The Minnesota Timberwolves have officially been eliminated from the NBA Playoffs, getting blown out by Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks in Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals on Thursday.
However, the Wolves did get one victory in Game 4 and actually refused to speak to the Inside the NBA crew following the contest. The reason? Anthony Edwards didn't like the way Draymond Green criticized both Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert.
Via The Athletic:
“Edwards was surrounded by a tight-knit team, one with such strong chemistry that it decided as a group that no player would appear on TNT’s “Inside the NBA” postgame show after their victory in Game 4 in Dallas, team sources told The Athletic. The decision was a sign of support for Gobert and Towns, who were the subject of derisive and seemingly personal criticism from panelist and Golden State forward Draymond Green.”
After Game 3, this is what Draymond said about KAT:
“He's just not answering the bell,” Green said. “And this is who KAT has been in his career. When the going gets tough, he goes the other way.”
Harsh from the Warriors veteran. In the conference semifinals against the Denver Nuggets, he had this to say about Gobert:
“The big Frenchman is up on that podium speaking his native language — ‘we, we, we need to do this', no, you, you, you need to get a stop. It ain't “we”. KAT is actually doing a pretty good job when he's on Joker. It's you my man, who is getting cooked.”
You can now see why Edwards and Co. had zero interest in talking to the panel following Game 4.
Timberwolves have a bright future
While no one expected Minnesota to make it this far in the NBA Playoffs, they definitely showed that the best years are ahead. Anthony Edwards has proven to be one of the elite players in this league. At just 22 years old, he is already the leader of this Timberwolves organization.
He knows this was a new situation for most of the roster and insisted they will be back after losing Game 5:
“It’s a lot of our guys’ first time being in this light, especially me,” Edwards said. “It’s my first time. But we’ll be ready, man. We’ll be all right. First time. Took a loss. Congratulations to the Mavericks. But we’ll be back.”
Edwards averaged 27.6 points, seven rebounds, and 6.5 assists on 40% shooting in the playoffs, doing all that he could to help the Timberwolves advance. He struggled at times in the Dallas series but overall, Ant was brilliant.
As for the whole Draymond fiasco, it's nice to see Edwards come together with his teammates and boycott Green, who openly bashed KAT and Gobert on national television. It does show this is a tight-knit group who truly care about each other.
Minnesota has a lot to be proud of. They won the second-most games in the regular season in franchise history (56) and made it to the conference finals for just the second time ever.
And it wasn't only Edwards, KAT and Gobert played their part, too. Good times are ahead for Minny.
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