Timberwolves make a rapid, resounding fourth-quarter rally past the Chicago Bulls

CHICAGO – Anthony Edwards wasn’t that impressed with the 45 points the Timberwolves scored in the fourth quarter of their 135-119 victory over the Bulls on Thursday night.

He was more concerned with the number under it on the boxscore: 24. That’s how many points the Wolves gave up in the fourth quarter after giving up at least 30 in the previous three. He and Rudy Gobert have noticed a pattern: The Wolves have often found themselves sitting around the locker room at halftime talking about how much they have to guard in the second half.

“We come out as if … we this powerhouse. We ain’t this powerhouse,” Edwards said. “We ain’t nobody right now. We a team that went to the Western Conference finals. We ain’t been there two times, three times. We been there once. We be comin’ out in the games thinking we going to win.”

They got it together Thursday night at United Center after letting the Bulls score 65 points in the first half. There was a switch in the game plan — the Wolves stopped helping any time the Bulls drove to the hoop. That was leading to open shots from three-point range for Chicago, which hit 15 of 36 three-pointers in the game despite not having Zach LaVine available. The Wolves took their individual matchups more seriously in the second half, and it led to their fourth-quarter comeback, when they erased a 95-90 deficit at the start of the quarter and turned it into a rout.

BOXSCORE: Wolves 135, Chicago 119

“I played a huge part in that,” Edwards said, referencing the slow defensive start. “I got to get my guys ready to go in the beginning of the games.”

Edwards finished with 33 points and was instrumental in the fourth-quarter turnaround. The Wolves came into the season more concerned with how their offense was going to perform than their defense, which was the No. 1 unit in the NBA last season. But they haven’t quite found a consistent rhythm there either.

In the fourth quarter, they put it all together. On offense, they found Gobert for a number of easy looks at the rim. He finished with 21 points, 11 of which came in the fourth quarter. He was 4-for-4 in the fourth while Edwards was 5-for-5.

“I can sense that guys, when they drive in the paint, they’re really confident finding me and in the pocket,” Gobert said. “That’s the work. I’ve been working a lot on those situation and it’s great to have their trust.”

That trust between Gobert and Edwards has taken time to build, but Edwards has been looking Gobert’s way more frequently at the start of this season than he did in the past. Two of Edwards’ six assists were to Gobert, with both buckets coming in the second half. One came when Edwards hit Gobert with a pass over a double team and Gobert finished with an authoritative dunk plus a foul.

“Rudy been working. He been working,” Edwards said. “It’s a difference when you see people work. Like you start to trust them a little more. You make that pass. He been working, and we have no reason to not trust him.”

Julius Randle added 22 points on 8-for-15 shooting while Jaden McDaniels had 19 points on 6-for-7. Mike Conley, at 37, became the oldest player in team history to record a double-double with 14 points and 11 assists. Rod Strickland had held the record at 36 years, 191 days since getting 12 points and 10 assists against Portland on Jan. 18, 2003.

Conley helped ignite the fourth-quarter run with a patented play he trots out maybe once a game, so as not to overuse it. He drew an offensive foul on a moving screen from Chicago’s Nikola Vucevic (25 points). Conley sold the contact and the whistle came for a foul the other way. Conley smiled as he described his strategy to get the referees to make the call. Conley sensed Vucevic was a bit out of position and would have to step to reach him, so in that moment he took a different angle as they met to draw contact.

“You only do it once a game. The momentum was shifting … and just felt that was the right time to slow the game down, get the ball back,” Conley said.

Said Edwards, with a smile, “He does a great job of selling those.”

The Wolves were down 106-101 with 9 minutes remaining but scored the next 12 points. Edwards hit a pair of threes in that burst. If only the Wolves had started the night differently. Edwards said he will make sure they do next time.

“I don’t know if we be tight or cold or what it is,” Edwards said. “Because I have no excuse. I don’t know why I don’t play defense early in the game. I’m a part of it, too. We just got to be better early.”