The Minnesota Timberwolves are going in the wrong direction. It’s early, for sure. Maybe they’ll change this and in a month we’ll all be singing a different tune. But right now, they’re in a spiral and Anthony Edwards isn’t happy about it.
After the Wolves lost their fourth straight game, and seventh of their last nine, on Wednesday, seeing a 12-point lead with just over seven minutes left not only disintegrate, but actually become a loss. of 11 points, courtesy of the Sacramento Kings’ 29. -6 final run, Edwards sounded bad on his team.
“We’ve been trying to figure this out all year, man,” Edwards said of the Wolves’ defense, which has been significantly worse than last season’s elite unit. “We thought defense was our identity, and it doesn’t look like that. Our identity right now, Mike (Conley) and I were talking about it, I think we’re very soft as a team, internally. Not to the other team. But internally We’re soft, like we can’t talk to each other. Just a group of little kids, just like we play with a group of little kids, like everyone, like the whole team, we just can’t talk to each other and we have to figure it out, man, because we can’t follow this path.”
There was a lot more where that came from.
“Sometimes it’s hard because looking at everyone, everyone has a different agenda,” Edwards said. “It’s like, what the fuck am I supposed to say? I’m trying to get better at that to figure out what the hell to say so everyone has the same agenda because right now everyone has different agendas. And I think that’s one of the main culprits.” of why we’re losing, like everyone has their own agenda, I guess their imagination about what’s supposed to be happening and what’s really happening.”
But wait, there’s more. Edwards called the Wolves “pioneers” and said the team has been “separating“, according to Timberwolves reporter Chris Hine of the Star Tribune. NSFW warning!
Edwards also made sure to acknowledge the, shall we say, decided discontent (NSFW) of Wolves fans who got their hopes up after last season’s conference finals only to see the team, in the immediacy of the Karl-Anthony trade Towns, arrive. returning to the more typically frustrating and frankly more relatable reality of, well, being a Timberwolves fan.
Here’s a snippet of Ant’s comments:
Suffice to say, Edwards is not happy, and if you follow the NBA with even the slightest interest, you know that he is not one to repress his opinion. Dude appeared on an Olympic team that included players like LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant and declared himself the number one option.
By the way, he has every right to be so confident in himself, and that’s probably where a lot of this frustration comes from. He knows how great he is and can’t stand playing on an 8-10 team that is trending toward the play-in tournament at best in the cutthroat, unforgiving Western Conference.
There are structural problems with this team. The offensive space is constantly compromised with the presence of Julius Randle and Rudy Gobert. Donté DiVincenzo was supposed to be a big help in shooting, but he is having his worst 3-point shooting season since his rookie season. Defenses can concentrate, or at least sink, especially in Edwards’ driving lanes, with virtual impunity because there is no shooter they truly fear other than Edwards, who, as a consequence, is forced to fire five more. -pointers per game than last season.
He’s making them, so far, at a 43% clip and scoring 28 points a night. He’s doing his part, but the offense, as a whole, is tight and slow, noticeably lacking steam. Losing a player of Towns’ offensive caliber could explain some, if not much, of that struggle. But the defensive drop?
How can that also be attributed to the rest of the Towns? We’re not exactly talking about Bill Russell here. In fact, Towns, despite his offensive dominance, is currently taking down the Knicks’ defense. To be fair, Randle isn’t much better than Towns, and in fact, he might be worse simply by being shorter. But this cannot explain why a team that was a historic defense is suddenly not even in the top 10 and gives up more than four more points per 100 possessions.
The formula should remain valid. At the end of the day, they are the same players. Perimeter attack dogs in Edwards and Jaden McDaniels and Nickeil Alexander-Walker completely clog up traffic or funnel it into an elite rim protector in Gobert. But it’s just not the same.
Defense is about energy more than anything else, and the energy around, and it seems like inside, this team last year was a positive force. This year is negative. All one had to do was listen to Edwards speak Wednesday night to deduce at least that much.
