Timberwolves, with Anthony Edwards suspended, come up a point short of last-place Jazz

SALT LAKE CITY – This season for the Timberwolves has been filled with dozens of close games, more of those ending in losses than wins.

The Wolves have left many games with the words “what if” ringing in their heads. But of all those “what if” games this season, none will loom larger in the final standings or on their collective conscience than Friday’s 117-116 loss to the Jazz, the worst team in the Western Conference.

It was a loss that left Jaden McDaniels saying, “It’s desperation time, for real.”

What if they didn’t allow a 27-4 Utah run in the third quarter? What if the officials had blown a whistle on the final play, when Donte DiVincenzo collided with Utah’s John Collins as he attempted the final shot?

Most of all, what if Anthony Edwards didn’t get two technical fouls the night before in Los Angeles and had been able to play? Instead, Edwards wasn’t in the arena as he served his one-game suspension for getting 16 technical fouls on the season, and the Wolves lost another winnable game to a team below them in the standings.

“It’s been this way largely all season,” Wolves coach Chris Finch said. “It doesn’t matter whether a team is above or below us, the most dangerous team to us is us. We have to recognize that and guard against it better.”

Would the game have been different had Edwards played?

“Quite possibly, but he’s not,” Finch said. “So, I mean, it doesn’t do me any good to go through that thought process.”

To the rest of the locker room, the Wolves still had enough to win, especially against a Utah franchise that doesn’t mind losing on a nightly basis. The Wolves began the game down 8-0 but seemed to have the night on track by halftime with a 67-56 lead. They committed just one turnover in the first half. Then the night took a disastrous turn in the third quarter.

The Wolves started missing at the rim, which is a recipe for other teams to get out in transition. The Jazz did, to the tune of 11 fast-break points in that quarter. Finch called two timeouts to stop the bleeding, but the damage was done, and the game adopted a different tone the rest of the night.

“Low key giving them second chances,” said McDaniels, who had 20 points. “Us turning the ball over and then just messing up on game plan mistakes. Like, chasing or going under on coverages.”

The Wolves clawed back in the fourth, and they had a 116-115 lead on a DiVincenzo three-pointer with 1 minute, 31 seconds to play. But they didn’t score the rest of the night. On the final play, DiVincenzo said he initially thought he was fouled, but he changed his mind when he saw the replay.

BOXSCORE: Jazz 117, Wolves 116

NBA standings

“I came back and looked at it and you have to give credit. They did a good job of going vertical,” he said.

But the larger point DiVincenzo made was the Wolves should have won the game a lot earlier.

“It shouldn’t have gotten to that point,” said DiVincenzo, who scored 12 points. “This is a game where we have to come in, a lot of their young guys are playing heavy minutes and we’re down bodies, too, but we have aspirations to do big things and it’s what separates the good teams from great teams. I think we have to look ourselves in the mirror and get this train rolling, because there’s only 19 games left.”

The Wolves have one of the league’s easiest schedules remaining in terms of opponent win percentage, but that doesn’t much matter to a team that has struggled to win games against weak teams.

Neither does the fact that the Wolves have been down multiple key players the past several weeks. Not only did they miss Edwards, they also missed Rudy Gobert, with the Jazz getting 60 paint points and 18 second-chance points.

“I think being down bodies is an excuse,” said Naz Reid, who had 27 points on 10-for-25 shooting. “We have great players who have stepped up in this locker room. Even the younger guys have stepped up. I think being down players is a copout.”

To Finch, the team’s effort was there Friday, but the “intention” to get a win was not.

“We didn’t come to put our stamp on the game right away,” Finch said.

There aren’t many excuses for nights like Friday, whether it be the injuries or the hectic travel schedule coming out of the All-Star break, back-to-backs and 3 a.m. arrivals in the next city. The Wolves don’t have room to spare in the crowded Western Conference standings, where they sat ninth after Friday.

“It’s not panic button, but you look at the standings and you string four or five together and you climb four spots in the standings,” DiVincenzo said. “You lose for or five, you drop five slots in the standings. There has to be a higher sense of urgency, and we know that.”

8:30 p.m. Sunday

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The Wolves (32-29), losers of four of five since the All-Star break, have won their past six meetings with the Suns, including 2-0 this season following last year’s first-round playoff sweep. Phoenix (28-32) won for only the second time in nine games Friday when they led wire-to-wire at home in beating New Orleans 125-108.