As Timberwolves fight off the court, Pelicans stumble on it -

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MINNEAPOLIS — The Timberwolves lost their starting center on Sunday after he threw a punch at a teammate on the bench. They also lost their best perimeter defender after he punched a wall and broke his hand during the game.

Yet the Pelicans were the team that walked off the Target Center floor with dazed looks on their faces after imploding in the second half of a 113-108 loss to Minnesota in each team’s regular-season finale.

The loss means New Orleans will host Oklahoma City on Wednesday in the 9-10 matchup of the Western Conference Play-In Tournament. A loss to the Thunder would end the Pelicans’ season.

Both New Orleans and Minnesota came into Sunday’s finale knowing the winner would be in a much better position to earn their spot in the playoffs. After Rudy Gobert’s inexplicable altercation with Kyle Anderson on the bench and Jaden McDaniels’ self-inflicted injury, Minnesota was on the verge of a spectacular collapse in a pivotal game.

Instead, the Timberwolves showed the mental resolve the Pelicans lacked, as they allowed a 14-point second-half lead to slip away.

While the Timberwolves were putting together one of their most tough-minded performances in recent memory, the Pelicans were showing how much they still need to grow up before they’re ready to compete at the highest level.

“When you get to this point in the season, everything counts. … That’s not Minnesota; that’s us. That’s us not doing our jobs every single time down the floor,” Pelicans coach Willie Green said. “We fought. We played a solid game, but we didn’t do enough down the stretch. That’s where we’ve got to be better.

“There were small things we can correct, but this is a game that was gettable for us.”

Green’s postgame comments came just a few moments after he had given a fiery speech to his team. Green could be heard from outside the visitor’s locker room tearing into the Pelicans about the little things they didn’t take care of that allowed the game to slip away. He was still visibly upset when addressing the media, pointing out the importance of every possession, every mistake that could be the difference between winning and losing.

Those minor details are where the Timberwolves dominated in the end. The Pelicans’ bench was a non-factor, getting outscored 38-8. Minnesota grabbed an offensive rebound off its own missed free throw on three occasions. The Pels shot 48 percent on shots inside the paint and went 1-of-10 on 3s during the second half. They gave up 27 points off turnovers. Minnesota looked like the more desperate team in the second half and seized every opportunity the Pels left open for the taking.

It’s easy to repeat all the old adages about every possession mattering during playoff basketball. But this was a game in which that truth smacked the Pelicans right in the face (or punched them in the chest).

Injuries to so many of their crucial pieces have forced the Pelicans to fight adversity all season, and they’ve handled it fairly well for such a young team. But on Sunday, the adversity came, and the Pelicans responded like a naive group that hadn’t experienced a game of this magnitude before. The attention to detail was lacking, the shot selection was questionable and they fell back on some of the bad habits that hurt them in the past.

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“Little things make all the difference in the world. I missed two free throws down the stretch. I missed an open 3, and Herb (Jones) missed the putback on the layup. We’ve been in these situations before. We’ve just got to respond better,” CJ McCollum said. “It’s especially important in these games that turn into half-court games. We’ve got to position ourselves better to win down the stretch.”

The face of the Timberwolves’ urgency in the second half was star Anthony Edwards. With Gobert and McDaniels out and Karl-Anthony Towns in foul trouble early in the third quarter, Edwards played like a man possessed on both ends.

Brandon Ingram, the Pelicans’ star, played one of the best games of his career in Sunday’s loss, dropping 42 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists. But he was still the second-best player on the court when it mattered because Edwards had such a huge influence on the outcome. Edwards had 26 points (20 in the second half), 13 rebounds, four steals and four blocks.

Even Zion Williamson, who was out again due to his hamstring injury, had to pay respect to the Timberwolves star after the game.

nothing but respect 🤝 pic.twitter.com/cDgoQtYnFQ

— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) April 9, 2023

As essential as Edwards’ scoring was, his defense set the tone for Minnesota. He defended Ingram physically, making it tough for the Pelicans star to get to his spots. Ingram was sensational to start the game, outscoring Minnesota by himself in the first quarter, 21-18. But it became tougher for him to sustain that output. Among the 12 shots Ingram missed in this game, three came on attempts blocked by Edwards. Edwards was also the direct cause of three of Ingram’s four turnovers.

Conversely, Edwards seemed to get stronger as the game went on. One of his many plays that ignited the home crowd was when he flew in for a putback layup late in the fourth quarter while several Pelicans stood around and watched.

His only block of the game that wasn’t on Ingram came with 68 seconds left, when he soared to snatch a McCollum dunk attempt out of the air before going to the other end and scoring on an and-1. The sequence, purely based on Edwards’ effort, swung from the Pelicans potentially tying the game with a minute left to Minnesota taking a five-point lead.

Ingram and his All-NBA-level play brought the Pelicans’ season back to life in the last few weeks, and he had another dazzling showing Sunday. But Edwards stole this win away from him by playing harder than anyone else on the court. That’s the desperation New Orleans needs to bring in games with this much importance.

“He just got physical. I’ve got to find other ways to attack that other than standing at the top of the key. We will do that. We’ll be able to see them again in a couple days,” Ingram said. “He was getting physical, and they were clogging the lanes. (Towns) was kind of floating around. We’ve got to try and manipulate that.”

The Pelicans also fell back on their old habit of playing isolation ball and not opening up 3-point looks with ball movement. They ended Sunday’s loss going 3-of-21 from 3-point range. Trey Murphy, who came in with back-to-back 30-point performances, only attempted six shots through the first three quarters and only launched four 3-point attempts the entire game. The Pels have been much more mindful of looking for opportunities from distance to loosen up defenses lately, but they allowed Minnesota to prevent them from getting those looks too often.

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In today’s NBA, it’s tough to win when getting outscored by 30-plus points from beyond the arc. The Pels have found other ways to gain advantages when teams throw up 3-pointers at a higher rate than them. In this game, Minnesota was the one finding advantages in all the small areas.

With a must-win game coming up Wednesday, the Pels can’t allow themselves to get rattled and forget what they’ve done to get to this point.

“It’s a math equation at the end of the day. The team that takes more 3s, it’s one more point that they’re getting,” Murphy said. “When you’re behind in that category like we were tonight, it’s not a good formula for winning.”

Now it all comes down to Wednesday. The Pels have bounced back from tough losses before, and they’ll have to show that toughness once again when one of the league’s most dominant scorers in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander comes to town.

Adversity will hit once again at some point against the Thunder. The Pels must respond by sticking to the details that helped them bounce back when the season seemed lost. If they don’t, all the work they’ve done these past few weeks will go down the drain.

“What we can get out of this is being more disciplined. We know exactly where we messed up. We know exactly where we’ve got to attack. We’ve just got to go do it,” Ingram said. “We’ve got two more games to win to get into the playoffs. I don’t know how everybody feels, but I’m excited about the opportunity we have. We get to show everyone what we’ve got. I trust our guys to respond well.”

(Photo of Brandon Ingram, Kyle Anderson and forward Taurean Prince: Jeffrey Becker / USA Today)

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