The Minnesota head coach made poor decisions that cost the Wolves the game.
I'm mad at Chris Finch.
I'm furious about the decisions made in the final moments of Friday’s game. I can only imagine what it must have been like for diehard Minnesota Timberwolves fans to watch their head coach flounder at the end of Game 2 of the Western Conference finals—to see him make the wrong substitutions, the wrong play calls, and the wrong defensive plan.
Look, I don’t have a real stake in this. If the Wolves lose this series, it won’t matter to me in the grand scheme of things. But, with the Utah Jazz already in their offseason, I have a chance to enjoy basketball as a fan, which is rare for me. It’s a small window where I can watch the NBA without pure objectivity, and I hitched my wagon to the Wolves train.
Why? Because Mike Conley might be the best overall person I’ve covered in my 11 years covering the NBA. Because I watched Rudy Gobert day after day, and rooting for him gives me another familiar piece to latch onto. Because Anthony Edwards is 22 years old and just so good and so fun to watch.
So, I went into Friday already pulling for the Wolves. If they had come up short due to a talent disparity alone, I would have tipped my proverbial cap to the Mavericks. But that’s not how things unfolded. Instead, the Mavericks outmaneuvered Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch, making me rethink my decision to put faith in him.
There were certainly reasons to be upset with the coaching earlier in the night, but let’s focus on the final moments of the game.
With 47 seconds left to play, the Mavericks challenged an out-of-bounds call and won the challenge (the fact that the officials could not review that play and correctly assess Kyrie Irving a foul is a whole other column for another day). At that moment, with just a two-point lead over the Mavs, Finch took Mike Conley out of the game and put Rudy Gobert in.
You guys know the Mike Conley I’m talking about, right? The one who was defensively huge and a large reason the Wolves mounted an 18-point lead earlier in the game on Friday. The one Anthony Edwards credited with fixing the Timberwolves' offense this season. The one who is by far the best decision maker on the Timberwolves roster. The one whose nickname is literally Captain Clutch. That’s the guy Finch subbed out of the game with 47 seconds to play.
On the ensuing possession, the Wolves' defense rotated perfectly, forcing Luka Doncic to take a tough mid-range, fadeaway jumper. The Timberwolves secured the rebound and crossed half court with 25.7 seconds left on the game clock and 18 seconds on the shot clock.
The problem was that the ball wasn’t in the hands of the best decision maker on the team. It was in Edwards' hands. I’m not saying you don’t want the ball in his hands at the end of a game. I would love to see him coming off a screen to get the ball and make a scoring play, and there’s probably a day in the very near future when he is the guy making all the late-game decisions. But on Friday, he went 5-for-17 on the night, and Conley was clearly the guy you wanted running that final offensive possession.
What ended up happening was Edwards dribbled into traffic, missed a wide-open Jaden McDaniels in the right corner, picked up his dribble too early, and then made a horrible pass to the left side of the court that went sailing out of bounds with 12.8 seconds left to play.
Finch himself even said it was a mistake that Conley wasn’t on the floor.
"That’s on me in the sense that I should have called a timeout to get Mike back in the game,” he said.
Yes. That’s on him. It’s also on him for letting Edwards do whatever he wanted instead of making a play call that resulted in a clean look or instructing Edwards to drive into the paint and draw contact.
Then, on the other end, after a Mavericks timeout that should have given the Wolves ample time to stress the need to overplay the 3-point line, the defense wasn’t ready.
Minnesota was still in the lead, 108-106. If they blitz, double-team, or even overplay the 3, the worst-case scenario is the Mavericks score two and the game goes to overtime. Allowing a 3, especially from Luka Doncic, could mean losing the game, which is exactly what happened.
McDaniels dropped after getting switched onto Dereck Lively, leaving Gobert on an island to guard one of the best step-back shooters we’ve ever seen.
And I know what some people will say: Gobert is the Defensive Player of the Year; he should be able to guard that. Stop. When Marcus Smart or Ron Artest or Gary Payton were dunked on by big men, no one doubted their defensive ability. They weren’t meant to stop those kinds of plays. Gobert is an incredible defender deserving of his four DPOY awards, but that doesn’t mean he’s best at guarding in isolation against one of the best step-back shooters ever.
Well, the Mavericks did a great job of getting the switch and making it hard to double. Yeah, that stuff happens all the time. McDaniels should have been told that Naz Reid would cover the post so they could pressure Doncic on the 3-point line. There should have been a major plan to prevent the ONE thing the Wolves didn’t want to happen. I know the Mavs flattened out and Edwards was wary of leaving Irving on the right side. That’s fine. But McDaniels should have been instructed to double. The Wolves have been great when forced into rotations and help defense, and they should have done that on the final Dallas possession.
Maybe the fault lies with McDaniels and not Finch. However, consider Finch’s response when asked if he considered doubling Doncic:
“No. The idea was to switch up, press him inside the 3-point line.”
OK. So Gobert, who had five fouls, should have been overplaying the 3 and pressing Doncic to force him inside. Bad idea. A defender with more perimeter experience and less likelihood of fouling or biting on a pump fake should have been there, or it should have been a double-team.
Instead, casual NBA observers will pile on Gobert over the next two days, and he will pay the price for Finch’s missteps. Meanwhile, Minnesota fans watched a chance to tie the series go up in flames, and now the Timberwolves head to Dallas, trailing 2-0.
There’s no denying that Doncic is one of the best players in the game and made an unreal shot on Friday night. He’s a machine and deserves all the credit for what he does. That doesn’t absolve Finch. In fact, it makes his decisions look worse.
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