Not all losses are created equal in the NBA, and neither are postgame locker rooms. You can walk into a losing locker room, and guys might be carrying on as if it was just a minor speed bump in their evening.
Timberwolves fall to Magic 108-106 as fourth-quarter troubles reappear
Minnesota shot just 25% in the fourth quarter and committed 17 turnovers on the night, and Orlando, led by Paolo Banchero’s 23 points, capitalized.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
February 3, 2024 at 5:10AM
The Timberwolves locker room was so quiet after a humbling 108-106 loss to the Magic, it caused forward Kyle Anderson to come and say it was, “like a funeral.”
The Wolves had plenty of issues crop up in their season during January — turnovers, bad fourth-quarter offense and maturity issues. All three were present in their first game of February.
The Wolves blew a 17-point first-half lead thanks to 17 turnovers and a 5-for-20 (25%) shooting performance in a fourth quarter that looked like a lot of bad ones the Wolves (34-15) have played since the calendar turned to 2024.
“It’s the same story every time,” center Rudy Gobert said. “I’ve probably said the same thing 10 times out of the 15 losses. Probably 10 of them are the same way. Until we start caring about those things, we’re going to keep getting those games taken away.”
To top it all off, the Wolves’ immaturity and mistake-prone youth popped at the wrong times, with Anthony Edwards picking up a technical in a tie game with 6 minutes, 59 seconds to play.
“I got fouled, and they didn’t call it, and I just wanted to express myself and got a tech for it,” Edwards said.
Then Jaden McDaniels fouled Paolo Banchero (23 points) with 9.3 seconds to play when there was about four seconds difference between the shot and game clocks. The Magic were ahead 105-103 and the Wolves were not looking to foul in that situation. McDaniels’ foul allowed Banchero to ice the game with a pair of free throws.
“For whatever reason, we just tend to make the game harder on ourselves,” said point guard Mike Conley, who struggled to four points on 1-for-9 shooting. “Every night, we’re going to be playing against teams that are going to play fast, they’re going to be physical, they’re going to give us their best shot and we’re not good enough yet to have that on and off switch where you can just choose when to do it.”
There was also a moment the Wolves allowed an easy dunk to Banchero in the third quarter after a Conley make. That caused a furious Finch to call timeout to let his team have it.
The Magic (26-23) are not the Hornets and Spurs, two bottom feeders the Wolves lost to recently, but the Wolves had little reason to lose — not after jumping out to a 17-point lead early in the second quarter. They also finished the third quarter strong on an 11-2 run and seemed like they had put their issues behind them.
But in the fourth quarter, isolation basketball came back to bite them. Edwards hit an early jump shot, then proceeded to miss his next two jump shots and committed a turnover. Karl-Anthony Towns also didn’t have it going on a night he scored 19 points on 17 shots to go with six turnovers.
“It’s shot selection,” Finch said. “We don’t get anything easy. We don’t get out and run like we should, even after misses or turnovers. In transition, we’ve been really poor converting in the last couple games.”
For those that think Finch should call more plays and have a more structured offense in these situations, Conley said the Wolves have actually been adding more structure to their offense recently. But the Wolves haven’t been running it properly, and that has been the problem.
“It’s still about us as individuals on our team taking that responsibility of hey, make the right play,” Conley said. “Coach puts us in a situation, we have two reads. Make the read on time. … But if we don’t do that, we hold onto it, we make it a little bit tougher and we can’t fall back on coach or anybody else.”
Despite so-so record, Wolves have improved at crunch time.
