Editor’s note: I begged Joe not to write this. Begged him. “You’ll jinx the Wolves,” I screamed. “Screw you, pal, I’m doing it,” he responded while smoking a cigar. If things go wrong tonight, find him @JoeBMTN.
Anyone stop to think that maybe the Timberwolves are just better than the Grizzlies? Anyone notice that both Memphis wins over Minnesota during the regular season happened when the Timberwolves were under .500 and yet to morph into the team they’ve become?
Go ahead, take a look back at the schedule. The Grizzlies beat the Wolves in overtime at Fed Ex Forum almost half a year ago, way back on Nov. 8 – and they did because Minnesota blew an 11-point lead in the fourth quarter.
This current version of the Wolves is far less prone to losing leads late. That wasn’t the case early in the season. What’s more is that the Wolves were playing like crap back then. The Nov. 8 loss was the sixth straight loss for Minnesota.
The next time they met – 12 days later at Target Center – the Wolves spanked them by 43 points, which was in the middle of a five-game win streak. Recap: The Wolves barely got beat by the Grizz during a rough patch, and walloped them when they got things rolling.
They met again in Memphis on Jan. 13. Minnesota, showing signs of coming out of a rough patch where they had lost 12 of 21 games, again went flat late in the game, blowing a one-point lead and getting outscored 11-2 over the final 2 minutes, 45 seconds of the fourth quarter.
That was what the Wolves were all about in the first half of the season. When things were going good, they could dominate. But when any little thing was off, they would blow leads or fall to lesser competition.
These playoff Timberwolves are a different breed.
After that Jan. 13 loss to Memphis, the Wolves went 26-13 to close out the regular season, including erasing a 15-point Memphis lead en route to a 119-114 win at Target Center on Feb. 24. That was the version of the Wolves that closes out leads late in games, just as they did in Game 1 on Saturday.
Did we mention that Anthony Edwards scored 5 points on 1-of-11 shooting in that Feb. 24 victory? That was part of a three game slump where he scored a total of 20 points on 4-of-29 shooting, including a miserable 1-of-17 from 3-point range.
Still, the Wolves beat the Grizzlies. The same thing happened, but to a lesser degree with D’Angelo Russell in Game 1. Russell scored just 10 points on 2-of-11 shooting and Minnesota still rolled to a 13-point win.
The big three is tough to stop right now, even if one of them has an off night. Just ask the Clippers, who got beat in the play-in tournament even though Towns stunk up the joint and fouled out with 7 minutes, 34 seconds left in the game. Hard. To. Beat.
And Memphis has yet to prove they can slow down the big three.
Despite his 5-point night, in five games Edwards has averaged 24.2 points against the Grizzlies this season. Towns has scored 24.4 against Memphis, and Russell has lit them up for an average of 26.8 per game.
Ja Morant’s Instagram post of Michael Jordan saying he wasn’t worried after losing one game has gone viral this week, and sure, maybe Morant isn’t worried and the Grizzlies will storm back to win Game 2. But this version of the Timberwolves has as good a shot as any team at putting Memphis in an 0-2 hole with Game 3 Thursday night in Minneapolis.
