The Minnesota Timberwolves weren’t expected to make the 2022 NBA Playoffs when the season started last October. However, the team has pushed all season and earned a spot as the seventh seed to go up against another surprise story from the season in the Memphis Grizzlies. The Timberwolves won the first game of the series as well, but that’s where they have peaked so far.
Games 2 and 3 have been wins for Memphis, who are looking much stronger than the Wolves now. Game 3 was the biggest factor causing this momentum swing, as the Wolves managed to blow a 20+ point lead and lose the game by 9 points. The final quarter of the game saw Minnesota be outscored 37-12, a 25-point difference.
Charles Barkley has never been one to mince words and he let everyone know as bluntly as possible that what the Timberwolves did was ’embarrassing for basketball’ while talking on Inside the NBA.
“These dudes let a team have a 21-0 run and didn’t call a timeout”
“I said it at halftime, this has got to be one of the dumbest teams. All that talent and they’re dumber than rocks,”
“When they have to think, they can’t think,” he said in response to Kenny asking about the Timberwolves’ inability to produce in half-court offense.
“I’m so frustrated with this. One thing I can’t stand is stupidity on the basketball court. You can lose a game, but you can’t just go out there (and play like that),”
“I don’t even know if you can call that a choke. They lost by 10 (it was actually nine). When you lose by two and blow a big lead … that was embarrassing for basketball. The coaching staff at Minnesota should be just as embarrassed as the players,” (h/t Commercial Appeal)
Barkley called the Minnesota coaches dumb and placed a lot of blame on them as well. He said the coaches are like bad parents who haven’t been disciplining the kids after they refused to call timeouts during the stretches Memphis was making serious dents into their lead.
Charles was quite heated also remarking that he ‘can’t stand stupidity on the basketball court’. Fair play to him on that, as the Timberwolves just didn’t look like a good team as the game went on. The players weren’t communicating with each other and the coaches did nothing to step into the situation and at least hold on to their massive lead.
This is the kind of game that can cause an unclimbable momentum swing. The Timberwolves did well to get to this point, but it is quite likely their story ends here as Memphis look to book a berth in round 2.
