{"id":137283,"date":"2025-05-02T14:30:47","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T18:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=137283"},"modified":"2025-05-02T14:04:50","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T18:04:50","slug":"how-the-timberwolves-solved-their-fourth-quarter-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/05\/02\/how-the-timberwolves-solved-their-fourth-quarter-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Timberwolves Solved Their Fourth Quarter Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Minnesota Timberwolves took down the Los Angeles Lakers, and did so by solving their biggest problem<\/a>. After an entire season of leading the West in clutch time losses<\/a> and two early games that weren\u2019t close, the Timberwolves finally figured out how to win in the fourth quarter. There was no magic recipe. It took buy-in from all eight players who make up the playoff rotation. But that\u2019s what made it so special. There was no single player taking over, no lucky shots. The Wolves did it by committee, and will look to continue the momentum into their second-round series.<\/p>\n

How the Timberwolves Solved Their Fourth Quarter Problem<\/b><\/h2>\n

Game 3: Where it All Started<\/b><\/h3>\n

With the series tied at one game apiece, Minnesota was heading home feeling confident. They stole Game 1<\/a> in LA with some hot shooting, which subsequently cratered in Game 2<\/a>, a comfortable Lakers win. To defend their newfound home-court advantage, they simply had to take care of business. But it was far from easy.<\/p>\n

With Luka Doncic<\/a> a shell of himself, sick with a stomach bug, the elder LeBron James<\/a> was dominant. He led all scorers with 38 points, and it was his three-pointer that brought the score to 100-99, Minnesota barely leading with six minutes to play. It was clutch time, for the first time in this series, and the Timberwolves needed to exorcize some regular season demons. After leading the Western Conference with 26 clutch losses, this was their first opportunity in the postseason. Spearheaded by Anthony Edwards<\/a>, the Timberwolves closed the fourth quarter on a 13-1 run. Edwards scored seven himself, and assisted the other six. It was a superstar performance on the biggest stage, against two of the biggest stars.<\/p>\n

Game 4: The Comeback<\/b><\/h3>\n

Rather than playing from the lead, in Game 4<\/a>, Minnesota was in trouble late. This time, Doncic was dominant, splashing three shots from the charity stripe with 5:06 on the clock. The free throws gave Doncic 38 points, and his Lakers a 104-97 lead. Edwards, who was spectacular all night, ceded responsibility this time. Instead of putting the team on his back, he leaned on reigning Sixth Man of the Year, Naz Reid<\/a>, closing in place of starting center Rudy Gobert<\/a>. Reid scored eight quick points, putting Minnesota on top 108-107, before dropping a beautiful dime to Jaden McDaniels<\/a> for an and-one dunk. McDaniels\u2019 free throw gave the Wolves a narrow 114-113 lead. Two defensive stops later, Minnesota held a 3-1 series lead.<\/p>\n

Game 5: Bullyball Buoys Wolves<\/b><\/h3>\n

Back in LA, with a chance to close out the series in five games, Minnesota went ice cold from deep. In the first half, they went 6\/30 (20%) from three, and somehow got worse in the second half, making just one of 17 attempts (5.8%). Combined, the visitors shot 7\/47<\/a> (14.9%) from distance, yet found themselves with a slim lead in the final five minutes, yet again.<\/p>\n

On this night, it was the big man, Gobert, who got them there. Averaging just 3.5 points per game and 6.3 rebounds per game through the first four contests<\/a>, Gobert put on a show. He set new playoff career highs with 27 points<\/a> and 24 rebounds<\/a>. LA, having benched starting center Jaxson Hayes<\/a>, had no answer for the Frenchman on the glass. He snagged nine offensive rebounds, more than any Laker had total rebounds. But with the score 91-88, Minnesota needed a boost to close out the win.<\/p>\n

Julius Randle<\/a> entered the fray. In the final four minutes, the ex-Knick scored seven points, bullying his way to the rim on a night when the jumper wasn\u2019t falling for anyone in a Wolves jersey. His reputation as a playoff faller was an afterthought as he scored clutch bucket after clutch bucket. For the third straight game, the Timberwolves found a formula in the fourth quarter to lead them to victory.<\/p>\n

Despite looking like the underdogs<\/a> heading into the showdown, Minnesota made quick work of LA, taking them down in five games. Houston or Golden State awaits in the second round, as the two continue to battle for their place in the Western Conference Semifinals.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Minnesota Timberwolves took down the Los Angeles Lakers, and did so by solving their biggest problem. After an entire season of leading the West in clutch time losses and two early games that weren\u2019t close, the Timberwolves finally figured out how to win in the fourth quarter. There was no magic recipe. It took […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5485,"featured_media":137354,"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":[1608,26,21,62],"tags":[2109,38,1133,394],"class_list":["post-137283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-lakers","category-timberwolves","category-nba","tag-anthony-edwards","tag-lebron-james","tag-luka-doncic","tag-rudy-gobert"],"modified_by":"Jordan Pagkalinawan","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137283","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=137283"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137356,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137283\/revisions\/137356"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}