Mike Conley believed the Minnesota Timberwolves were past the kind of dud they had on Monday night against the severely short-handed Indiana Pacers.
Everything appeared to be coming together on an eight-game winning streak with the Timberwolves overflowing with belief as the playoffs approach. Oddly enough, one of the most encouraging victories during that stretch came a day earlier, when Conley watched Anthony Edwards come out aggressive from the start against tanking Utah, scoring 21 of his 41 points in the first quarter to set the tone in a dominant win.
Up until recently, the Timberwolves had a maddening habit of taking teams lightly that were missing their star players. They lost to Milwaukee without Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard, Miami without Jimmy Butler and Sacramento without DeMar DeRozan, all on Minnesota’s home floor.
The Pacers played Monday without Tyrese Haliburton, Pascal Siakam, Aaron Nesmith and Myles Turner from the start, lost Andrew Nembhard to ejection in the third quarter and Bennedict Mathurin to foul trouble in the fourth quarter. The Timberwolves treated them as such. They were outscored 30-16 in the second quarter, trailed by 14 entering halftime and watched Obi Toppin hit 7 of 10 3-pointers, including a ridiculous, falling-away heave from the corner with 3.5 seconds left in overtime that lifted Indiana to a 132-130 victory.
“It’s frustrating because, for the better part of this second half of this season, we’ve been locked in,” Conley said. “We’ve been approaching the games the right way. … It’s not normal for us right now to lose a game like this. That’s the frustrating part. I thought we’d turned the corner from that.”
The list of culprits in this loss is long. It starts with Edwards, who scored 38 points but was just 9 of 24 from the field, including 1 of 11 from 3-point range. He spoke on Sunday night after the win over the Jazz about a determination to be more focused in games against lesser opponents, something he has acknowledged struggling with in his career.
He was terrific against Utah but came out flat against the Pacers. He did not take a shot until almost five minutes into the game and was beaten for rebounds on the defensive end several times early on.
And when the Wolves needed him late, he couldn’t make a shot. He was 1 of 6 in the fourth quarter and 0 of 4 on 3-point shots with a couple that were ill-advised. One of those misses came on a haphazard possession in the closing moments of regulation, a leaning step-back that hit off the rim.
Julius Randle missed a jumper in the lane in overtime that would have tied the game, giving the Wolves their NBA-leading 24th loss this season in clutch time, defined by the league as when the score is within five points with five minutes or fewer to go. The Wolves have missed their last 11 shots with the chance to tie or take the lead in the last 24 seconds of regulation or overtime and have the 23rd-ranked offense in clutch time.
Wolves coach Chris Finch lauded Edwards’ attack mentality throughout the game. He got to the free-throw line for 20 attempts and tied a franchise record with 19 makes. In overtime, Edwards got to the line for six free throws. But he also jacked a 3 that missed early in the shot clock with the Wolves up two, keeping the Pacers alive. Then, Toppin banked in a 3 on the other end.
Obi Toppin banks in his sixth three with less than 30 seconds left in overtime ‼️
he has 34 points 🔥 pic.twitter.com/sNDxm8HIXn
— Indiana Pacers (@Pacers) March 18, 2025
“There’s lots of different ways to close out a game,” Finch said. “It’s not just making a game-winning shot. That’s what we’ve not been able to do all season long, in that moment be able to have the composure and the ability to take control of the game. Then it becomes a shot-making thing, and they made the shots and we didn’t at the right times.”
Edwards wasn’t alone. Donte DiVincenzo missed a point-blank layup midway through the third quarter, took a rushed 3 in transition with a two-point lead midway through the fourth and missed two other great looks that could have iced the game.
Jaden McDaniels was 1 of 6 on 3s and gave up a game-tying drive to T.J. McConnell with 4.6 seconds to go in the fourth.
T.J. McConnell ties it with 4.6 seconds left 🙌 pic.twitter.com/tw9k0qnRW9
— Indiana Pacers (@Pacers) March 18, 2025
Nickeil Alexander-Walker was 0 of 3 on 3s and Randle missed four free throws and had four turnovers.
The Wolves led by eight points with 10 minutes, 22 seconds to play in regulation, five points with 3:19 to go in the fourth and five with 1:06 to play in overtime. Each time, the defense gave up 3s to give the Pacers life, including when Edwards went under a screen to give Quenton Jackson an easy 3. Edwards tried another 3 on the next possession that was off the mark.
“I just thought at times when we had a chance to take control of the game, we were wild,” Finch said. “There was a sequence of contested 3s, deep bomb 3s. Just playing too fast, almost out of control. There was no need for it. It was unnecessary.”
Finch also chose not to challenge a ruling late in regulation when it appeared that DiVincenzo saved a ball that hit off of McConnell’s elbow and glanced out of bounds. The Wolves held on to their second challenge, and replays later appeared to show the ball grazing McConnell’s elbow before going out of bounds.
Toppin, a 33 percent 3-point shooter this season, helped the Pacers go 17 of 37 (46 percent) from 3. Indiana turned it over 20 times, leading to 30 points for the Wolves. By the time they got to overtime, the Pacers were without their top six scorers. Mathurin fouled out, and Nembhard was ejected after tussling with Rudy Gobert, who was given a flagrant-2 foul for his hard hit on Nembhard.
Rudy Gobert was ejected for a flagrant foul 2 on this play.
Andrew Nembhard also received a second technical foul and was ejected. pic.twitter.com/h65tdxsbYg
— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) March 18, 2025
But the Wolves couldn’t stay close enough to Toppin on the perimeter. He went 4 of 4 from deep in overtime, scoring 12 of his 34 points. All five of Indiana’s buckets in overtime were 3s, including one from Thomas Bryant, who went 1 of 7 in the game.
“You have guys on 10-day (contracts) and you have guys on two-ways and they’re playing for their career,” DiVincenzo said. “They’re coming in and playing as hard as they possibly can, trying to make a name, trying to stick on a team. We have to be better recognizing that and having a faceless opponent.”
As much as the end of the game was a debacle for Minnesota, the Timberwolves lamented their first half even more. They trailed by as many as 15 points in the second quarter, believing that the Pacers had no chance with so many players out with injuries.
“Our mindset from the jump wasn’t right,” said Randle, who had 17 points, six rebounds and four assists. “Just gotta be a little bit more professional, no matter who is out there on the court. They’re all good players, and we’ve got to take the game seriously. In the first half, we weren’t professional enough and we gave them too much life.”
Minnesota was in good company on Monday night. The Wolves (40-30) are percentage points behind the Golden State Warriors (39-29) for sixth place in the Western Conference playoff picture, meaning they would be in the Play-In Tournament if it started today. A win on Monday would have put the Wolves ahead of the Warriors with 12 games to play because the Warriors lost to the Denver Nuggets, who were playing without their two best players, reigning MVP Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray.
Edwards declined to comment after the game, which is not the best look for the 23-year-old leader of the team. That left other players to talk about a season-long problem of winning games in the clutch.
“Sometimes we gotta trust different guys,” said Conley, who had nine points and five assists and was a plus-24 in 32 minutes. “We put so much on Ant. Ant can get tired, get fatigued, late. Sometimes it might just be go get the ball and get it to Julius or run action with Naz (Reid) or Jaden or somebody else to get him to relax in the corner for a second and play decoy for a couple of possessions. We haven’t been able to do that.”
The Wolves still face a soft schedule down the stretch as they try to avoid the Play-In, starting with two games on Wednesday and Friday against the New Orleans Pelicans (18-50), which just lost star Trey Murphy III for the rest of the season. Maybe that’s not a good thing for the Wolves.
“We have the capability to beat anybody and lose to anybody,” Finch said, “and we’ve proven that.”
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(Photo of Anthony Edwards: David Berding / Getty Images)
