OKLAHOMA CITY — The frustration is beginning to bubble to the surface, the reality of what’s facing the Minnesota Timberwolves is creeping in, even as they head home for two games in these Western Conference finals.
You could see it when Jaden McDaniels finally had enough of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s arm-hooking and pushed him to the floor for a flagrant-1 foul.
“I just wanted to foul him for real. I wasn’t even mad,” McDaniels said. “I had fouls to use.”
The Timberwolves are more than annoyed by the officiating. They’ll hint at it without fully going into “fine me” territory, but they’re definitely distracted in their quest to find answers in this series against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
They played zone, the zone was shredded. Anthony Edwards got the ball in different places, it only mattered so much.
The adjustments could be physical, but it certainly feels like the mission to stay on task for 24 seconds at a time is too difficult against this team, as the Thunder again ran away from the Timberwolves in the third quarter and took a 2-0 lead with a 118-103 win at Paycom Center Thursday night.
A year ago, the Timberwolves were equally happy to be in the NBA’s final four but also beating themselves up for dropping two games at home to Luka Dončić and the Dallas Mavericks. As unlikely as it was for them to turn that series around on the road, it feels even more of a tall task this time around.
Just because the Thunder are that damn good.
It feels like these two squads are in different weight classes, almost like if Sugar Ray Leonard took on Mike Tyson in his prime. Leonard is one of the greats, but he couldn’t beat a heavyweight because it would take just one devastating punch to send a historic boxer flying to the canvas.
In the first, second and fourth quarters of Game 2, the Timberwolves were only outscored by the Thunder 83-82, but that third quarter is the bugaboo to end all bugaboos — another disastrous 12 minutes after halftime. This go-round, it was the Thunder outscoring the Wolves 35-21.
“It’s a five-minute stretch of a game that they take over. They go up 12, 15 and the game gets out of hand,” Timberwolves guard Mike Conley told Yahoo Sports. “But for the majority of it, the first two quarters, it’s a five-, six-point game. Three-point game, they’re up, we’re up. We just gotta find a way to match or exceed the intensity that they come with in those moments in spurts.”
The spurts feel like a predictable avalanche.
The turnovers (five in the third quarter) came in bunches for the Wolves, and they couldn’t hit anything from the 3-point line. Gilgeous-Alexander scored 11 of his 38 in the period, in front of a crowd that chanted “MVP” every time he went to the free-throw line.
It’s not that the Thunder have played a perfect game. They’ve been anemic from the 3-point line, just like the Timberwolves (27% for Oklahoma City, 28% for Minnesota). The Thunder just play a cleaner game, while the Timberwolves can’t get in front of the game long enough to exert control.
“Little things are what they’re doing. They’re being physical. It’s a dogfight. Bad calls, good calls, whatever,” Conley said. “Can we look past that and go get the defensive rebound? Can we do the hustle stuff that they’re doing? We gotta find our way and push our way through that.”
Conley’s the only starter with a positive plus-minus, and the second he leaves the game, usually midway through the first and third, the floodgates open.
Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, Julius Randle came back down to earth after several stellar games, playing just 10 minutes in the second half as the Timberwolves tried to go smaller to match up with the Thunder’s overall speed.
“Myself as a player, I gotta take responsibility and see how the flow of the game is going,” Randle said. “Get myself in some type of action, whether it’s screening or cutting or rebounding. But I’ll figure it out.”
Randle wouldn’t wade into the waters of anything controversial, only saying the Thunder play with a “different kind of physicality.” He declined to elaborate, only giving a wry smile when prodded further.
All agree the Thunder stay connected, particularly on defense, which keys those third-quarter runs. It’s deflating to look up after a solid half and see the slightest thing turn a competitive game into one that trends toward the danger zone.
“We put ourselves on such a razor’s edge in the third,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said. “We only had six turnovers at halftime, a few more in the third, missed some shots, didn’t finish, led to a bunch of stuff for them.”
The Thunder drive you right to the edge. They drive you insane with their execution. That’s why it’s so puzzling for the Wolves, because they don’t feel 20 points worse than this team, not right now.
But get in line.
If it’s a close game for OKC, it’s a rarity. The Thunder outscore their opponents by nearly 13 points a game, and if the last series against the Denver Nuggets was their hump to get over, keep in mind their two “gotta have it” wins came in the form of a 43-point win and a 32-point win — the latter being in Game 7.
It’s not impossible to envision Anthony Edwards breaking the streak of non-American players winning Most Valuable Player, on the night commissioner Adam Silver delivered the Michael Jordan trophy to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Jaden McDaniels received votes for All-Defense, although not as many as Jalen Williams and Lu Dort.
It’s not that they profile similarly, they just have players who can function similarly — even Edwards can match Gilgeous-Alexander shot-for-shot when things are perfect.
But Edwards is seeing every type of defender the Thunder have to offer and his teammates feel he’s not getting the calls Gilgeous-Alexander is receiving on the other end. Edwards was much more aggressive, taking 26 shots after just 13 in Game 1 to score 32, but he was 1 for 9 from the 3-point line.
The newly crowned MVP saw fewer limbs and bodies on his way to another efficient night, and added eight assists and went to the foul line 15 times.
There’s a difference in where these teams are now, and where they can be in the future. Williams showed that when he’s a capable second scorer, the Thunder are impossible to beat. Not difficult.
Impossible.
“He’s getting to his left hand way too much and we gotta do a better job of cutting that off,” Finch said succinctly.
That sounds simple, just as so many other potential adjustments. But it isn’t, and it feels like it’s a matter of time before it’s fully acknowledged by all.
