The Minnesota Timberwolves are poised to make a last-minute rise up the Western Conference standings with two winnable games remaining on the season, starting with the Brooklyn Nets in Minneapolis on Friday.
Eighth-place Minnesota (47-33) is in a three-way tie with the Golden State Warriors and Memphis Grizzlies, and one game behind the Denver Nuggets and Los Angeles Clippers in a tightly packed Western Conference race. While all five teams have clinched either a playoff or play-in berth, they also are looking to avoid falling into the latter by finishing either seventh or eighth.
The Timberwolves need to win their final two games, both at home against Brooklyn (26-54) and Utah, to have a shot at avoiding the play-in round. Entering their game Friday against the team with the NBA’s best record, the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Jazz (17-63) are tied with the Washington Wizards for the worst record.
The logjam in the West got even tighter when Minnesota beat the Memphis Grizzlies 141-125 on Thursday night as the Timberwolves poured in a franchise-record 52 points in the third quarter.
Anthony Edwards scored 44 points, which included hitting 7-of-11 attempts from 3-point territory.
Edwards said a handy tip from his trainer Christopher Hines, which involved channeling the legendary Michael Jordan, was behind his superb performance.
“C-Hines, my trainer, told me to black out the night, so I tried to do that,” Edwards said. “I know people are gonna love this — he sent me MJ videos every day about blacking out. MJ said something like, ‘Why would I worry about a miss if I haven’t taken the shot yet?’ He was sending me stuff like that, so I appreciate him.”
Edwards also appreciates what is on the line in his team’s remaining games.
“We’ve got two more tough games,” he said. “We’ve got to come out and get ready. We don’t know what’s ahead of us with all the positions, five through eight, so we’ve just got to take care of business.”
The playoff dreams of the Nets vanished long ago, but they will be eager to put on a better showing than what they produced in their first leg of a back-to-back set, a 133-109 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Thursday.
Brooklyn fought a losing battle for the rest of the game after being outscored by 19 points in the opening period.
“We were not ready to play … it’s on me,” Nets coach Jordi Hernandez said. “I didn’t get them ready to play this game, because you see the first quarter — 33-14. It’s just because the team was not connected, physically ready, mentally ready, and that’s on me. It’s one of the worst games we’ve played this season. The good thing is we’ve got another one tomorrow.”
A rare positive for Brooklyn was Jalen Wilson’s 20 points off the bench, which tied his season high.
The Nets’ bench outscored Atlanta’s 75-42, led by the efforts of Wilson and Tyrese Martin.
“The bright spots were J-Will and Tyrese Martin,” Fernandez said. “They are very good professionals. When their numbers are called, they’re ready to play. … We’re giving looks to these other (bench) guys and they’ve done a great job the whole season.”
Guard D’Angelo Russell (ankle), forward Cam Johnson (back) and center Day’Ron Sharpe (knee) sat out the loss and will not fly to Minnesota.
–Field Level Media
