The two stars locked eyes at the top of the 3-point line with little over three minutes remaining in overtime. Jayson Tatum had the ball in his hands. There was a ticking clock. He sensed that there was blood in the water as his Boston Celtics led by two points.
Anthony Edwards stood in the way of Tatum’s efforts to maintain the Celtics’ status as the league’s last undefeated club. Edwards, however, wasn’t standing. With his knees bent, arms contracted, and mouth locked, he was getting ready to square up against one of the league’s top scorers in one-on-one situations. Edwards never even considered that he was facing a crafty foul-drawer and had five fouls against him. He needed to make amends.
“At the end of (regulation), he got the stop on me.” And in overtime, he was talking trash about the jump ball, according to Edwards. “And I said, ‘(Expletive), I’m coming back.’”
But it’s not because of Edwards’ incredible shooting performance against the tough Celtics on Monday night that the mood in Minnesota seems to be turning around at the beginning of the season. The Timberwolves’ newfound identity is being formed on the defensive end of the court. This is the reason these Wolves are so deadly. At that precise time, Edwards needed to leave his stamp here.
Tatum was hoping for a matchup like this. Thirty seconds earlier, he had put the Celtics up with two free throws, and now it was time to close it off. With Timberwolves defensive behemoth Jaden McDaniels pressing him early in the play, he called on Al Horford to set up a screen so he could be shifted onto Edwards. The 22-year-old Wolves player was well aware of what was happening.
“When he tried to ISO me after calling me up for one, I said, ‘I play defense, I just got five fouls,’ you know what I mean?” stated Edwards. “I had to prove to him that I could play defense,”
Tatum measured Edwards, dribbling between his legs, then proceeded to his left. Without leaving Tatum an inch of space, Edwards moved his foot alongside him and then ripped the ball from his grasp. When Tatum attempted to hold onto the ball, he tumbled to the court on his rear. Edwards quickly moved in to tie him up for a jump ball. A defensive stand by the 6-foot-4 Edwards then defeated the 6-foot-8 Tatum on the tip, setting the stage for a Timberwolves offensive avalanche.
After setting up Mike Conley for a three-pointer to put the Wolves up 106-105, Edwards let off a furious burst of shots to lead the team to a 114-109 win, sending the Celtics down to 5-1 on the year. After shaking Al Horford for a 19-foot pull-up jumper, Edwards finished the madness with a spin drive past Kristaps Porzingis, setting up a one-handed push shot in the lane that put the game away.
For the first time since 2002–03, Edwards ended with 38 points on 15 of 25 shots, nine rebounds, and seven assists to lead the Timberwolves (4–2) to a 4-0 start at home. Tatum led Boston with 32 points, but Edwards outscored them 8–4 in overtime.
The reigning champion Denver Nuggets (7-1) and the Boston Celtics (5-1) are two formidable teams that the Wolves may face in late May or early June. On Monday night, Edwards’ scoring was spectacular once again, but Minnesota won this game in other ways.
This matchup pitted Minnesota’s top-ranked defense against Boston’s top-ranked attack at Target Center was touted as a matchup of strength versus strength. The Celtics had a 126.4 offensive rating going into the game, averaging 126.4 points and 16.4 made 3-pointers per game. They blew away their opponents with an average winning margin of 18.4 points, but the tiny sample size was undoubtedly influenced by their 155-104 thumping of Indiana on November 1.
The Wolves saw this as a yardstick match, an opportunity to gauge the effectiveness of their defense as they make their mark in the NBA. After being the target of jokes the previous season, they stepped on toes this year with a jarring defeat in Toronto and a meltdown in the second half of Atlanta’s game. Following their comfortable victories over the Utah Jazz and the Nuggets, they were eager to take on Boston.
Rudy Gobert said, “It’s a great test for us,” during the morning shootaround for the squad. “Great chance to assess our current situation.”
The Celtics’ decision to bench starting guard Derrick White for personal reasons earlier in the day caused a little setback. In the Boston backcourt, White and Jrue Holiday combine to form a formidable defensive duo that the Celtics may have used to their advantage against Mike Conley and Edwards. However, Tatum, Porzingis, Holiday, and Jaylen Brown were still on the team.
This season, no club has placed as much pressure on Boston as the Wolves have. During the game, the Celtics shot 39.1%, with 28.2 percent (11 of 39) coming from 3-point range. They pressed the Cs into a 99.0 offensive rating, forcing 18 mistakes and providing a strong argument for their recently discovered defensive identity.
Gobert said, “They’re a championship-caliber team.” They constantly manage to remain competitive and never give up. We followed suit. Many things did not go our way, but everyone who entered the room was prepared to work with us and provide something.
Holiday shot 4 of 16 for 12 points, while Porzingis was just 5 of 14 for 20 points. Although Brown scored 26 points on 10 of 21 shots, they had difficulty throughout the whole evening.
Porzingis said, “They’re obviously much better defensively.” It surprises me a little bit because they are, I believe, the best team in the league. But they are undoubtedly superior. They’ve improved, and they demonstrated something from them that I had not seen before.
Gobert, who has recovered, is leading the way. Gobert entered the game with an average of 2.4 blocks per game, up from his lowest since his rookie season in 2013–14, when he was averaging only 1.4. In two of the season’s first five games, he has blocked four shots. Over the whole previous season, he only had three games with four blocks.
Despite playing 41 minutes with only one block against the Celtics, Gobert’s defense was the difference in the game. Gobert’s hard-nosed competitions caused Boston to shoot 4 of 17 while they were in the paint but outside of the restricted area. Additionally, Boston’s penetration players had many opportunities on Monday night to get into the paint but chose not to take a shot with Gobert skulking close.
Gobert finished with 12 rebounds and 14 points on 6-of-6 shooting. In his 41 minutes, the Timberwolves outscored the Celtics by 24 points, and in the 12 minutes he spent on the bench, they were outscored by 19 points.
Finch said, “He’s back to the Rudy that we had to deal with for a lot of years, which is a real problem.” I’m not sure what the philosophies of other teams are, but we’re also doing a much better job of making it more difficult for guys to get to him. The drives aren’t as clear-cut and open-line as they could have been a year ago.
For that, McDaniels should take a lot of the credit. He has been stifling opposition on the perimeter, and he played his finest defense to date on Monday night. He harassed Tatum and Brown and reduced needless fouling. Nine mistakes by the two were mostly the result of McDaniels’ long arms and quick feet.
Edwards said, “Show me a clip where he got scored on in a one-on-one situation.” “They probably ISO’d him ten or so times in the fourth quarter, but no one scored on him. Thus, he was the reason the game was won by us.
It was a very contested, rough-and-tumble, back-and-forth encounter that gave an early November game a playoff atmosphere. Gobert spoke on Monday morning on the value of being able to handle setbacks and having the will to act when things don’t go as planned. The previous season, it was a problem for the Wolves.
Gobert said, “It’s not a boxing match.” It’s not a single-elimination contest. In the game, there are many possession events. You have to accept that on sometimes, even if you play flawlessly, the other side will still manage to score.
Those remarks were prescient because Monday night presented the Wolves with a great deal of hardship. Karl-Anthony Towns was a non-factor, making just three of ten shots for seven points, and missing six of his seven three-pointers. Despite pulling down ten rebounds, he fouled out after seven turnovers in only 28 minutes of play. For him, the game was a nightmare come true.
Eight of McDaniels’ first nine attempts were missed, including a layup at the hoop in the second quarter. Nevertheless, he persisted, scoring 15 points on 6-of-8 shooting in the second half and overtime, including a crucial 3-pointer with 1:41 remaining in regulation that tied the score at 101 and a pull-up jumper with 16 seconds remaining in overtime to seal the victory.
Gobert’s performance at the free-throw line was so poor that the Celtics used the Hack-a-Rudy tactic on a fourth-quarter possession when the score was knotted at 98. Even though Gobert missed both of them, the Wolves were still able to win because of how well he controlled the defensive end.
Despite being very dependable, Kyle Anderson had a poor offensive performance, missing five out of six shots and turning the ball over four times. But since Finch has such a strong faith in his defense and judgment, he remained competitive in the latter stages of the match.
These Wolves trust in their defense, which is why they dug deep. They may still exert pressure and achieve a stop on the other end even when they are not making shots, are not fouling, or are kicking the ball out of bounds. They spent the whole previous season trying to figure out who they were, but their view was clouded by frustration and injury. They can now clearly see who they are and what has to be done when they look in the mirror. They see a muscular, tough, defensively focused bunch that is unyielding.
McDaniels said, “We don’t let nobody push us around.” We constantly adopt a protective bodily posture. We seem like a formidable squad. Extremely resilient.
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