A few hours before the Minnesota Timberwolves hosted the Boston Celtics in a nationally televised game, the NBA released its No. 1 play of 2024.
The highlight of all highlights last season was Anthony Edwards’ soaring tomahawk slam over Utah’s John Collins last season.
Watching the video now serves as a thrilling reminder of Edwards’ frightening explosiveness and a painful illustration of what has been lacking for the Timberwolves this season. All of that power and all of that grace that defined Edwards’ breakout performance last season has been absent in what many believed was going to be a fifth season that took him into a different tier of NBA stardom.
Edwards is averaging 24.5 points, 5.6 rebounds and 4.0 assists while making 40.9 percent of his 3-pointers this season. Those numbers look impressive when just reading them on the page. But this hasn’t been the same dynamic Edwards that helped lead the Timberwolves to the Western Conference finals last season. The volume on his game has been muffled by the trade of Karl-Anthony Towns to New York, which has acted as a pillow over his face.
According to shot tracking by Basketball Reference, Edwards has only 17 dunk attempts in 33 games this season. His dunk rate was nearly twice as high last season when he had a career-high 96 dunk attempts in 97 games, including the playoffs.
Without Towns to worry about as a wingman for Edwards, opponents have figured out Minnesota’s offense. Take away Edwards’ rim attacks, and you take away the thing that makes him and the Wolves most dangerous. It is akin to taking the sword from Maximus, the guitar from Slash, the hammer from Thor.
“Y’all watch the game and I don’t know what’s going on. (They’re) just trapping me, man,” Edwards said after getting just 16 shot attempts in a 118-115 loss to the Celtics on Thursday night. “I don’t know what to do. I’m not gonna lie.”
They have been doing that by throwing doubles and triples at him relentlessly, forcing the ball out of his hands and limiting his shot attempts. If one of the other Timberwolves beats them, so be it. But there is not a single other player on the floor with him who scares a defense like Ant does. So they completely ignore Rudy Gobert. They sag off of Jaden McDaniels and Mike Conley. They dare Julius Randle to go iso. Anything to keep Edwards from getting in a rhythm.
In the last five games, Edwards is averaging 17.8 shots per game, which is 26th in the league. In Minnesota’s last two games, against perhaps the two best teams in the NBA in Oklahoma City and Boston, Edwards has taken a total of 28 shots. The smartest teams in the league are coming into these games with a clear mandate to make anyone else on the Timberwolves beat them.
It is a sound game plan. Edwards and the Wolves have tried to combat the strategy by using the attention Edwards commands to open up shots on the perimeter for his teammates. But McDaniels is hitting just 31.5 percent of his 3s, Conley’s percentage has plummeted from 44.2 percent last season to 36.7 percent this season and Naz Reid’s has dipped from 41.4 percent last season to 35.6 percent this season. Randle’s 37.7 percent is not high enough to make opponents think twice about leaving him open, so they can get to the paint and wall off potential driving lanes for Edwards.
As a result, Edwards has looked far too ordinary of late. In December, he averaged 20.5 points, 6.1 rebounds and 4.2 assists. Those are solid numbers, but not overpowering as the Timberwolves expect. He has taken at least 20 shots in a game six times since the calendar turned to December.
“I don’t know what to do, honestly,” Edwards said. “But it’s not fun, of course. Because I don’t want to look like I’m not trying, or not as good as I am because I am. But I can’t show it because I’m getting double-teamed.”
The strategy has not only depressed Edwards’ statistics from where he figured they would be, but it appears to have taken some of his trademark spirit as well. For a player who has always shown so much energy and joy on the court, searching for offense with this new roster has proven to be stifling.
“Super hard,” Edwards said. “Because I’m wired to score the ball.”
It stings even more for Edwards to watch players he considers to be his peers get everything they want against him.
In a 113-105 loss in Oklahoma City on Tuesday, Thunder star Shai Gilegous-Alexander scored 40 points on 23 shots while Edwards managed just 20 points on 12 shots. Then came the Celtics on Thursday and Jayson Tatum, who scored 33 points on 27 shots. Edwards was 3 of 10 in the first half and finished with just 15 points. He has topped 30 points in a game just six times this season.
“It’s definitely frustrating to see these guys cooking us, and I can’t cook them, whatever their adjustments are,” Edwards said. “They’re doing a good job, 100 percent, of keeping me from doing what I want to do out there. Big shoutout to the opposite team.”
Wolves coach Chris Finch has lauded Edwards for not doing too much when a defense loads up on him. When the double comes, Finch wants Edwards to move the ball quickly to open shooters and then wait for the ball to come back to him in more advantageous positions to attack. It is the next evolution of his game: playing chess instead of Super Smash Bros.
“That’s just how it’s going to have to be, so he’s got to trust it,” Finch said Thursday night. “He had opportunities, I thought, in the first half. He got downhill, he got to the hoop, he got to the hoop late and I thought he picked his spots real well. I don’t think he forced anything.”
It requires patience and perspective, and that is not always easy for a player as young and ambitious as Edwards.
In the third quarter against the Celtics, Edwards stayed ahead of the play against the reigning champions. He only took one shot in 10 minutes on the court but picked up five assists. The Timberwolves won the quarter 35-28, hitting 57 percent of their shots and 67 percent of their 3s in the period. McDaniels, Randle and Reid each scored nine points in the quarter, feasting on opportunities that came because the Celtics were devoting so much attention to Edwards.
Perhaps as a sign of his age, Edwards said that even though the Wolves played good basketball in that quarter, it wasn’t something that he could see himself doing for the long haul.
“That was a good brand of basketball, but it’s not how I want to play, of course,” Edwards said. “I’m only 23, I don’t want to be just passing the ball all night, you feel me? … But the way that they’re guarding me, I think I have to.”
Adding to the frustration is seeing players like Tatum and SGA get so many more scoring chances even with short-handed rosters. Gilgeous-Alexander got all of those shots despite Chet Holmgren and Alex Caruso being out with injuries. Tatum found his offense fairly easily even with Jaylen Brown and Kristaps Porziņģis sitting out.
Every time the Wolves made a run at the Celtics on Thursday night, it seemed like Tatum was there to get a bucket to stop the bleeding.
Edwards just hasn’t shown that ability of late, particularly when the team goes into a scoring drought, which seems to happen once a game. They scored just 16 points in the second quarter Thursday, shooting 32 percent in the period. That is when they could’ve used a few buckets from Edwards, but he was just 1 of 5 with zero rebounds and zero assists in the quarter. The Wolves were outscored by 18, a backbreaking run of offensive futility that cost the team the game.
“We should never go on scoring droughts when I’m in the game,” Edwards said. “So, I got to put that on myself if I was in the game because I can score the ball. But it’s just hard because I’m getting double-teamed all over the floor. I don’t have the answer.”
When his scoring is stifled, Edwards will often lose focus in other areas. That happened on Thursday night when he was beaten back down the court by Derrick White for an easy layup because Edwards was complaining to the officials for a foul that wasn’t called on a drive to the basket.
“I think as of late he was doing all the things some people say he couldn’t do and that’s kinda playmaking and getting off the ball, whatever the case may be,” Reid said. “So I think you just to figure out when he can get out of those double-teams, those triple-teams and trust your teammates to make those plays.”
Edwards has been showing significant progress when it comes to processing the game, looking for the pass and empowering his teammates. But he is still mastering the art of creating good shots for himself even when the defense is geared toward him. Tatum and Gilgeous-Alexander are both three years older than Ant, and the extra development time they have had was shining through this week.
Randle knows what it is like to command a double-team from his days as the primary scorer for the Knicks. He said the Timberwolves can do a better job of finding Edwards cleaner looks in the half court and by getting out in transition for easy baskets.
“He’s doing a really good job. It’s tough,” Randle said. “I know it’s frustrating. But that’s just the player that he is. He’s that special that nobody is going to guard him straight up. We gotta continue to try to help him out.”
Randle played very well with 27 points, eight rebounds and seven assists, McDaniels had a rare good shooting night with four 3s on his way to 19 points and eight rebounds and Reid hit 4 of 5 treys in a 20-point night. But Edwards missed 11 of 16 shots, including 7 of 9 3s and a point-blank layup in the fourth quarter. The Wolves also turned the ball over 16 times, which led to 22 points for Boston while forcing just four turnovers on defense.
“I think everybody has been playing good on my team besides me,” Edwards said. “I got to figure it out, figure out ways to help them. They have been hitting shots lately. I got to figure out a way to get myself involved in the offense by not letting the double-team take me out. I’ll figure it out.”
This is all part of the learning process, the beauty and the beast of the league. One day, you can be basketball’s next big thing, the charismatic, dynamic American deemed best suited to take the torch from LeBron James and Steph Curry. The next, you can be humbled, reminded that success in this league is not linear and that what you did last season does not guarantee that better is right around the corner.
Another NBA truism is that things are rarely as good or as bad as they might feel in the moment. Before the loss in Oklahoma City, the Timberwolves had won nine of 13, all of the victories against teams over .500 at the time. They were within three with two minutes to play in OKC and had the ball with a chance to tie the game against Boston on the last possession.
When he was done venting on Thursday night, Edwards shared a laugh with reporters about his Georgia Bulldogs falling to Notre Dame in the college football playoffs. As difficult as this season has been, he remains undaunted. The belief he has in himself and his team is unshaken. It’s time to go to work.
(Photo of Anthony Edwards: David Sherman / NBAE via Getty Images)
In a recent post-game interview, Edwards expressed his disappointment with the team’s lack of success, stating, “We just can’t seem to get it right. It’s frustrating to keep coming up short, especially when we know we’re capable of more.”
The Timberwolves currently sit near the bottom of the Western Conference standings, and their lackluster performance has led to growing frustrations among players, coaches, and fans alike.
As the team looks to turn things around and salvage what’s left of the season, Edwards’ frustration serves as a reminder of the high expectations placed on the young squad. Only time will tell if the Timberwolves can find the answers they need to start winning games and make a push for the playoffs.
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