Saturday was a night for early exits during and after the Timberwolves' 135-128 loss.
First, Rudy Gobert picked up a flagrant foul two and was ejected for tripping the Thunder's Kenrich Williams during the second quarter. That began a long night of the Wolves griping to the officials. They picked up five overall, with D'Angelo Russell joining Gobert in getting tossed with under a minute to play.
Then few Wolves players stuck around to talk about their night afterward with many either leaving before the media arrived or declining to speak at all.
There are times it seems the Wolves play with no emotion, then there are nights they play with the wrong emotion. Saturday was the latter.
"We're going to have to manage it," point guard Jordan McLaughlin said in an empty locker room. "A tech every now and then is good. It gets the crowd going, gets us going. But when we have as many as we had tonight, that's something that we can control ... and [need to] find an even keel with that."
There wasn't much good to talk about in a game the Wolves could have won without Karl-Anthony Towns. The team that has tried to prove it can win in the NBA with two centers had to try to win without both of them. Oklahoma City closed with a 38-27 fourth as the Wolves committed 23 turnovers, which they couldn't pin on the officials.
Despite a 44-point third quarter, the Wolves' defense and execution failed them in the fourth, while their emotions ran over at the officiating throughout. Four of their technicals came in the second half as Jaylen Nowell, Jaden McDaniels, Kyle Anderson, Anthony Edwards and Russell all picked up one.
"That's something that we got to work on as a team," center Naz Reid said. "Our veteran guys, they know better. They know they made mistakes, and they know that might've cost us moments in the game. We're not blaming anybody. It is what it is. We just got to be better."