{"id":129843,"date":"2025-03-21T06:30:32","date_gmt":"2025-03-21T10:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=129843"},"modified":"2025-03-21T04:54:05","modified_gmt":"2025-03-21T08:54:05","slug":"minnesota-timberwolves-major-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/21\/minnesota-timberwolves-major-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"The Minnesota Timberwolves Have a Major Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

On March 17, Minnesotans woke up with their basketball team on an eight game winning streak<\/a> and the weather outside a balmy 63 degrees. Spring was coming, and like the flowers outside, the Timberwolves were starting to bloom. Just two days later, Minnesota had lost two straight games, tumbling back down like the temperatures outside. It\u2019s been the tale of this season. Despite being one of the few teams who has beat the West leading Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> multiple times, losses to New Orleans, Utah, Washington, and San Antonio might cost them the chance to avoid the play-in tournament<\/a>. As the Clippers and Warriors have found their stride, Minnesota\u2019s recent skid has them stuck in eighth place. Although their remaining schedule is the easiest in the West<\/a>, this squad often overlooks lottery-bound teams. So what is the Timberwolves’ problem?<\/p>\n

The Minnesota Timberwolves Have a Major Problem<\/h2>\n

Clutch Games Are the Crux of the Timberwolves’ Problem<\/b><\/h3>\n

Clutch games<\/a>, defined as any matchup where the score is within five points in the final five minutes, are the pinnacle of NBA hoops. They are when magic can happen, buzzer beaters, timely defensive stops, or heartbreaking missed free throws. For the Timberwolves, too often they have been a nightmare. Minnesota has played the most clutch games, 43<\/a>, and lead the league with 25 losses in such situations. Sitting at 40-31, if they were a mere 22-21 team in clutch games, they would be 44-27, challenging Houston for the second seed. Instead, a combination of immaturity<\/a>, bad shot selection and poor coaching decisions has them treading water in the play-in.<\/p>\n

Two Recent Losses Continuing the Trend<\/b><\/h3>\n

In their two most recent games against the Pacers and Pelicans, Minnesota found themselves within five points in the final five minutes, yet again. Over the two games, Wolves star Anthony Edwards<\/a> has played a total of 15.1 clutch minutes, shooting a measly 27.3% from the field and 20% from three. For the season, his clutch numbers aren\u2019t much better, at 38% and 28.6%<\/a>, respectively, both significantly lower than his season averages. In fact, on the Wolves, only Nickeil Alexander-Walker<\/a> has a higher shooting percentage in the clutch than his season total. It\u2019s a trend that come playoff time, when games get closer and the pressure mounts, needs to be reversed.<\/p>\n

A Fall From Grace<\/b><\/h3>\n

Last season, when Minnesota made the Western Conference Finals for the first time in 20 years, this problem didn\u2019t exist. During the regular season, they finished with tied for the seventh-least<\/a> clutch losses in the league, going 21-15 in such games. In the playoffs, the numbers stayed pretty similar, winning four of the seven clutch games. Most notably, in the biggest game of the year, they pulled out a clutch win<\/a>. After falling behind to the Denver Nuggets by 20 points in Game 7 of the Western Conference Semifinals, the Wolves stormed all the way back to take a narrow lead. However, when Jamal Murray made a floater with 4:49 remaining, the score was 85-82. Clutch time. So what happened? Minnesota outscored Denver 13-8 in the final minutes, claiming a signature clutch win.<\/p>\n

Is There Time to Turn It Around?<\/b><\/h3>\n

With just eleven games on the schedule, the clock is ticking. It\u2019s now or never if this team wants to make a final push for the sixth seed, guaranteeing a first round series. Six of those games are against teams under .500. Five of them are at home. But neither of those are indicative of how Minnesota will play. Their away record is better than at home. Against teams with a winning record, their winning percentage<\/a> is .558, versus .571 against teams with a losing record. This has been the Timberwolves’ problem for a few seasons. They often play down to their competition, or rise to meet them. Fans can only hope that the latter is true come playoff time, when their season is on the line. Luckily, Edwards has rarely failed to rise to the occasion, and he is poised for his best postseason yet.<\/p>\n

Photo credit: \u00a9 Bruce Kluckhohn-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On March 17, Minnesotans woke up with their basketball team on an eight game winning streak and the weather outside a balmy 63 degrees. Spring was coming, and like the flowers outside, the Timberwolves were starting to bloom. Just two days later, Minnesota had lost two straight games, tumbling back down like the temperatures outside. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5485,"featured_media":129853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,21,62],"tags":[2109,4874],"class_list":["post-129843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-timberwolves","category-nba","tag-anthony-edwards","tag-clutch-performances"],"modified_by":"Kenny Kluska","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5485"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129843"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129854,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129843\/revisions\/129854"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}