Target Center was quiet and emptying with 3 minutes and 17 seconds to play in the Timberwolves' 104-84 loss to the Clippers on Friday night as Karl-Anthony Towns approached the bench during a timeout.
Timberwolves let 20-point lead crumble away to 20-point loss to Clippers
In the first eight games of the season against teams either missing top players or sitting at the bottom of the standings, the now 3-5 Wolves have shown little evidence things will be better this season
November 6, 2021 at 4:44AM
Towns headed for a chair in the corner near the media seating and whipped a towel he was holding against it in frustration.
As Chris Finch emptied his bench in a game the Wolves once led by 20, Towns let out a few expletives as the clock ticked away on the Wolves' fourth straight loss.
The scheduling gods tried to help the Timberwolves early this season — seven of their first eight at home with most games against beatable teams who were either missing key players, basement dwellers or both. They didn't take advantage of it.
"We're struggling right now, man," Anthony Edwards said. "It's tough right now because we're struggling. We're playing good sometimes. We have spurts of playing good, then we play bad and don't pick it up. It's tough."
All the problems that plagued them in these eight games showed up in a big way during the second half Friday. Their offense was stagnant again, especially during a third quarter in which Los Angeles outscored them 28-15 and squashed any Wolves momentum from the first half.
"Sometimes it's like we're in a groove and we're playing well, but … certain guys are not involved in that and then they want to join the party and kind of feels like a record scratch," Finch said.
There was a foul imbalance — seven free-throw attempts for the Wolves, 32 for the Clippers — but that can happen when the Wolves take more threes than twos, and the Wolves seemed to let the officials rattle them as the game unraveled in the second half.
"When adversity hits, you have two choices, whether to crumble or get past it," said forward Taurean Prince, who got his first start. "We're to the point where we're starting to learn that we need to get past certain things, stay off the refs a little bit, do certain things that gives more oomph to the team."
After the Wolves took a 20-point lead in the second quarter, the "oomph" turned to "oof." The Clippers' Paul George had 21 points, with 13 coming from the foul line. Ivica Zubac had 14 points and 14 rebounds while Reggie Jackson added 20 points.
The Clippers fronted and doubled Towns (20 points) effectively in the second half. Edwards (17 points, 7-of-22 shooting) was content to shoot from the outside instead of driving, but he is one of the only players with the ability to penetrate and that can get tiring when he's not getting calls at the rim or finishing, he said.
"If I ain't going, then all the coaches looking at me like 'Go to the rim!' " Edwards said. "I'm like, 'I'm the only one going to the rim.' I get it, man. I have fun with it. I don't know, man. I just try to have fun, bruh."
There wasn't much fun in a lifeless fourth quarter that featured defeated body language as the Clippers extended a 75-72 lead entering the quarter with an 11-0 run. Like Monday against Orlando, it felt like the Wolves made up their minds they were going to lose.
Edwards pointed to the absence of D'Angelo Russell as a reason for the last two losses and Patrick Beverley for Monday's loss.
"We ain't got our starting point guard, bruh, so I don't know," Edwards said.
But the Wolves were ahead 20 on Friday anyway, and the game still ended how it did.
"If we got to take these bumps and bruises on the front end, it will serve us well in the end," Prince said. "We still are who we are. We just got to learn to get through those rough patches."
The team's superstar ranted, calling the players “a bunch of little kids” and saying “internally, we soft.” Mike Conley joined him in saying the Wolves are too negative with each other: “We got to be able to talk.”
