us in the playoffs last year. They deserved it, they played very well against us. I think that this year, when we face this team, we will have memories of how they beat us, celebrate. I hope he has a little extra motivation.”
The Timberwolves are trying to get out of play in the Western Conference
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The The Timberwolves have been one of the most inconsistent teams in the NBA this season as they’ve struggled to find their identity on offense and regain their ferocity on defense since trading Karl-Anthony Towns for Julius Randle. As a result, Minnesota is just 22-20 and currently sits in ninth place in the Western Conference.
Late game execution is probably the biggest problem for the Timberwolves. This has been a problem for this team even when Towns was on the roster and has continued to plague it this year. Time and time again, the Timberwolves’ offense stalls in the final minutes of close games and they give up leads at the end of games.
Monday’s loss to the Memphis Grizzlies is a perfect example. The Timberwolves held the lead for most of the fourth quarter, but scored just six points in the final 4:30 of regulation time as the Grizzlies stormed back to win 108-106.
Spacing on the offensive end was a problem for the Timberwolves in this situation. When Gobert and Randle share the floor, it’s much more difficult for Edwards to get downhill and affect the interior, forcing him to take a lot of contested shots from the perimeter. The lack of flow combined with the lack of spacing leads to a lot of bad possessions late in games when the defense tightens up.
This may not be a solvable problem for the Timberwolves, but they might also be talented enough to overcome it on Wednesday night against the Mavericks.
2025-01-22 23:39:00
