MINNEAPOLIS — Drastic times call for drastic measures.
The Minnesota Timberwolves’ loss to Portland on Friday night had many familiar elements. The Wolves got off to another slow start, something that has plagued them for much of the season. They were killed on the offensive glass and had some untimely turnovers against an under-.500 team on their home floor.
However, there was something new that came out of the 108-104 loss, as Wolves coach Chris Finch offered some rare, blunt assessments of Julius Randle’s performance.
The Wolves led 104-103 with 35 seconds to play. But the Blazers got two offensive rebounds on their next possession, which ended in a 3-pointer from Jerami Grant to put Portland up for good, a critical home loss for the Wolves just as their schedule is about to get particularly daunting.
Portland grabbed 18 offensive rebounds, leading to 22 second-chance points. Randle, who is averaging a career-low 6.8 rebounds per game, grabbed only five of them against the Blazers. Just three of those were on defense.
“All’s we gotta do, we’re up 104-103 and all we have to do is get a rebound and we can’t,” Finch lamented. “There’s like a lag time from the time the shot goes and we take a breath and we look up. They’re flying around and we’re delayed in our reactions. It’s been that way for a while. It’s just not good enough.
“We knew our guards needed to rebound. Ayo (Dosunmu) did a good job on the defensive glass. Rudy (Gobert) did a good job, but after that, we’ve got to have more rebounding. Julius has three defensive rebounds. That’s not good enough. It’s just not good enough.”
In their two years together, Finch has never been critical of Randle in public. The two have a close relationship, dating to their days together in New Orleans, built on trust and belief in each other. There are candid conversations between the two during film sessions, at practice or in huddles during games. But Finch understands that Randle best responds to support expressed in his interviews and postgame press conferences. He knows Randle felt burned at the end in New York, and his empowering approach paid off in a major way in the playoffs last season.
The mercurial Randle had been on an upswing of late, scoring 32 points in back-to-back games against Oklahoma City and Phoenix and spearheading a rout of Utah on Wednesday night. So for Finch to choose to publicly criticize Randle’s play after this game speaks to the desperation he feels.
At 43-28, Minnesota is tied with Denver in the West, though the Nuggets hold the tiebreaker. The Wolves are 3 1/2 games ahead of seventh-place Phoenix with 12 games to play, making the Play-In Tournament unlikely for them, but not impossible. They are in a virtual tie with Houston (42-27) for fourth place, which would give them home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
Watching the Wolves come out flat against the Blazers, giving up 68 points in the first half and turning the ball over five times in the first quarter, apparently was enough for Finch to go somewhere he rarely goes.
Randle did not argue with Finch’s assessment.
“Just gotta go get the ball,” he said. “Sometimes it’s not tactical or all that stuff. We just gotta go get the ball out of the air. They are quicker to the ball than us right now. We shouldn’t lose games from rebounding.”
But they do. The Wolves are 15th in the NBA in second-chance points allowed. Only five teams behind them have winning records. They are 17th in defensive rebound percentage, and 24th over the last 15 games. Only Utah, Portland, Brooklyn, Golden State, Washington and Memphis are worse in that span. They are 17th in defense over the last 10 games, an inexcusable number for a team with Gobert in the middle.
The backbreaker came on Grant’s 3, which was generated after Deni Avdija chased down a miss. Had the Wolves secured either of the two available rebounds on that possession, they would be the No. 4 seed right now.
“That one rebound, not to say that’s why we lost, but you get down in these games and they’re one-possession games, two-possession games and you’re giving a team three, four, five opportunities to get a crack at it,” said Dosunmu, who had 17 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists. “They’re high-level players and they can hit you where it hurts.”
Gobert had 18 points and 15 rebounds on Friday, but he didn’t escape blame, either. He had major problems with Blazers center Donovan Clingan in the first half, surrendering 17 points and 11 rebounds to him as the Blazers built an 18-point lead. Clingan had just four points and one rebound in the second half, but the adjustments came a little too late.
Grant’s 3 put the Blazers up 106-104, but the Timberwolves had the ball and a chance to tie or take the lead with 22 seconds left. Finch said he drew up a play for Randle, but Portland’s dogged defense blew it up. So the ball ended in Donte DiVincenzo’s hands, and he drove to the rim and flicked a contested layup toward the rim. It was off the mark, and Gobert had two chances to tie the game, but he missed both tip-ins and the Wolves lost another important game.
“I should’ve came down with two hands and secured the ball first,” Gobert said. “But I’ve made those tip-ins before, too. In the heat of the moment, I thought the tip-in was the best option. Watching it, securing the ball with two hands, then I get into position to go back up and maybe get an and-1.”
Gobert tends to try to bat the ball in the air to retain possession. But Finch said that was the wrong approach in that moment.
“Rudy had a good chance on the rebound, but instead of playing volleyball, go grab that thing,” Finch said. “Then maybe they foul you or something like that. We got two looks at the basket.”
Finch has to take some ownership as well. The Wolves did not have Anthony Edwards (knee) or Naz Reid (ankle) available for the game, but Bones Hyland was in a groove with 17 points in 22 minutes. DiVincenzo had struggled for much of the night, going 3-for-12 from 3-point range. However, on the final offensive possession, when the Wolves needed a bucket, Finch kept DiVincenzo in the game rather than going back to Hyland, a better ballhandler and shot creator.
Finch also needs to figure out why his team comes out flat so often. The Wolves trailed by seven in the first quarter and fell behind 66-48 with two minutes to go in the second quarter.
“I think it’s more mental. I don’t think it’s physical,” Gobert said. “So maybe the warmup or whatever we do, just being out the gate, fired up out the gate so we can get to a great start. It changes everything when we do that.”
The Wolves held Portland to 40 points in the second half, but they shot 39.6 percent from the field and 32 percent from 3 and scored just 18 points in the fourth quarter, letting an important game slip away.
“We feel like we gave the game away,” Randle said.
They have done that a lot this season, which is why they are in such a dog fight right now. They play at Boston on Sunday, then come home for games against Houston and Detroit. Six of their final eight games are on the road.
“You gotta be able to bounce back, but it definitely is frustrating because you understand the magnitude and significance of every play, every game,” Dosunmu said.
