Хатуужилтай Тимбервулвз баг Тандерын эсрэг хүнд сорилттой тулгарлаа

The Athletic has live coverage of Timberwolves vs. Thunder Game 5 from the 2025 NBA Western Conference Finals.

MINNEAPOLIS — All season long, the Minnesota Timberwolves have done their best work when they were in their toughest times.

Maybe it’s a character flaw that this team always seems to wait until the guillotine is about to fall before pulling their necks out of harm’s way. Or maybe the resilience they always seem to summon when the night becomes the darkest is a noble quality.

Either way, the Wolves have never been in a more difficult spot than they are right now, pushed to the brink of elimination in these Western Conference finals by a 68-win team that just will not be denied.

The Timberwolves did so many things right in Monday night’s Game 4 against the Oklahoma City Thunder. They shot it better from the field (51 percent) and from 3-point range (44 percent). They out-rebounded OKC, scored more points in the paint, in transition and off second chances, had eight more assists and three more points off turnovers. They made six more free throws. Minnesota’s bench outscored the Thunder’s 64-27.

And yet it was clear when the final horn sounded on a 128-126 Thunder victory that the Wolves do not have the market on resourcefulness cornered. Minnesota is down 3-1 heading back to Oklahoma City for Game 5 on Wednesday night. Teams that go up 3-1 in a best-of-seven series are 283-13 in NBA playoff history.

The Wolves are not just backed up to the edge of the cliff. They are hanging on by their fingernails after coming up just short in a thriller in Game 4.

“Everybody has counted us out all year,” said Donte DiVincenzo, who scored 21 points and hit five 3s. “We’ve been through a lot. We’re together as a locker room. We don’t care what the media is going to say. We don’t care what TV is going to say. We’re focused on one game at a time and giving ourselves a chance on Wednesday.”

Two nights after blasting the Thunder in Game 3 to make this a series, the Wolves came into Target Center fully expecting to head back to Oklahoma City all tied up, 2-2. Then they watched DiVincenzo burst out of his postseason shooting slump, Nickeil Alexander-Walker put up 23 points, six assists and two steals against his cousin, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Jaden McDaniels score 22 points and swipe four steals. They made 18 3s. On almost any other night, that would have been enough to get the win they desperately needed.

But they were done in because their stars were outshone by Oklahoma City’s, and because they committed 23 turnovers and allowed 19 offensive rebounds. Anthony Edwards (16 points, five turnovers) and Julius Randle (five points, five turnovers) combined for 21 points and 10 turnovers in the game.

On the other side, Gilgeous-Alexander (40 points, five turnovers) and Jalen Williams (34 points, two turnovers) racked up 74 points and only seven miscues. In the deciding fourth quarter, SGA and J-Dub had 25 points while the Ant/Randle tandem managed just six.

“I think it was just a lot of me just spectating,” said Randle, who was 1 of 7 from the field, 0 of 3 from 3-point range. “I’ve got to figure out a way to get myself involved in actions.”

That’s a damning statement for a player who was crucial to the team’s success in the final six weeks of the regular season and then even better in the first two rounds of the playoffs. These are old ghosts that are starting to howl in Randle’s attic. Unlike previous playoff struggles, Randle is healthy this season. He has had great stretches in the conference finals, including scoring 20 points in the first half of Game 1 and 24 in the Game 3 romp. But he combined to shoot 3 of 18 in Games 2 and 4.

“I’ve got to figure out a way to get myself in position to be more aggressive, rather than just standing, spectating or trying to crash the glass,” said Randle, who sat down the stretch for the second game this series. “Or I can just find other little things to do.”

Edwards did not play as poorly as Randle but was more the victim of intense attention from the league’s top-ranked defense. After he shredded OKC for 30 points in three quarters on Saturday, Edwards saw far greater physicality and determination from the Thunder in Game 4. They wanted to keep the ball out of Edwards’ hands, and the Thunder were remarkably successful at it.

Edwards took just two shots in the first half and only 13 for the game, an unfathomable lack of opportunity for one of the game’s most gifted scorers.

“Definitely not the points I wanted to get, but they didn’t really let me get too many shots off,” Edwards said. “They did a good job of that. Every time I had the ball, they showed me a major crowd.”

To his credit, he did not let that derail the Wolves’ offense. Edwards kept making the simple play over and over again, driving and kicking to open teammates, who were knocking down shots. He had a team-high six assists in the game, recognized that DiVincenzo and Alexander-Walker had it rolling, and fed them for open looks that his gravity created. The result was a sterling offensive game for the team, if not for him individually.

“I made the right play all night. So I don’t really look at it like I struggled,” Edwards said. “I didn’t get enough shots to say I struggled, so that might be how you guys look at it. But, yeah, I didn’t struggle at all. I just made the right play.”

Edwards knows what many expect of him. They look at him and want to see the next Michael Jordan, the romanticized version of which never missed a shot and scored 50 a night in every playoff game back in the day. But that is your dream for him, not his own. Yes, he wants to score. Yes, he wants to be aggressive. But he also knows that OKC’s defense is designed to make him force it. It wants to capitalize when his ambition turns to recklessness.

“I don’t put no burden on myself,” Edwards said. “I just try to win. The only burden I put on myself is to try to win. We gave ourselves a chance tonight. We just didn’t come out from the start with the same aggression that we did in Game 3.”

Edwards had only four rebounds and did not pick up a steal or a block in Game 4. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

Edwards missed six of his seven 3s and had two costly turnovers in the fourth quarter, but where there is real room for criticism of his game was on defense. He was the tip of the spear in Game 3, a dominant, menacing defender in the first quarter who got the Wolves rolling to a 42-point win. But that attention to detail and tenacity weren’t there in Game 4. He was beaten backdoor for layups and slow to close out on shooters. He only had four rebounds and did not pick up a steal or a block, tell-tale signs of a lack of intensity on that end.

At 23, Edwards is three years younger than Gilgeous-Alexander, who has shown a little more polish to his game in this series. Gilgeous-Alexander had 10 assists and nine rebounds to go with those 40 points, and he also found a way to get to the line for 14 free-throw attempts, which helped offset a 13-of-30 night from the field.

There were certainly some questionable calls in there. He appeared to chop Alexander-Walker in the throat while creating space for a jumper in the fourth quarter and later was gifted a foul when he flopped after bumping into Edwards on the defensive end. Rudy Gobert has expressed his displeasure with SGA’s propensity for pushing off before he shoots. But six of his free throws were earned in the last 14.5 seconds while the Wolves were intentionally fouling, and there was a far bigger reason that Minnesota lost the game.

The Thunder took 11 more shots than the Wolves did. At one point in the second half, the gap was 19. The Timberwolves gave them second chance after second chance by not securing defensive rebounds and taking care of the ball. The Thunder scored 22 points off Minnesota’s 23 turnovers, a killer in a two-point game.

Oklahoma City out-hustled and out-worked the Wolves from the jump. The Thunder forced seven turnovers and grabbed five offensive boards in the first quarter alone, setting an entirely different tone than they did in Game 3.

The Wolves flipped the script in the fourth quarter, grabbing nine offensive rebounds and racking up 16 second-chance points. But SGA and Williams came up with big shot after big shot to hold Minnesota off.

It was a tremendous battle. Yes, the Wolves made mistakes, but they also cut a nine-point deficit with 6:20 to play all the way down to two in the final 30 seconds thanks to some clutch shotmaking from DiVincenzo, Alexander-Walker and McDaniels, who hit a corner 3 to make the score 123-121 with 23 seconds to go.

Terrence Shannon Jr. was impressive again with nine points in 7:39. Gobert had 13 points and nine rebounds, and his plus-4 was tops among the starters. And zooming out, the Wolves have put up 269 points over the last two games against a defense that was 2.5 points per 100 possessions better than the second-place Orlando Magic during the regular season.

“You hate to say you only lost by two, but that’s where the hope comes,” DiVincenzo said. “We’re still together. We know what we’re up against. Uphill battle, but everybody is sticking together, understanding that you try to look at this game and grab any sort of hope.”

Now here the Timberwolves sit, on the brink of elimination. The Thunder have not lost three games in a row all season long. They have lost seven games at home all season and have two of the next three at Paycom Center if the series were to go the distance. But the Wolves cannot look that far ahead. Their goal when they get on the flight for OKC is to win Game 5 on Wednesday so they can get another one at home in Game 6 on Friday. That’s it.

In a season full of adversity, the Wolves now face the ultimate test. Few believe they have a chance. They have heard that before.

(Photo of Julius Randle: David Berding / Getty Images)