After last season’s surprise Western Conference Finals berth, the shine has quickly come off the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Minnesota lost again on Wednesday, falling 115-104 to the Sacramento Kings to drop to 8-10 on the season. It was the Timberwolves’ fourth straight defeat and now has them sitting 12th in the West.
Speaking with reporters after the game, Minnesota star Anthony Edwards didn’t hold back. He slammed his team for being “soft as hell” and for their lack of defense and communication.
“We thought that defense was our identity, but it’s not looking like that at all,” said Edwards. “Our identity right now is … we soft as hell as a team. Internally … Internally, we soft. We can’t talk to each other. It’s just like we’re playing with a bunch of little kids, the whole team.
“[We gotta] do what the f–king coach tells us to do,” Edwards added. “The coach tells us one thing, and we go out there and do a whole nother thing. That’s not our gameplan. Like, the s–t that y’all see us doing on defense. That’s not what the coach is telling us to do … We go out there and try to maniuplate in our minds that we are smarter than the coaches. I dunno, man. S–t is crazy right now.”
Edwards also said that he felt the team was growing apart and that everyone had their own agendas, even going on to call the Wolves “frontrunners.”
Minnesota is struggling to integrate new pieces Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo, who arrived from New York in the Karl-Anthony Towns trade, into the offense. But the bigger problem may indeed be the Timberwolves’ defense. After finishing last season as the No. 1-ranked team by defensive rating, that ranking has now dropped down to No. 13 for Minnesota.
Edwards, though he is averaging career bests with 28.0 points per game on 46.5 percent shooting from the field, has been a bit of a problem himself too. He was recently fined by the NBA for losing his cool during a recent game, and it sounds like the Timberwolves are facing somewhat of a leadership void right now.
