Horrible shooting, lack of energy doom Wolves against the Warriors

By the time Anthony Edwards scored his first point a free-throw with remaining until halftime Stephen Curry was gone from the match And for all intents and purposes so were the chances of the Minnesota Timberwolves besting the Golden State Warriors in the opening contest of their second round playoff series Tuesday night at Target Center Playoff Ant has been the talisman of the Timberwolves metamorphosis on the postseason stage from draft-lottery yokels to marquee attraction His organic embrace of the high-leverage moments that define and deny greatness has hauled an entire franchise into relevance in a manner not even the revered KG Kevin Garnett could muster The gust of the ride has been even more impressive than its elevation The jubilance of Playoff Ant is infectious On Tuesday we learned that his malaise is too On a night when Curry the timeless prince of NBA postseason hobbled off the court rubbing his strained left hamstring Ant and his teammates were too busy searching for sustenance to make Curry s absence matter The - margin at the time of the prince s exit was swollen to - by halftime and - with remaining in the third quarter when Ant at last made his first field goal on his th attempt The final outcome was - the lowest point total in the games the Wolves have played in the - regular season and playoffs thus far Minnesota Timberwolves forward Julius Randle questions the call of referee Zach Zarba in the third quarter during meeting one of the second round for the NBA Playoffs with the Golden State Warriors at Target Center Credit Bruce Kluckhohn-Imagn Images It s tempting to simplify it claim it is a make or miss league and that there are going to be games when the shots just aren t falling Then you can curse the basketball gods and absolve Ant and his teammates from the bulk of the blame But the clanking of Timberwolves three-pointers over their past two games has been metronomic enough to spread the blame everywhere from the deities of the sport to the denizens of the club Tuesday s inaccuracy five made three-pointers in attempts extends an ineptitude launched in Encounter Five of the first round of the playoffs against the Lakers when the Wolves prevailed despite splashing merely seven of the treys they tried Break it down further and from the time when there was left to play in the first half of Championship Five in Los Angeles to the mark of the third quarter Tuesday against Golden State the Wolves made one three-pointer in attempts That s terrible in that it is so abnormal that you begin to suspect sinister outside forces the basketball gods designing to instill terror And it is also dreadful in that the constant failure brings on a sense of dread in the shooter exacerbating the odds of further failure But worst of all it is mentally and physically lazy in methods that are more obvious to the participants and coaches who are viscerally attuned to the phenomenon A disgusted Wolves Head Coach Chris Finch referenced all the factors in his press conference after the match He dubbed his company s decision-making in transition diabolical a nod to unforeseen external forces imposing a terrible vibe And as for the dread when Finch was inquired if he thought the constant missing made his club struggle mentally he replied Absolutely It starts with Ant He struggled early and then you could just kind of see the light go out of him a bit for a while When Chris Hine of the Star Tribune followed up by asking Finch if he talked to Ant about that the coach was merciless What is there to talk about You are the leader of the organization and you ve got to come out and set the tone in all the tactics that that happens If your shot s not going you still have to carry the power If I ve got to talk to guys about having the right strength coming into the opening of a second round championship then we re not on the same page Those harsh comments are sure to raise eyebrows among national media who don t regularly cover this unit But Finch was being sincere and performative at the same time There wasn t enough mental rigor in Ant s match His court vision and shot selection were as shoddy as his accuracy in the first half when all eight of his attempts weren t really close to conversion even the near-handful right at the rim When he missed a layup and a putback attempt near the end of the first quarter his shoulders sagged Later as the clanking accumulated his tumbles to the floor and complaints to the ref accelerated So yes Finch made Ant first among equals in his harsh criticism because he was guilty and as the leader a tone-setter for shoddy play by others But Finch also knows Ant can be coached hard both of them have announced so in the context of expressing pride in their relationship And there was enough guilt to go around to trickle down through the core rotation members of the roster The first words out of Finch s mouth at the postgame presser were There was no floor spacing no rhythm no next pass a lot of times We couldn t hit a shot but I didn t like the fact that we couldn t repeatedly generate good shots We should have been able to A minute later he reiterated A lot of the shots are good they are just not in the rhythm that we need to be playing in right now We have got to establish a better rhythm Golden State did a good job of closing out on the shooter I thought there were a lot of open guys next to the shooter that we could have made one more pass keep them on the run a little bit more Minnesota Timberwolves guard Mike Conley rests on the floor after taking a charge by a member of the Golden State Warriors in the third quarter during event one of the second round for the NBA Playoffs at Target Center Credit Bruce Kluckhohn-Imagn Images In the locker room point guard and sage Mike Conley elaborated in even greater detail We didn t work hard enough for that second or third look There were times when they closed out hard on the corner and we didn t make that extra drive And then everybody got crowded in the area instead of getting out for that re-spacing that swing-swing type action where the ball is moving around the perimeter announced Conley That s what you have to do against them They are a very good defensive squad They load up on the shooter really well they help each other really well You have to move them around And to do that we have to move our body and make the right reads Then Conley connected it to the three-point shooting woes We are getting decent to good looks a lot of the time But there is a difference in a good shot versus when you know somebody is supposed to get that shot You get that swing-swing and you feel it in the vitality within that play And we aren t getting enough of those We were getting decent ones These are the basics of Finch s flow offense of program Move the ball move without the ball and make quick decisions It didn t happen nearly enough on Tuesday Both Finch and Conley acknowledged that the Warriors had a lot to do with that The spectacular optics of Curry s nonpareil outside shooting have reliably compelled people to mislabel Golden State as an offensive juggernaut But defense has been just as vital to the four championships they have captured during Curry s reign and in this season s version of the Warriors since the arrival of Jimmy Butler in early February defense is paramount to who they are and how they win In the regular season games since Butler arrived Golden State permitted the fewest points-per-possession of any club in the NBA They generated more turnovers and scored more points off those turnovers than anyone in the league And they allowed the second-fewest shot-attempts behind Orlando All that stated the status of Curry s hamstring looms large for the remainder of this series and may well be determinative Curry s absence would free up the Wolves bevy of perimeter defenders to smother others even as it costs the Warriors all the points Curry manages despite the attention he receives That s magnified further later in the encounter when the opposing teams are still within single digits of each other Because nobody is more explosive in pressure-cooker situations than Stephen Curry Curry is likely to be out for at least Event Two meaning the usual adjustments that take place each battle in the postseason will be more extreme on Thursday night at Target Center But for the Wolves the priorities are small in number and stark in importance They need to execute the tenets of their flow offense with more purpose and diligence They need to be mentally prepared enough to combat the vicissitudes of the basketball gods and dread of current past failures by making crisp decisions and by constantly hustling to broaden their scoring options That s how rhythm is established And that is how they put up enough points against a rugged and now exceptionally motivated Warriors defense who will be fully cognizant they have become much less adequate at the other end of the court On defense the Wolves need to sustain the intensity they flexed in the first half on Tuesday and that they revealed in spurts in the second half They stymied Golden State to the tune of six shot-clock violations while permitting less than points That defensive commitment can t waver even as more capacity is required on offense This is the third journey past the first round of the playoffs in the -year history of the Timberwolves franchise and the second year in a row it has occurred A vital x factor in these two playoff runs has been the contagious jubilance of Playoff Ant Finch and his teammates are banking on its return The post Horrible shooting lack of potency doom Wolves against the Warriors appeared first on MinnPost