Down 3-2 to the San Antonio Spurs, the Minnesota Timberwolves stand on the brink of elimination heading into Friday’s pivotal Game 6.
The Wolves took control of the series early with a win in Game 1, but back-to-back losses gave the Spurs all the momentum, and they’ve held it ever since. Now, facing a must-win game on their home floor, the Timberwolves must look to Anthony Edwards to save the day and extend their season. While it hasn’t been easy going so far, head coach Chris Finch says that he’s more than up for the task.
“He has a lot,” said Finch, via Dane Moore. “We need those games from him that we know he can have. So I think Ant’s got a lot left in the tank. We know he’s gonna be super aggressive coming out here, and we know they’re gonna try to throw multiple bodies and multiple looks at him. They are things we’re ready for, he’s ready for. We just gotta get him a lot more shots.”
Anthony Edwards is the only path to victory for the Timberwolves, but he struggled in Game 5 with just 20 points, two rebounds, two assists, and four turnovers on 6-13 shooting from the field. For Minnesota to avoid elimination tomorrow, Edwards will have to step up and take more shots offensively. Beyond that, the Wolves must be ready to respond if the Spurs double-team.
“I just think the consistency of our spacing around it,” said Finch. “We just have to be a little better about where we’re cutting from and their spacing around that.”
Edwards has been banged up in the playoffs this year, and he must be feeling tired by now after two rounds of leading his team in highly competitive battles. Nevertheless, his play will be crucial in this series, and so will the defense on Victor Wembanyama. Wemby has been torching Rudy Gobert in the series, and a victory on Friday may depend on whether they have some kind of answer to slow him down.
“In Rudy’s defense, obviously Wembanyama is a really tough cover,” Finch said. “Any time we’ve made a mistake around him with regard to executing the coverages to help him, we’ve paid for it. Some of the times it’s been him picking the wrong route, some of the times it’s been our help.”
One option to try on Victor is giving Julius Randle more time guarding him, but Finch says it depends on whether he can avoid foul trouble. So far, Julius hasn’t been able to keep up, and it’s had a major impact on their defensive matchups.
“Yeah, he’s gotta stay out of foul trouble,” Finch added. We’ve had foul trouble issues in a couple of games, whether it be him or Jaden, which is part of the non-Rudy-Wemby lineup. Sometimes that’s really affected our ability to get to some of the matchups that we wanted to.”
As a team that’s faced adversity before, the Timberwolves are not panicking. Between Edwards, Gobert, Randle, Jaden McDaniels, and Naz Reid, they have a core that can compete with any team in the West. If they can just stay healthy and peak at the right time, it might be enough to flip this series and pull off a miraculous comeback.
With the scene set in Minneapolis, the Timberwolves will have home-court advantage in Game 6, but they can’t count on it in Game 7, which would be played back in San Antonio. At this point, the Timberwolves must play nearly perfect basketball to extend this series, but there is yet hope that they can win the series if they clean up their mistakes and play with an increased sense of urgency for the rest of the way.
