Karl Anthony Towns had finally just been served at the post, with not Anthony Davis on his back, but Rui Hachimura. The two-man did not come but the interior of Wolves preferred to bring the ball out towards Taurean Prince, who sent the ball into the stands with a pass that was much too high for Mike Conley, in the opposite corner.
” But what are they doing? “, could exclaim Reggie Miller from his place as commentator, before adding:” This one is for ‘KAT’. This action, which occurred two minutes from the end of the match against the Lakers, when Wolves still had a possession lead (92-95), sums up well the difficulties experienced by the visitors in the “money time”.
If Karl-Anthony Towns did not attack, it was because he had been playing for several minutes with a sword of Damocles above his head: the risk of taking a sixth foul. ” It’s hard to put my team in bad shape by making an aggressive move, if they ‘flop’ and get the whistle. And that I am excluded », fatally sums up the interior.
Because yes, according to him, his opponents added more to get whistles against him. “ Throughout the evening, I did a good job of attacking the circle, being powerful in what I was doing. And when you take two faults on ‘flops’, it makes things very difficult. »
On his third foul, picked up at the start of the third quarter, he seems to put a blow in the face of his former teammate, Jarred Vanderbilt. The fourth foul came as LeBron James ran into him on the racket. The fifth, on the other hand, was whistled after a rebound struggle with Anthony Davis, who fell to the ground.
Gone to make up for Anthony Edwards’ dirty night
Before being slowed down by faults, “KAT” (24 points at 8/12 on shots, 11 rebounds and 5 assists for 37 in evaluation and +18 in score) was nevertheless playing like a dream. Long address, one-foot shot from the baseline, and even several spectacular passes over the shoulder to Nickeil Alexander-Walker…
At half-time, Wolves were up +23 when onside, to -12 when offside. A performance all the more necessary as his comrade, Anthony Edwards, was experiencing a terrible crossing of the desert (9 points to 3/17 on shots).
” He was on an impressive pace until they (the referees) sent him to the bench “, plague Chris Finch, evoking an end of meeting “ complicated. We stagnated. We ran out of juice, we were worn out, that’s for sure. We kind of stopped the cuts at the circle, the ball stopped, we kept it in hand a lot. »
His team, which he regrets was not able to go more on the free throw line (3 throws obtained in the second period, the only series of Mike Conley to equalize at the buzzer, against 17 at the Lakers …) did not score a basket in the last six minutes of play, then only two in the five additional minutes…
Mike Conley (23 points), he highlights the Lakers’ defensive “switches” who prevented Towns from serving ” in positions where he could be effective. Ant was not a good pace, it forced us to take difficult shots. » « I think the five fouls hurt us more than the ‘switches’ “, yet maintains Karl-Anthony Towns, who had already experienced similar concerns in play-in against the Clippers last year, then against the Grizzlies in the first round …
| Shots | Bounces | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players | GM | Minimum | Shots | 3 points | LF | Off | Def | Early | pd | bp | Int | CT | party | Points |
| Anthony Edwards | 79 | 36.0 | 45.9 | 36.9 | 75.6 | 0.6 | 5.2 | 5.8 | 4.4 | 3.3 | 1.6 | 0.7 | 2.4 | 24.6 |
| Karl Anthony Towns | 29 | 33.0 | 49.5 | 36.6 | 87.4 | 1.7 | 6.5 | 8.1 | 4.8 | 3.0 | 0.7 | 0.6 | 3.8 | 20.8 |
| D’angelo Russell | 54 | 32.9 | 46.5 | 39.1 | 85.6 | 0.5 | 2.5 | 3.1 | 6.2 | 2.7 | 1.1 | 0.4 | 2.2 | 17.9 |
| Mike Conley | 24 | 31.4 | 46.0 | 42.0 | 86.3 | 0.7 | 2.5 | 3.1 | 5.0 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 0.2 | 1.9 | 14.0 |
| Rudy Gobert | 70 | 30.7 | 65.9 | 0.0 | 64.4 | 3.3 | 8.3 | 11.6 | 1.2 | 1.7 | 0.8 | 1.4 | 3.0 | 13.4 |
| Jaden Mcdaniels | 79 | 30.6 | 51.7 | 39.8 | 73.6 | 1.2 | 2.7 | 3.9 | 1.9 | 1.4 | 0.9 | 1.0 | 3.4 | 12.1 |
| Naz Reid | 68 | 18.4 | 53.7 | 34.6 | 67.7 | 1.1 | 3.8 | 4.9 | 1.1 | 1.4 | 0.6 | 0.8 | 2.6 | 11.5 |
| Jaylen Nowell | 65 | 19.3 | 44.8 | 28.9 | 77.8 | 0.6 | 2.1 | 2.6 | 2.0 | 1.0 | 0.6 | 0.1 | 1.6 | 10.8 |
| Kyle Anderson | 69 | 28.4 | 50.9 | 41.0 | 73.5 | 1.0 | 4.4 | 5.3 | 4.9 | 1.5 | 1.1 | 0.9 | 2.1 | 9.4 |
| Taurean Prince | 54 | 22.1 | 46.7 | 38.1 | 84.4 | 0.3 | 2.2 | 2.4 | 1.6 | 1.3 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 2.3 | 9.1 |
| Luka Garza | 28 | 8.7 | 54.3 | 35.9 | 78.8 | 1.2 | 1.1 | 2.3 | 0.6 | 0.5 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 1.5 | 6.5 |
| Nickeil Alexander-Walker | 23 | 15.5 | 38.4 | 36.1 | 61.9 | 0.3 | 1.5 | 1.8 | 1.4 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 1.3 | 5.9 |
| austin rivers | 52 | 19.5 | 43.5 | 35.0 | 76.9 | 0.1 | 1.5 | 1.6 | 1.4 | 0.4 | 0.5 | 0.1 | 1.5 | 4.9 |
| Jordan McLaughlin | 43 | 15.8 | 42.1 | 30.8 | 83.3 | 0.3 | 1.1 | 1.4 | 3.4 | 0.8 | 0.7 | 0.1 | 0.7 | 3.7 |
| Nathan Knight | 38 | 7.7 | 56.8 | 36.4 | 68.4 | 0.6 | 0.9 | 1.5 | 0.3 | 0.6 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 1.1 | 3.7 |
| Bryn Forbes | 25 | 10.7 | 36.1 | 30.4 | 100.0 | 0.2 | 0.4 | 0.6 | 0.7 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.9 | 3.6 |
| matt ryan | 22 | 8.2 | 42.4 | 38.8 | 85.7 | 0.1 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 0.6 | 3.4 |
| Josh Minott | 15 | 6.4 | 50.0 | 33.3 | 100.0 | 0.3 | 1.3 | 1.7 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 0.7 | 3.1 |
| Aj Lawson | 1 | 1.8 | 100.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 2.0 |
| Wendell Moore, Jr. | 29 | 5.3 | 41.9 | 11.8 | 80.0 | 0.1 | 0.5 | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.4 | 1.4 |
