MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The staff had a simple question for the players who helped the Minnesota Timberwolves make their deep run last year.
“Were you a Western Conference finals team, or were you a team that just happened to make the Western Conference finals?” coach Chris Finch said, recalling the preseason conversation. “And there’s only one way to prove that: Go out and do it again. And that was our mission all year."
The Timberwolves filled in that blank by beating the Los Angeles Lakers and the Golden State Warriors in five games in each of their first two series in these NBA playoffs, finalizing their return to the penultimate round where they lost last season to the Dallas Mavericks.
The roster from that five-game defeat underwent a surprisingly significant change, layering the challenge of new-player adjustment on top of an already difficult task of matching or bettering such a strong postseason run.
Right before training camp began, the Wolves traded franchise cornerstone Karl-Anthony Towns to the New York Knicks for Julius Randle to take his place at power forward and in the sidekick role to Anthony Edwards. They got Donte DiVincenzo in the deal for defense and shooting off the bench, too.
Randle looked out of sorts at times during the first couple of months, and coinciding midseason injuries for him, DiVincenzo and Rudy Gobert further hampered progress on the court and in the standings. Losing 117-116 on Feb. 28 to a Utah team that finished last in the league left the Wolves at 32-29, staring the play-in games straight in the face with the West stacked again with more competitive teams than there were spots in the playoffs.
But the three of them got healthy again, and the Wolves took off in March.
“Having the mental toughness and determination to say we’re going to figure this thing out, because all of us, as a whole, believed how good we could be as a team,” said Randle, who had 29 points in the Game 5 win over Golden State on Wednesday night. “I’m extremely proud of everybody.”
The Wolves will play the Denver-Oklahoma City winner. They could get five days off, if the Nuggets beat the Thunder on Thursday to force a Game 7 in the other West semifinal series. If the Thunder win, they'll host Game 1 on Sunday, still a three-day break for the Wolves.
“It’ll be good to get a chance to take a breath and regroup and figure out where we’re going,” said Finch, whose team is 10-3 on the road over the 2024 and 2025 playoffs.
Finch is by far the most successful coach in the history of these star-crossed Timberwolves, who've had only three of their 14 coaches even make the playoffs. They've made it in each of his four full seasons and now reached back-to-back conference finals for the first time in franchise history.
Who knows where this run will finish? But with No. 1 seed Cleveland out and No. 2 seed Boston on the brink of elimination in the East with star Jayson Tatum sidelined by injury, plus the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds long gone from the West bracket, the Wolves have given themselves as good of a chance as anyone to win their first title.
“Every team goes through a lot. Everyone wants to rush the process. Everybody wants everything to be great, compared to what you’ve done in the past. All that’s kind of irrelevant really when you have a new team coming in to the season,” Finch said.
Veterans typically embrace and understand the urgency to win, with the realization that championship windows don't stay open as long as they seemingly should. Fittingly for the Wolves, their three 30-something players in the rotation led the way in the close-out win over the Warriors.
Randle shot 13 for 18, with eight rebounds and five assists. Rudy Gobert had 17 points and eight rebounds, with a plus-21 rating. Mike Conley had 16 points and eight assists.
“We went through a lot of growing pains,” Finch said, "but the team has come together at the right time and is playing its best basketball.”
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AP NBA: https://apnews.com
Dave Campbell, The Associated Press
