On five occasions this season, Anthony Edwards has played more than 35 minutes and attempted 13 or fewer shots. The one time his Minnesota Timberwolves won, he was sick. In another instance, he was so angry with the officials that he flipped them off on multiple occasions, earning himself a $50,000 fine.
Every other time he was being defended by the Oklahoma City Thunder.
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On New Year’s Eve, Edwards attempted just 12 shots, his fewest in a loss this season, and committed more turnovers (3) than he had assists (2), as the Thunder rolled, 113-105. Afterward, Minnesota head coach Chris Finch made the bold claim that Oklahoma City is committing fouls “everywhere” at once.
“They’re super physical,” he told reporters of a Thunder team that led the NBA in defensive rating. “They foul you everywhere, every time down, and we have to be able to fight through that and play through it.”
If it sounded like Finch was grasping at straws, who could blame him? Oklahoma City had just shown a blueprint for how to beat the Timberwolves, the same one it has followed to a 3-1 lead in the Western Conference finals: Show a ton of help, essentially doubling Edwards on every drive attempt and forcing the ball elsewhere; and once the ball is out of Minnesota’s best player’s hands, never stop stealing it.
(Henry Russell/Yahoo Sports Illustration)
The Thunder have done just that, twice holding Edwards to 13 shots — Minnesota losses in Games 1 and 4. In those same games, the Timberwolves’ offense committed a total of 42 turnovers (and allowed 53 points off of them.) It is easier said than done for a defense, but between Lu Dort, Cason Wallace, Alex Caruso and even Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the league’s leader last season in steals per game, the Thunder have the weapons.
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Superstars are taught to continue to make the right play every time down the floor in these situations: When help comes, find the open man. Force defenses into rotation, trust the ball to find an open shot.
The Wolves did this to great effect in Game 4, as their role players shot a combined 17-of-31 from 3 (55%), and as a team they scored 129.9 points per 100 possessions, equivalent to the greatest offense ever. They did not win, since they committed 23 turnovers and allowed 19 offensive rebounds. You cannot expect to win when you give a team of OKC’s caliber that many extra possessions, and still the Wolves almost did.
This was confirmation that Edwards’ process was right. Make the right reads, be in position to win. Only they did not, which naturally raised questions about whether Edwards had done enough. If he had done too much, forcing contested shots, he would have had blame for that, too. This is a superstar’s dilemma.
“I don’t look at it like I struggled, or [Julius Randle] struggled,” Edwards said of Game 4. “They had a good game plan, making us get off the ball. Especially for me, man. They were super in the gaps, I made the right play all night, so I don’t really look at it like I struggled. I didn’t get enough shots to say I struggled, so that might be how you guys look at it. But, yeah, I didn’t struggle at all. I just made the right play.”
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The quality of today’s NBA demands perfection from its superstars. They must strike the right balance between creating quality looks for themselves and generating them for their teammates, and even then, if the shots are not falling, they receive a greater slice of the blame pie than any of their supporting cast.
Edwards belongs among the superstars from whom we can demand perfection. In addition to Edwards, the list of players who have appeared in at least three All-Star Games and 40 playoff games by the age of 23 includes all champions: Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Jayson Tatum. The list of those who averaged a 27-7-6 in those playoff games features only Edwards, James and Durant.
And where were James and Durant when they were 23? They, too, were toiling for contenders, still trying to strike that balance between how much to create for themselves and for others. Eventually, both left to find better teammates to trust. James did not win until he joined Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami. Durant did not win until he joined Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green in Golden State.
And maybe that is the answer. Maybe Edwards needs a better playing partner. Wade and Curry were all-timers, too, and they helped draw some of the gravity from James and Durant. Randle is too inconsistent to trust in the same way, and the defense knows it, daring him to challenge the same heavy help defense.
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And he did not do that in Game 4, by his own admission. “To be honest, I think it was a lot of me just, like, spectating,” said Randle. “I’ve got to figure out a way to get myself involved in actions. I think I didn’t take my first shot of the second half until there was 20 seconds left in the third quarter. I’ve got to figure out a way to get myself into positions to be more aggressive, rather than just standing or spectating.”
If a superstar is bottled up, his co-star cannot be stagnant. There are ways to penetrate the gap help that the Thunder are employing, all of which involve movement without the ball — dribble hand-offs, cuts behind the help. Force the defense to think, even before Edwards has given up the ball, and you give him a fighting chance, only if he can outthink them. It is all a lot to process for someone learning on the job.
And there are ways for Edwards to help himself. He can play faster, challenging the defense before it is set. And the Timberwolves can commit to getting the ball back to Edwards once he gets rid of it. He needs to be moving at all times, doing the same auxiliary things he would expect Randle to do for him.
It does not help that Edwards’ jump shot has abandoned him. During the regular season, he shot 36.8% on a handful of pull-up 3-point attempts per game. That equated to 1.104 points per possession, better than the best half-court offenses in the league. In the playoffs, he is 16-for-60 (27%) on pull-up 3s, which has translated to 0.8 points per possession, worse than the worst half-court-offenses in the league.
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You can lose games in those margins of five possessions per game. Edwards has also been almost absent from midrange, where he is shooting 8-for-28 (29%) for the playoffs. That is two midrange jumpers per game, which is the kind of shot diet you want in the regular season, since long 2-pointers are the NBA’s least efficient shot. But it is not necessarily the shot diet you need in the playoffs. By contrast, Gilgeous-Alexander is 43-of-89 (48%) from the midrange in this postseason, attempting six such shots per game.
That leaves the rim, where Edwards has been hyper-efficient against the Thunder on limited attempts. He got to the basket twice in Game 1 and three times in Game 4. OKC does not make it easy on anyone. If Edwards can penetrate the Thunder’s first line of defense, beyond a sea of swiping arms, he is welcomed by either Isaiah Hartenstein, who is tied to Rudy Gobert on the block, or Chet Holmgren — or both.
This is the lesson Edwards is learning — the scar he is earning: How to navigate the world’s best defense. And it is not easy. You need the complete package, and at 23 years old Edwards is not always that … yet.
How much of Minnesota’s struggles in this series are due to Edwards’ inexperience as an offensive hub and how much has to do with the talent gap between the two teams is difficult to tell. It is probably a bit of both. Even if the Timberwolves cannot complete a comeback against the Thunder, they can leave this season knowing: Edwards is their man. He just needs a little more seasoning and maybe some more help.
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