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In the first round of the NBA playoffs, the final and most followed phase of American basketball, the Minnesota Timberwolves overcame the Phoenix Suns by winning the series by four games to zero (best of 7 games are played); starting from Sunday they will play against the reigning champions Denver Nuggets in the semifinals of the Western Conference (one of the two divisions in which NBA teams are placed on a geographical basis, western and eastern). Minnesota’s result against Phoenix was surprising because, before it started, it was thought it would be a much more even series. Phoenix had highly rated players like Kevin Durant and Devin Booker, and above all it had been twenty years since the first and last time the Timberwolves had made it through a round of the playoffs (it was 2004, when they reached the Western Conference finals).
This year, however, Minnesota, like he wrote the sports site The Athletic, has finally become a team to follow, well coached by Chris Finch, very strong in defense and with many different possibilities in attack. Second forecasts updated on the specialized site The Ringer it is even favored in the series against Denver, which begins Sunday, with a 65 percent chance of making it through. The Ringer it also gives Minnesota a 9 percent chance of winning the NBA title. In the four victories against Phoenix, the 22-year-old Anthony Edwards, who played guard, stood out above all, averaging 31 points, 8 rebounds and 6.3 assists. In the final and decisive minutes of game 4 he made what is considered the most representative play of the series: an exceptional dunk practically jumping over Kevin Durant, Phoenix’s best player.
It is usually difficult for a team to go badly for many consecutive years in US basketball, because the worst teams of a season in the following year have the right to choose first the new players arriving in the league (through the draft), and therefore can take the most promising. Furthermore, all teams cannot exceed a certain amount to pay players’ salaries (the so-called salary cap, which can however be partially circumvented by paying an extra tax). They are two mechanisms designed to make the NBA balanced over time and interesting for those who follow it, allowing all teams to have positive seasons in turn. Despite this, however, for years Minnesota was essentially disastrous.
After a great result in 2004, when it reached the Conference finals thanks above all to Kevin Garnett, for thirteen consecutive seasons Minnesota never even made it to the playoffs: that is, it always ranked between ninth and fifteenth in the regular season in the Western Conference. Only the Los Angeles Clippers went more seasons in a row between 1977 and 1991 without going to the playoffs. In 2018 the Timberwolves finally returned to the so-called post season, that is, in the playoffs, but they lost in the first round 4-1 against Houston. Only in recent seasons have they become a stable presence in the playoffs: they have qualified for three consecutive years, but in 2022 and 2023 they still exited in the first round.
The constant presence in this growth has been 54-year-old Chris Finch. After changing many coaches, in 2021 Minnesota appointed him as coach, despite up to that point in the NBA he had always been an assistant coach (in Houston, Denver, New Orleans and Toronto). In these three seasons the management has trusted him even when the results were not satisfactory, and the choice seems to have been far-sighted. Minnesota just played its second best regular season ever, after 2003-2004, with 56 wins and 26 losses. For some time the Timberwolves even competed for first place in the West, only to finish third, with only one victory less than the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Denver Nuggets.
In the last game against Phoenix, coach Finch collided with Mike Conley and tore the patellar tendon in his right knee (AP Photo/Michael Wyke)
Over time, Finch has found the right balance between young and experienced players, creating a balanced, competitive and difficult team to face. In the starting quintet, that is, among the five players who are usually deployed as starters, there are two highly experienced basketball players such as Mike Conley and Rudy Gobert, two young promises such as Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels and then there is Karl-Anthony Towns, for years the best player of the team and four times called up for the All-Star Game, the exhibition match between the best and most highly rated players in the league. Even non-starting players, starting with Naz Reid, are contributing to Minnesota’s success.
Conley is the point guard, he is 36 years old and this is his 17th season in the NBA. Besides being an expert player, he is considered a very important element for the group (he just won for the second time in his career the “best teammate” award). Frenchman Rudy Gobert is 31 years old, plays as a center and has been awarded the NBA’s best defender three times. The young Jaden McDaniels, 23 years old, is also an excellent defender, and also thanks to him the Timberwolves were the team with the best defensive statistics in the regular season.
However, Minnesota’s two most talented players are Anthony Edwards and Karl Anthony-Towns. Edwards was the first overall pick of the draft in 2020, he is an athletically exceptional player, capable of scoring in many different ways, and in these playoffs he played as the team’s leader. The Dominican Karl-Anthony Towns, 28 years old, was also the first overall pick in the draft, but in 2015. He is a player taller than two meters and ten who in his nine seasons in the NBA averaged 22.9 points and 10 .8 rebounds per game (rebounds are balls intercepted after a shot at a field goal, a very important statistic in basketball). In recent years he has always remained in Minnesota, despite the team not being excellent, and at certain moments he seemed to suffer a little from the fact that he was the player everyone expected the most from.
Karl-Anthony Towns e Anthony Edwards, le due stelle dei Minnesota Timberwolves (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Come he wrote in January the Guardian (in an article titled “How the Once-derided Minnesota Timberwolves Became Title Contenders”), Towns did well this year to accept that he is no longer the team’s only “star,” as the best players on an NBA roster. For years considered an individualist, Towns is becoming a “team man”, as demonstrated by what he said after the victory in game 3 against the Phoenix Suns: «We always believe in each other, we trust in the strength of the team, we feel that we are connected and united.”