MINNEAPOLIS — As Anthony Edwards once again turned Target Center into his own personal playground on Monday night, the energy coursing through the crowd made it felt like Edwards was singularly going to bring the Timberwolves back from a 21-point second-half deficit.
Edwards and his teammates had slogged their way through the first half missing nearly three times as many shots as they made.
With each transition bucket and three-pointer Edwards had, that belief grew strong. But only Edwards held the key to the lid that was on the basket most of the night and it proved too much to overcome for the Wolves in a 107-98 loss to New Orleans.
Coming into the season there wasn't much concern with how effective the Wolves' offense would be. But they followed a blowout win against lowly Houston with two jagged offensive performances.
On Saturday their defense saved them with a franchise-high 30 forced turnovers. Edwards, who had 28 on 10 of 23 shooting, and the defense couldn't save them Monday. D'Angelo Russell in particular struggled. Two days after saying it seemed like he forgot how to play basketball, it didn't seem like Russell's memory had reloaded. He shot just 3-for-14.
Karl-Anthony Towns overcame early foul trouble to finish with 32. Jonas Valanciunas had 22 for New Orleans, Brandon Ingram had 27 and Devonte' Graham added 21.
The crowd got into the game almost immediately from the tip as Towns picked up where he left off Saturday in complaining about the calls officials were making against him or not making against his opponents, specifically the bullying Valanciunas. Towns picked up a technical less than seven minutes into the game. The crowd joined him in jeering the officials shortly thereafter. Then when Towns picked up his second foul on a moving screen at the 3 minute, 23 mark of the first, coach Chris Finch joined him in picking up a technical.
But what really derailed the Wolves was their inability to make a shot, any shot. In the first half, Edwards and Russell combined to shoot just 1-for-14. The Wolves trailed just 25-19 after the first quarter, a deficit that could have been a lead had their offense shown any kind of fluidity.
Towns had to go to the bench after his second foul and the offense tried to soldier on without him. The results weren't pretty. New Orleans expanded on its first quarter lead and was ahead 32-19 less than two minutes into the second quarter. Finch put Towns back in at the risk of picking up his third foul to try and ignite any kind of offensive spark. It didn't quite work the rest of the quarter as New Orleans carried a 54-43 into the locker room.
New Orleans opened the third on a 10-0 run to go up 21 and sap all any atmosphere from the arena. This was the scene for Edwards to finally make his entrance into the game, and it was quite an entrance it was. He used transition to get going. The Wolves got some stops, which led to a few easy layups for Edwards. What got the crowd on their feet was another of Edwards' patented rim-rocking dunks with 4:22 to play to put the Wolves down seven. They were officially back in the game.
Edwards augmented that with three three-pointers as the Wolves entered the fourth quarter down 80-73. But the offense around him could never get back on track, the defense couldn't shut New Orleans down and the Wolves never got within one possession.
