Timberwolves coach Chris Finch called out his star player after Minnesota’s 99-88 loss to the Warriors on Tuesday night.
Finch was clearly irked by what he felt was a lackluster performance from Anthony Edwards.
“What is there to talk about? You’re the leader of the team,” Finch said, per Dave McMenamin of ESPN. “You’ve got to come out and set the tone. If your shot is not going, you still have to carry the energy. If I’ve got to talk to guys about having the right energy coming into an opening second-round game, then we’re not on the same page.”
Edwards didn’t make a field goal in the first half as Minnesota was held to 31 first-half points. He finished with 23 points on 9-for-23 shooting as the Timberwolves failed to take advantage of Stephen Curry‘s hamstring injury.
“It starts with Ant,” Finch said. “I thought he struggled, and then you could just kind of see the light go out a little bit for a while.”
In an era when two coaches on playoff-bound teams were fired late in the regular season, it’s unusual for a head coach to criticize one of the league’s stars that strongly. However, Finch has plenty of financial security. He signed a four-year extension last summer that carries through the 2027/28 season.
Edwards didn’t strike back at Finch’s comments, seemingly offering a diplomatic response.
“People are going to try to blame whatever, blame whoever; they can blame me,” Edwards said. “[But] we just didn’t play good enough.
“… Tonight, we didn’t shoot the ball well, but tonight is over. So, next game we’ll shoot the ball really well.”
Finch was upset in general with Minnesota’s offensive decision-making, feeling the team didn’t take advantage of Golden State’s 18 turnovers.
“Our transition decision-making was diabolical,” Finch said. “Obviously, we couldn’t hit a shot, but I didn’t like the fact that we couldn’t repeatedly generate good shots. We should’ve been able to.”
18 turnovers! The Warriors should have lost. Funny. The Warriors had Ant in for a pre-draft workout. Kerr criticized his workout for a lack of effort. Is history repeating itself?
Wiseman’s effort was amazing though!
The wolves were rusty after a long lay off. That much is obvious.
Anthony Edwards goes off for 45 or 50 in game two. I’d bet the farm on it.
The Wolves aren’t that good Gary.
Nuggets-Warriors + Pacers-Knicks is going to heal the nation.
GS played like garbage and only won bc Wolves sel-destructed.
Steph Curry sits out two games and the Warriors lose both.
Game 2 lose by a lot and game 3 in San Francisco will hopefully be closer but could also be a blowout loss.
Game 4 Steph Curry comes back in San Francisco and it’ll be a closer game than 2 and 3.
Hopefully the Warriors tie it up 2-2 instead of going down 3-1 in a close loss.
There’s your crystal ball for the week.
I think they should sit Curry until they lose a game. They might go 4-0 without him. Playoffs Jimmy and Playoffs Draymond have activated and they’re playing…Rudy.
Rudy vs GSW….eh, I’m not even gunna say anything hahaha
I wish it were only 2 games, but, as I read it, “at least one week” translates to missing no less 3 three games.
Steph will definitely miss this Thursday, Saturday, and Monday. That’s games 2 through 4.
Best case,, he returns for game 5 on Wednesday, May 14.
More likely, Steph misses game 5 and returns for game 6 on Sunday, May 18
Yes, that’s what we’re hearing now. I gave out the early line so it should be adjusted according to the new information…
Hey, I am still holding out home for a miracle, and that Sreph is ready on Monday night.
Game 6. Can’t risk coming back sooner with a hammy.
I think Finch is criticizing him like this publicly because he knows Ant’s personality and he knows he can take it.
It wasn’t good defense. It was just a sloppy boring game. MN was the only team with good defensive stops. They just couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.
All credit to the Draymond Green and Jimmy Butler-led Warriors defense. Monumental game for defense fans. 31 points at halftime. Wow.
And it’s 2 games in a row like that counting game 7 at Hou. Final result does not say much about what it was, GSW playing stellar D, even Buddy Hield is playing his best defense ever
You make a great point. Honestly it’s the whole team, they are locked in as if Dray and Jimmy said “You saw what happened to Poole…either you ball out, or else!” haha
However, Buddy had a +16 with 3 points on 1 of 7 at halftime. How is he this guy now? We do need him to get buckets, but his defense with Jimmy and Dray has been superb. Such a random thing that happened that not many are clocking yet.
Davey, agree completely about Buddy’s defense, which has been outstanding, and none of us saw it coming. He’s been playing like 2018 Klay Thompson.
When Buddy plays defense this well, it makes sense to start him every game, and to play him ahead of GP2, Moody, and Podz.
@aristotle it makes zero sense to play GP2 at all when Buddy is defending better than he can. Buddy, Podz and Moody should get all the SG playing time. Podz also should get PG playing time. Maybe Spencer at PG if the lead is huge. Draymond and Jimmy are also playing point-forwards too while Steph is out.
GP2 makes so many mistakes in crunch time. He is a low mins guy, you get him in, get some damage done, then move on. Leaving him in 20+ mins makes his output way worse. I mean look at his basketball-reference page – GP2 is NOT that dude. For some reason Kerr currently thinks he is MJ.
link to nytimes.com
AE is still enjoying the Laker win ….
TWolves have been a work in progress all year. Fitting in Randle and Donte. Truth is they are still learning to win. Ant Man has to step up and lead the way. You can’t take days off. Like Jimmy stepped up when Steph went down. Edwards should have been right there with him. He basically took the first half off. Playoff basketball is about pushing the dagger in. Not about giving teams life. If I was Warriors. I’d give Kuminga the honor of stopping AE. Just make it hard and keep him under 30. Offense is where Kuminga gets lost. Defense is a lot easier to grasp. Mostly effort. I make him the main defender on him. Kerr ——- ok
I love Ant but he needs to be more focused and more professional. He needs to be more like a Jordan on the court……all business.
This is something the Wolves needed to get on top of years ago…
Yeah, cuz things have gone so poorly with Edwards.
“Years ago”
He’s 23 years old, Numerous rookies are older than he is.
And?
Discipline needs to start when they are on a rookie contract… not when they are paid like megastars…
Just another case like Embiid and Simmons…
This has kind of been Ant’s thing. Amazing some games and disappearing for others. He had some sleepy playoff games every year. But I guess it gets more attention now because (according to the media) the Wolves are actually supposed to be good this time.
In the long run, he shows up more than not and I think he will show up in 4 of the next 6 games.
Off the court, Antman is elite. One of the best and funniest quotes in the game.
On the court, Antman is like Luka at 85%, just with more dunks. Luka doesn’t even have a ring. Whoop de doo. Yet another one in a long line of Minnesota hype not panning out.
Minnesota will never win. The Curry Curse is real, it’s the same curse the Boston Red Sox had for selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees. It now lives in the Timberwolves for passing on Curry when they had 2 picks. The Wolves should straight up be contracted and Minnesota awarded a new franchise, just to break the Curry Curse.
“Antman is like Luka at 85%, just with more dunks .” Please. One of the laziest takes I’ve seen on this site.
Lazy? Aw, poor lil guy. You want some stats to back it up?
Here’s the “clutch +/-” reverse leaderboard, these guys are the least clutch guys in the league. If they were in the game this year, and it was late and close, you are certainly losing. Antman is 9th place:
link to nba.com
Wow, one singular stat (that only encompasses one fraction of a game) to support your whole take, and it doesn’t even really support it! I’m critiquing your lazy-ass implication that Ant is similar to Doncic but just not as good. I love that you take another lazy route to go for a personal attack like calling me a little guy instead of coming back with comprehensive facts to support you. Anyone who actually watches basketball sees their stylistic and athleticism differences as well as skill set differences–let alone quite a few other stats (Luka more rebounds and assists, Ant more 3’s and better 3 percentage, Luka better PER, Ant better WS, etc…) Plus Ant plays better defense and has demonstrated a better ability to stay healthy. I could go on. Do they have some similarities? Undoubtably. Is Luka better at some things and Ant better at others? Absolutely. But your comment is straight up lazy. Clearly a few more people on this site agree with me.
“I love that you take another lazy route to go for a personal attack like calling me a little guy instead of coming back with comprehensive facts to support you.”
Nope, this is a lie. I literally did BOTH of these things. Just because you moved the goalposts on what you believe to be a “comprehensive fact” does not invalidate that I bought a comprehensive fact to the table. Once again, a hater changes the goalposts to suit their argument, which as always is flimsy at best. I just wish one time one of you would bring a legit argument to my well-thought-out factual analysis. Just once. You always all fail. You always bring faulty logic or just plain lies to the table. You never beat me facts-on-facts. It’s NOT “lazy” to comp Antman and Luka. It’s just a real comp of similar players.
“Clearly a few more people on this site agree with me.”
Clearly I have a gang of stalkers who upvote everyone who contests anything factual I say, along with attempting to doxx me and even challenging me to a real life fistfight on here, because they hate I am spitting critical facts at their faves. Sports fans with CTE. They are all people I muted and would block if I had the option. Hope this clears things up for you, lil bro. You clearly are 12.
Fragile ego. *yawn*
Compare defensive effort.
Does “elite” equate to having 4 kids in basically a year and a half! Then again, he’s a lot like other athletes in this regard.
Warriors are not beating TWolves without Steph. Hamstring is not easy to come back from. So if its 3-4 games. Warriors just have to make sure somehow someway they keep it 2-2 or 2-3.
Be thankful you got gm 1. Winning gm 1 was monumental after losing Steph. Dray and Jimmy understand that and led the way. Now its just about staying within reach. One game at a time.
Ant talked some Shedeur Sanders level nonsense over the last few days, then went and threw up an absolute dud in Game 1. Dude should focus on achieving something before mouthing off.
Yuuuuup
Always talks too much… needs to let the game do the talking
Teams put so much energy into being “the Lakers daddy”, it’s like everything else is secondary. See it all season long. A team like the Bulls will go ‘game 7 mode’ on the Lakers, win by 20 and then lose next game to the Wizards by 30. Like clockwork. Silly.
Why are you talking Lakers?
It’s clearly a publicity thing knowing it’ll bring the best out of him and nothing more to it.
The shot wasn’t going for him but he was going hard on the boards and finished with a game high 14. Randle was the one who lacked effort, 30 odd minutes 4/11 from the field and 3 rebounds but he’s someone Finch couldn’t just go out there and complain about and get a positive reaction.
Same with NAW who had 14 minutes no points, no rebounds and no assists.