With their 124-120 overtime win over the Timberwolves, the Kings became the only team to win a season series against the Wolves and the only team to win twice at Target Center this season. Yes, Anthony Edwards left this game for personal reasons at halftime, but the Kings were also missing their top guard in De’Aaron Fox and still won on the Wolves’ home court.
If you project forward, the Kings were the No. 7 seed in the Western Conference entering Saturday, and the Wolves were first. It’s possible the teams could meet in the first round of the playoffs. Should the Wolves be concerned that Sacramento will present them with a matchup problem? Jaden McDaniels emphatically rejected this.
“I really don’t worry about them when they come here,” McDaniels said. “I’m confident we could beat them four times in a row if we had to face them.”
McDaniels’ comment highlights what has become a truth when the Wolves are losing this season: They beat each other more often than another team outplays them when both teams are playing their best. If the Wolves are operating at the peak of their power, few teams in the Western Conference have a good chance of winning.
“For the most part, our speeches at halftime and during the game are, ‘All these things are self-inflicted,’” guard Mike Conley said. “Things we can easily change, and the most frustrating thing is that we know it. But the biggest thing is that it can easily be fixed within the house.”
If you look at most of the losses the Wolves have suffered over the last couple of months, every single one of them came down to something the Wolves didn’t do, as opposed to something their opponents did. There were several fourth-quarter collapses (plus a mysterious third-quarter collapse against Milwaukee) and games the Wolves could have won if their late-game execution had been better. On Friday, the Wolves looked ready to come back in the fourth quarter, except for a few grueling stretches where they failed to get a defensive rebound twice in the final minutes, which led to two three-and-outs of Malik Monk, then they had some defensive breakdowns that allowed Monk to get open for two more threes.
The last time a team took the floor and beat the Wolves was Jan. 3, when the Pelicans with Zion Williamson beat the Wolves 117-106 in a 24-led game in New Orleans. a potential bad matchup for the Wolves in the playoffs, especially in the first round, look at the Pelicans, who beat the Wolves every time Williamson played, and in both of those games the Pelicans looked like the better team. The Kings also have the distinction of beating the Wolves twice now, and they are also responsible for one of the losses that the Wolves had little chance of regaining on November 24, when Sacramento won 124-111. Despite that, almost everyone who spoke after Friday’s game didn’t think the Kings posed a problem for the Wolves.
Here’s coach Chris Finch: “We like the way we’re playing them. … I don’t really know what to think about it. [Sacramento beating the Wolves twice at home]. They have an identity. They play there every night. We know what works and what doesn’t work against them. Tonight I think our slow start and our offensive rebounding are the things that sank us.”
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Next, Rudy Gobert said his ability to guard Domantas Sabonis one-on-one prevents Sacramento from doing what it wants to do on offense.
“I actually think we get along really well with them,” Gobert said. “In Sacramento it was a very good game for us. The two home games were different for some reason.”
The Wolves have three more games against defending champion Denver to see how they stack up, but they are confident in their ability to limit Nikola Jokic’s superpower of finding the opening by using Karl-Anthony Towns to guard Jokic while Gobert roams the paint.
They feel like they should have beaten the No. 2 seed Thunder 3-1 this season, as they won both matchups against the No. 3 Clippers coming Sunday at home. One team they haven’t shown much against is Phoenix, who they played twice down the stretch and lost in a blowout at the end of a back-to-back road game in November.
There isn’t a game the Wolves feel bad about in the Western Conference. If they lose in the playoffs, it’s probably because their old bad habits of offensive stagnation and turnovers allow other teams to get into transition and deprive the Wolves of their superpower: half-court defense. Or maybe moments of immaturity and lack of composure arise at the wrong time. Their worst adversary will be themselves.
“We know that when we are able to be consistent in what we do, when we execute the game plan and when we share the ball offensively; when we do all of those things, we play at a very high level.” , said Gobert.
