The Minnesota Timberwolves fumbled the bag on Tuesday night. They were up against the Milwaukee Bucks in a crucial game to keep them in the playoff race. The Wolves played well for most of the game, holding their ground. Through the first three-quarters of the game, Minnesota looked like a pack of wolves ready to hunt. So much so that they established a comfortable 24-point lead in the fourth quarter.

They shot 56 percent from the field, 39 percent from the deep, had 22 assists, and scored 90 points. On the contrary, in the fourth quarter, despite having everything under control, they just stopped. Their shooting percentage from the field fell to just 20 percent from the field and 16.7 percent from the three. Moreover, they only registered three assists and 13 points.

To top off, they couldn’t find a way to contain Giannis Antetokounmpo and Co. in the fourth quarter as well. Milwaukee stormed back into the game in the fourth quarter, going on a spectacular 34-3 run, and outscored Minnesota 40-13 in the final quarter of the game. Does this mean Milwaukee was too hot to handle? Or is Minnesota the one to be blamed for their downfall in the game?

Minnesota’s head coach, Chris Finch, thinks it’s the latter. “It’s a bad fourth quarter against a zone defense. So, I don’t think it’s a microcosm of the season.” HC Finch emphasized this in the post-game press conference. While the Timberwolves HC did attest that it was a poor fourth-quarter performance from his team, he made a point that this is just a one-time collapse. Finch also singled out the Wolves’ poor defense in the final quarter. “Yeah, the defense was a problem and give up 40 and again some of those were off turnovers and you know we, we gave up cheap threes as a result and we needed to take the threes out of the game.”

Despite this embarrassing collapse, coach Finch still backs his players. “I have every confidence that we’ll be able to bounce back,” Finch added. “We’ve had some tough losses before in the season. So, we didn’t expect to go undefeated over our last 10 games. So, it doesn’t matter where it comes or how it comes; you know if it comes, it’s you know we got to we got to go and get the ones that are still there to be got.” Well, that is a notable departure from Denver’s freshly-former head coach, Michael Malone, who repeatedly threw his players under the bus before getting fired. Take their March 12 game against Minnesota, for instance.

The Nuggets lost by 20 points in that game. Malone said afterwards that the team was “really tired” and “didn’t play much defense all night long.” The situation got worse against the Lakers and a battered Wizards. Against a shorthanded Lakers team that lacked LeBron James, Luka Doncic, Dorian Finney-Smith, Rui Hachimura, and Gabe Vincent, Jokić and Murray had to play 77 minutes combined, and they needed a game-winner to seal the victory. Malone again openly criticized the squad.

It was “another game,” he told reporters, in which the Nuggets “showed up and kind of tried to ease our way into it, and they jumped all over us. And that’s a recipe for disaster. We can’t do that.” If that was not enough, in the Wizards game, Denver gave up a 16-point lead gained in Q1 to eventually drop the game against a team that has been woeful throughout the season, and it was Malone letting out his frustration again.

“We’re fooling ourselves if we think we can just show up and not play any defense. It’s like I’m saying the same things over and over and over again,” he had said. Things reached another level when, just two weeks before his firing, Malone even questioned the work ethic of the players without naming anyone.

“The guys that are full of [expletive] won’t hear it,” Malone said. “They’ll say. ‘Coach is tripping.’ And the guys that maybe do really care will, because they’re not going to go back and watch their minutes. Nobody watches their minutes, nobody watches film, so we’ll have to show them the film.” Indeed, the Wolves are fortunate enough not to have to face the ire of the person who is tasked with steering the ship. Meanwhile, their franchise player, Anthony Edwards, might have an important message for the locker room.

Anthony Edwards is already on to the next game

Minnesota was rolling in the first three quarters. Naz Reid and Donte DiVincenzo had broken out from their suspensions. Meanwhile, Rudy Gobert was controlling the paint and Anthony Edwards was attacking the rim. However, things started to go south once Milwaukee started cutting the deficit, and Minnesota started missing layups and shots. While Anthony finished the game with 25 points, he just went 10-of-27 from the field, including a terrible 2-of-11 from the deep. To pile up the misery, he missed all 4 of his shots from beyond the arc in the final quarter.

After this poor performance, the 23-year-old shooting guard thinks this isn’t the time to reflect on this loss. Instead, they should put the loss behind them and gear up for their next matchup. “To put this behind us, I don’t think we really even need qualities to put it behind us. We know like I said, we know we need the next game like the team that we play next is like fighting for a playoff spot, so this game is over. We ain’t really tripping.” Edwards said, sharing a similar thought with his head coach, Chris Finch. He believes that he and his teammates need to dust themselves and move on.

While he is gutted from the loss, Edwards says there’s nothing anyone can do about it. “I’m not really tripping. I’m mad we lost, but like I can’t do nothing about it. So, and I know we need to win the next game. This game next game is bigger than this one,” he added. Minnesota’s franchise player also issued a stern warning to his teammates about their upcoming trip to Memphis.

“It’s just like I said; the next game is the biggest game of the season.” There’s no doubt about that! After this defeat, Minnesota is a game behind Memphis, who is at 7th, and also behind the team in the playoff positions. So, every game is a do-or-die situation for Chris Finch’s men if they want to avoid playing in the play-in.