Backs against the wall, at the bottom of the hole, or on the edge of the precipice, whatever the metaphor, the Minnesota Wolves are not far from returning with their tail between their legs to their region at Milles Lacs, humiliated and swept away in the conference final by the Dallas Mavericks.
Yet flamboyant against the reigning champions, the young Wolves of Anthony Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns gradually faded away against the Mavs defense. Before completely bowing to the talent and experience of Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving? Not so fast, though!
“We have found ourselves in this type of situation before”
“We have to keep our mental strength. We still have to believe that it’s possible,” pleads veteran Mike Conley. “We have to take the next game, win one to give ourselves the chance to come back to Minnesota. All the guys, from first to fifteenth, must be ready to come into play because we must now do everything to win this match. »
Same story with Naz Reid, the best sixth man of the year who is one of the rare Wolves to survive in this series, with 17 points on average at 56% success, while his leaders, Ant (22 points to 39 %) and KAT (15 points at 28% including 13% at 3-points) suffer from the comparison with the Doncic-Irving duo.
“I don’t think we’re more worried than that, we’ve found ourselves in this situation before”, adds Naz Reid. “If there is a team that could win four games in a row to get out of this scenario, it would be ours! We're obviously not happy to be down 3-0, but that's part of life [de perdre]. Now it's up to us to go play and put everything back in order. »
In this case, Chris Finch and his staff also see the long term, notably leaving Karl-Anthony Towns on the field at the end of Game 3, while the latter was experiencing a (new) complicated evening on shots (5/18 on the match – and 15/54 on the series!).
“Naz had played more than 30 minutes in the last game anyway. We wanted to leave KAT on the court, even if he's going through difficult times, because we always think that it's going to be a long series, that we still have a lot of basketball to give, and we want him to keep his confidence in him. »
Problem number 1: “money time”
Coming back from an abysmal 3-0 deficit, with an away match to boot, has never before been achieved in the history of the League. But we are inevitably getting closer to the moment when that will happen. Naz Reid, Mike Conley and the Wolves believe it. But above all we will have to roll up our sleeves!
“We have to finish our matches better. We relax defensively and concede shots in the corner. And then offensively, we lost too many balls and we missed several opportunities. We must start with [régler nos problèmes de] end of match »explains Chris Finch before clarifying. “We still didn't really get any baskets early in the possession, pushing a little more on the fast play. I would like us to try to press on that. »
Beaten soundly in the money time by the duo of Texan artists, the Wolves simply must make the difference first. Don't give the Mavs any chance, and therefore regain their aggressive, even suffocating, defense for the opponent. A challenge for this group which already seems worn out, both physically and mentally…
“It’s frustrating because we know we have a good team. Better than what she’s showing right now,” concludes Mike Conley. “We worked hard throughout the season and throughout the playoffs and it’s obviously disappointing to find ourselves down 3-0! It’s because of some mistakes we made that we can fix. We still have to show that we can solve them in game 4 to give ourselves a chance. »
| Shots | Rebounds | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players | MJ | Min | Shots | 3pts | L.F. | Off | Def | Early | Pd | Bp | Int | Ct | Party | Pts |
| Anthony Edwards | 79 | 35.1 | 46.1 | 35.7 | 83.6 | 0.7 | 4.8 | 5.4 | 5.1 | 3.1 | 1.3 | 0.5 | 1.8 | 25.9 |
| Karl Anthony Towns | 62 | 32.7 | 50.4 | 41.6 | 87.3 | 1.5 | 6.8 | 8.3 | 3.0 | 2.9 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 3.3 | 21.8 |
| Rudy Gobert | 76 | 34.1 | 66.1 | 0.0 | 63.8 | 3.8 | 9.2 | 12.9 | 1.3 | 1.6 | 0.7 | 2.1 | 3.1 | 14.0 |
| Naz Reid | 81 | 24.2 | 47.7 | 41.4 | 73.6 | 0.9 | 4.3 | 5.2 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 0.8 | 0.9 | 2.1 | 13.5 |
| Mike Conley | 76 | 28.9 | 45.7 | 44.2 | 91.1 | 0.5 | 2.4 | 2.9 | 5.9 | 1.3 | 1.2 | 0.2 | 1.7 | 11.4 |
| Jaden Mcdaniels | 72 | 29.2 | 48.9 | 33.7 | 72.2 | 0.8 | 2.3 | 3.1 | 1.4 | 1.2 | 0.9 | 0.6 | 3.0 | 10.5 |
| Nickeil Alexander-walker | 82 | 23.4 | 43.9 | 39.1 | 80.0 | 0.4 | 1.6 | 2.0 | 2.5 | 0.9 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 1.7 | 8.0 |
| Kyle Anderson | 79 | 22.6 | 46.0 | 22.9 | 70.8 | 0.8 | 2.7 | 3.5 | 4.2 | 1.2 | 0.9 | 0.6 | 1.6 | 6.4 |
| Monte Morris | 27 | 15.1 | 41.7 | 42.4 | 70.6 | 0.2 | 1.5 | 1.7 | 2.3 | 0.2 | 0.7 | 0.3 | 0.5 | 5.1 |
| Shake Milton | 38 | 12.9 | 40.0 | 26.4 | 81.8 | 0.2 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 1.2 | 4.7 |
| Troy Brown, Jr. | 37 | 11.1 | 44.1 | 36.9 | 86.4 | 0.4 | 1.6 | 1.9 | 0.9 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.7 | 4.2 |
| Luka Garza | 25 | 4.9 | 48.0 | 28.1 | 72.0 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 1.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 4.0 |
| Tj Warren | 11 | 11.3 | 43.9 | 15.4 | 75.0 | 0.5 | 1.5 | 2.0 | 0.8 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 1.0 | 3.7 |
| Jordan McLaughlin | 56 | 11.2 | 48.3 | 47.2 | 72.2 | 0.3 | 1.0 | 1.3 | 2.0 | 0.3 | 0.6 | 0.1 | 0.6 | 3.5 |
| Daishen Nix | 15 | 3.3 | 37.5 | 35.3 | 50.0 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 1.8 |
| Leonard Miller | 17 | 3.1 | 65.0 | 40.0 | 50.0 | 0.3 | 0.9 | 1.2 | 0.5 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 1.7 |
| Josh Minott | 32 | 2.9 | 47.2 | 40.0 | 85.7 | 0.1 | 0.4 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 1.6 |
| Wendell Moore, Jr. | 25 | 3.0 | 50.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.0 | 0.2 | 0.7 |
| Justin Jackson | 2 | 0.4 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
