MINNEAPOLIS — Anthony Edwards’ blood type is confidence. It courses through his veins, delivering the nutrients his game needs to thrive and removing any waste that could slow it down. It brings life not just to him, but to these Minnesota Timberwolves, who have never been more alive than they are right now.
Even in an ecosystem that demands an abundance of it for survival, Edwards’ confidence rises above the rest. And still, the look in his eye and the tone in his voice after his Timberwolves were obliterated by Luka Dončić and the Dallas Mavericks on their home floor in Game 5 of the Western Conference finals last year was startling.
“We’ll be back next year,” Edwards said.
Sorry … what did you just say? You know you play for the Timberwolves, right? The team that had only been that far twice in 35 years? The team that had more 60-loss seasons (nine) than playoff series wins (four, at that point)? The team with a history so colorless that fans clamor for the original blue and green uniforms from an era in which the franchise was nearly sold down the river just five years after coming to town?
Edwards doubled down on the night of May 30, 2024, after a 124-103 loss that was over when Dončić splashed his fourth 3-pointer with 2:24 to play in the first quarter. At that moment, all the thrills and all the excitement from an unexpected playoff run were wiped out. And yet Edwards never seemed more certain of the success that was to come.
He walked around a shell-shocked locker room, looked every single one of them dead in the eyes and told them exactly what would happen.
“I just told them that y’all know we’re going to be right back in this same position next year,” he said. “So train knowing y’all gotta get ready, including myself.”
The Wolves are back. A rip-roaring 121-110 victory on Wednesday night sent Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green and the Golden State Warriors packing in five games, putting the Timberwolves in back-to-back Western Conference finals for the first time in franchise history. Julius Randle put up 29 points, eight rebounds and five assists, Rudy Gobert had his best game of the series with 17 points, eight rebounds and a team-best plus-21, and Mike Conley shook them out of another first-quarter funk on his way to 16 points on 5-of-7 shooting, eight assists and six rebounds.
And Ant? The Warriors went into Game 5 hell-bent on keeping his scoring down, but all that did was help him showcase how much his game has grown, and why this year’s Timberwolves may be a little more dangerous. His 22 points were nice, but the 12 assists were sensational. He also had three blocked shots, seven rebounds and hit five 3-pointers, putting the game to bed for good with a pull-up from 25 feet with under seven minutes to play.
“He’s the brightest star in the world,” Randle said on TNT. “Anywhere he goes, all eyes on him.”
His level of belief borders on the irrational, an audacity of hoop, and it is pulling one of the least successful franchises in professional sports out of the muck and into the light.
It took Edwards less than a year to fulfill his promise, but the road back was far from easy. So much happened in those 349 days. Edwards won a gold medal with Team USA. Karl-Anthony Towns was traded on the eve of training camp for Randle and Donte DiVincenzo, who suffered significant injuries in January. The Wolves were 8-10 at Thanksgiving, 14-14 on Christmas Eve and languishing at 22-21 in late January.
Randle was considered a bad fit in some corners of the NBA. President of basketball operations Tim Connelly was a fool for trading KAT after making the conference finals (after he was considered a fool for trading for Gobert, but that is a story for a different day). Coach Chris Finch was not the man for the job because he couldn’t replicate the success of last season, an out-of-nowhere run that galvanized a fan base and an entire community. As fun as last season was, the good vibes from it felt like an anvil around this team’s neck, not a springboard to bigger and better things.
When asked if he ever wondered whether this team would find its way to where it is now, Finch smiled wryly.
“Depends what day you asked me,” he said. “That’s part of the journey. We felt confident in our group once we saw us play how we knew we could play.”
Once Randle returned from a groin injury and DiVincenzo came back from a toe injury that cost both players much of February, the pieces just clicked into place. The Wolves finished the regular season 17-4 to lock in the No. 6 seed and avoid the Play-In Tournament. They are 30-6 in their last 36 games with Randle in uniform. They rolled through the Los Angeles Lakers, 4-1, in the first round and won four straight over the Warriors after dropping the series opener.
Now they have a few days to rest and await their next opponent, the winner of the Denver Nuggets-Oklahoma City Thunder series.
“Everyone wants to rush the process,” Finch said. “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 into the season.”
The public clamored for Finch to make changes, to bench the aging Conley, to start Naz Reid for Randle to improve the spacing, to play the rookies more. But Finch stuck to his guns the whole way, and every one of those decisions has been validated with this success. When the team gathered for a meeting during training camp, he issued a challenge.
“Were you a Western Conference finals team, or were you a team that just happened to make the Western Conference finals?” Finch asked them. “And there’s only one way to prove that: Go out and do it again. And that was our mission all year.”
Through all the ups and downs, Edwards never lost the faith. He is the ultimate hype man. As gifted as he is with the basketball in his hands, he may be even better at instilling belief in his teammates when the ball is in theirs. Anyone facing a crisis of swagger need only brush shoulders with Edwards to pick it up via osmosis.
Randle is playing the best basketball of his life, laying to rest concerns about his playoff credentials. Jaden McDaniels, who had 14 points, four rebounds and four steals, is blossoming into a two-way demon. DiVincenzo shook out of an early-season shooting slump thanks to a holiday workout with Edwards.
Anthony Edwards and Julius Randle have formed a powerful postseason duo. (Jesse Johnson / Imagn Images)
Then there is Conley, the sage veteran who was devastated by the loss to the Mavericks last season. He has been in the league for 18 years and never made it to the NBA Finals. After the Wolves beat Denver in Game 7 of the second round, he truly believed they had a chance to win it all. When it all came crashing down under a hail of Dončić 3s and Kyrie Irving drives, Conley was distraught. Then Edwards came up to him and told him not to worry.
“What you learn about him, he believes everything he says, no matter what it is. And at that moment last year, I believed him,” Conley said. “I believed that we’d have another opportunity together and this wasn’t the end of the road.”
Belief in the Timberwolves used to be as rare in these parts as a 50-degree day in January. This is the franchise that passed on Steph Curry (twice) in the draft. This is the franchise that Butler couldn’t leave fast enough. This is the franchise that Green openly mocked any time he got in front of a microphone.
That’s why this victory over the Warriors was therapeutic.
Fittingly, it was a total team effort that delivered their best performance of a jagged series. The Wolves shot 63 percent from the field, outscored the Warriors 72-50 in the paint and led nearly the entire way to become the first Minnesota men’s team in the four major pro sports to advance to the final four of the playoffs in consecutive seasons since the old Minnesota North Stars in 1980 and ’81.
That it was the Wolves who were the team to do it would have been almost unfathomable just a few years ago, before Edwards arrived in 2020. But luck is starting to break the Timberwolves’ way, maybe for the first time.
Curry strained his hamstring in the second quarter of Game 1, the only win of the series for the Warriors. Golden State was 4-1 this season against the Wolves with Curry and 0-3 without him.
The series may well have turned out differently if Curry was in uniform, just like the 2004 West finals may have looked different with a healthy Sam Cassell playing point guard for the Wolves against the Lakers. Or maybe the 2015 NBA Finals look different if Irving and Kevin Love played for the Cleveland Cavaliers against Golden State.
“They beat us,” a gracious Green said. “Injuries are a part of it. We’ve won championships when guys got hurt. That’s a part of it.”
What can be said is that Curry’s absence prevented Edwards from adding another notch to his battle axe. The giant slayer has taken down Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Nikola Jokić, LeBron James and Dončić in the playoffs over these last two seasons, and he badly wanted to add Curry to that list. The two grew close at the Olympics last summer. Curry was charmed by Edwards’ inner Antness, that combination of swagger and soul that has All-NBA players like Randle, Towns and Gobert enthusiastically giving in to his gravitational pull.
Edwards became enamored with Curry’s practice and game routines, the methodical nature of his greatness. In some ways, the Warriors can blame their demise on Curry for showing Edwards the way.
After his run with Team USA, Edwards spent most of his preparation for the upcoming season on improving his 3-ball, both off the dribble and catching and shooting. The countless hours he poured into it during the summer turned him from a great athlete who could shoot into a bona fide shooter. Edwards led the NBA in 3-pointers made during the regular season with 320, becoming just the fifth player to make at least 300 3s in a season. Curry has done it six times. He shot 39.5 percent on 10.3 attempts per game, Curry-like volume and accuracy.
Edwards did his best Curry impression in the third quarter of Game 4, turning a close game into a rout when he scored 16 points and hit three 3s, delivering a victory that essentially ended any hopes that the series would last long enough for Curry’s hamstring to heal.
As happy as Edwards is to be advancing, something is gnawing at him. He wanted Curry out there. He wanted to go toe-to-toe with the best shooter who ever lived, the one who beat him four times this season.
“Trust me, man,” he said after Game 4, “I wish he could be out there to play against him, no matter how it goes.”
It would be unfair to say that Edwards has now knocked Curry out of the playoffs like he did LeBron and Joker. But Wolves fans will delight that he has taken down Butler and Green, perhaps the two biggest basketball villains in this state. “Playoff Jimmy” went out like a lamb, taking just 20 shots over the final two games combined. The Wolves outscored the Warriors by 47 points when he was on the floor in Games 4 and 5.
Green scored 10 points on 11 shots, missed five of his six 3s and turned it over three times in 36 minutes of the clincher. He was thoroughly dominated by Randle all series and walked out of Target Center saying these Wolves may not be done yet.
“They got a chance,” Green said, referring to a championship. “They got a real shot.”
Edwards has even turned Green into a believer.
Last year in Denver, the Wolves celebrated a historic, 20-point comeback victory to the hilt. They howled at the moon and believed they had climbed a mountain in defeating Jokić and the defending champions on their home floor. What they discovered in the next round is they were only halfway home.
The mood was decidedly different this time around.
“It feel like the rest of them, just another round ahead of us,” McDaniels said. “I feel like it’ll feel different if we advance to the finals. Then I think it’ll feel a little different.”
Edwards was already setting a new tone. As he sat alongside Gobert in the news conference, he interjected when Gobert was asked about being satisfied with making it back here given all of the team’s struggles earlier in the season.
“There is no satisfaction,” Edwards said. “We just got here. We haven’t (done) anything yet. No, he’s not satisfied.”
Gobert nodded.
“The stomach is not full,” he said.
The evolution of Edwards’ tone is commensurate with the evolution of the goal. This is the dawning of a new age for the Minnesota Timberwolves. The franchise has now entered its Ant Era. It is no longer good enough to just make the conference finals in his eyes. This is not a big deal. He told y’all it was going to happen, and it did.
Why are you so surprised?
(Photo: Ellen Schmidt / Getty Images)