Anthony Edwards, Rudy Gobert and the dawning of a dominant Timberwolves defense

Just over three minutes were left in overtime when the two stars met at the top of the 3-point arc and locked eyes. The ball was in Jayson Tatum’s hands. The clock was ticking down. His Boston Celtics had a two-point lead and he smelled blood in the water.

Standing between Tatum and his quest to keep the Celtics as the last unbeaten team in the league was Anthony Edwards. Except Edwards wasn’t standing. He was crouching, knees bent, arms flexed and jaw locked as he prepared to go toe-to-toe with one of the best one-on-one scorers in the league. That he had five fouls and was up against a cunning foul-drawer never even entered Edwards’ mind. He had a score to settle.

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“He got the stop on me at the end of (regulation). And he was talkin’ smack at the jump ball in overtime,” Edwards said. “And I told him, ‘(Expletive), I’m comin’ again.’”

But the tide feels like it is rising in Minnesota at the start of this season, not because of Edwards’ ability to put the ball in the hole, spectacular as it was on Monday night against the rugged Celtics. The identity forming in this new version of the Timberwolves is on the defensive end of the floor. That is what has made these Wolves dangerous. This is where Edwards had to make his mark in that moment.

This is the matchup Tatum wanted. He had hit two free throws 30 seconds earlier to put the Celtics in front, and now it was closing time. He started the possession with Timberwolves defensive monster Jaden McDaniels on him, so he called Al Horford for a screen to get switched onto Edwards. The 22-year-old Wolves star knew exactly what was going on.

“He called me up for an ISO and tried to ISO me, and I’m like, ‘I play defense, I just got five fouls,’ know what I’m sayin’?” Edwards said. “So I had to show him I could play defense.”

Tatum dribbled between his legs as he measured Edwards and then started to his left. Edwards slid his feet with him, not giving an inch of real estate, then poked the ball out of Tatum’s hands. Tatum fell to the court on his backside as he tried to retain possession, and Edwards swarmed him to cause a tie-up for a jump ball. The 6-foot-4 Edwards then beat the 6-8 Tatum on the tip, a defensive stand that opened the door for a Timberwolves deluge.

Edwards fed Mike Conley for a 3 to put the Wolves in front 106-105 and then unleashed a ferocious flurry of shots himself to push them to a 114-109 victory, dropping the Celtics to 5-1 this season. Edwards shook Al Horford for a 19-foot pull-up jumper and then capped the flurry with a whirling drive around Kristaps Porzingis that preceded a one-handed push shot in the lane that sealed the victory.

there. he. goes. 🐜🐜🐜 pic.twitter.com/ma6Mdiv35u

— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) November 7, 2023

“Guys who like the moment are oftentimes few and far between,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said. “We’re lucky we have one on our team.”

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Edwards finished with 38 points on 15-of-25 shooting, nine rebounds and seven assists and the Timberwolves (4-2) are off to a 4-0 start at home for the first time since 2002-03. Tatum scored 32 for Boston but was outdone by Edwards 8-4 in overtime.

The Wolves have beaten the defending champion Denver Nuggets (7-1) and the Celtics (5-1), two powerhouses that could be playing in late May and June. Edwards’ scoring was dazzling again on Monday night, but that’s not where this game was won for Minnesota.

This game was billed as strength against strength, with Boston bringing the No. 1-ranked offense in the league to Target Center to face Minnesota’s No. 1-ranked defense. The Celtics came into the game with a 126.4 offensive rating, averaging 126.4 points and 16.4 made 3-pointers per game, blowing the doors off of their opponents with an average margin of victory of 18.4 points, a small sample that was certainly weighted by a 155-104 drubbing of Indiana on Nov. 1.

The Wolves viewed this as a measuring stick game, a chance for them to find out just how good this defense is as they establish themselves on the NBA landscape. They were the butt of jokes last season and stubbed their toes early this season with a jagged loss in Toronto and a collapse in the second half in Atlanta. After convincing wins over the Nuggets and the Utah Jazz, they looked forward to the challenge that Boston presented.

“It’s a great test for us,” Rudy Gobert said at the team’s morning shootaround. “Great opportunity to see where we’re at.”

There was a mini-letdown earlier in the day when the Celtics ruled out starting guard Derrick White due to personal reasons. White is a terrific defender, and his partnership with Jrue Holiday in the Boston backcourt gives the Celtics a pair of pit bulls that could have wrought havoc against Edwards and Mike Conley. But they still had Tatum, Porzingis, Holiday and Jaylen Brown.

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The Wolves put the clamps on Boston like no team has this season. The Celtics shot 39.1 percent for the game, including 28.2 percent (11 of 39) from 3-point range. They forced 18 turnovers and squeezed the C’s into a 99.0 offensive rating, an emphatic statement of legitimacy for their newfound defensive identity.

“They’re a championship-level team,” Gobert said. “They find ways to always stay in the game, always never giving up. We did the same. A lot of things didn’t go our way, but whoever came on the floor was ready to do what we do, was ready to bring us something.”

Porzingis was just 5 of 14 from the field for 20 points and Holiday was 4 of 16 for 12 points. Brown scored 26 on 10-of-21 shooting, but nothing came easy for them all night long.

“Obviously, they’re much better defensively,” Porzingis said. “They’re number one in the league, I think, which is a little bit of a surprise for me. But they are better for sure. They’re better and they showed something that I had not seen before from them.”

Leading the way is a rejuvenated Gobert. After averaging just 1.4 blocks per game last season, his lowest since his rookie year in 2013-14, Gobert came into the night averaging 2.4. He has blocked four shots in two of the first five games of the season. He only had three games with four blocks all of last season.

Gobert only had one block in 41 minutes against the Celtics, but he still dominated the game with his defense. Boston was 4 of 17 in shots taken in the paint but out of the restricted area, a direct result of Gobert’s aggressive contests. And there were plenty of occasions on Monday night where Boston penetrators got into the paint but did not even attempt a shot with Gobert lurking nearby.

Gobert had 14 points on 6-of-6 shooting and 12 rebounds. The Timberwolves outscored the Celtics by 24 points in his 41 minutes and were outscored by 19 in the 12 minutes he was on the bench.

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“He’s back to the Rudy that we had to face for many years, which is a real problem,” Finch said. “I can’t speak to what other teams’ philosophy is, but we’re doing a lot better job of making it harder for people to get to him, too. The drives are not clean, open-line drives like they maybe were a year ago.”

McDaniels deserves a lot of the credit for that. His defense on the perimeter has been suffocating, and Monday night was his best effort yet. He cut down on the unnecessary fouling and hounded Tatum and Brown. The two combined for nine turnovers, many caused by McDaniels’ long arms and active feet.

“Show me a clip where he got scored on in a one-on-one situation,” Edwards said. “They ISO’d him maybe like 10 times in the fourth and nobody scored on him. So he was the reason we won the game.”

It was an incredibly competitive, back-and-forth, rough-and-tumble game, bringing a playoff feel to an early November contest. On Monday morning, Gobert spoke about the importance of weathering storms and of having the mental toughness to respond when things don’t go their way. That was an issue for the Wolves last season.

“It’s not a boxing match,” Gobert said. “It’s not a one knockout match. There are multiple possessions that happen in the game. You’ve got to understand that sometimes you’re going to do everything right and the other team is going to score.”

Those words were prophetic because the Wolves saw plenty of adversity on Monday night. Karl-Anthony Towns was a non-factor, scoring just seven points on 3-of-10 shooting and missing six of his seven 3s. He did grab 10 rebounds but turned the ball over seven times and fouled out in 28 minutes. It was a nightmare of a game for him.

McDaniels missed eight of his first nine shots, including a point-blank layup in the second quarter. But he hung in there, scoring 15 points on 6-of-8 shooting in the second half and overtime, including a clutch 3 that tied the game at 101 with 1:41 to play and a pull-up jumper with 16 seconds left in overtime to ice the win.

CORNER POCKET. 3️⃣ pic.twitter.com/vLMCfBAGSX

— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) November 7, 2023

Gobert went 2 of 11 at the free-throw line, a night so bad that the Celtics deployed a Hack-a-Rudy strategy on a possession with the score tied at 98 in the fourth. Gobert missed them both, but he still held down the defensive end to such a degree that the Wolves were able to overcome those misses.

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Even the ultra-reliable Kyle Anderson had an off night offensively, missing 5 of 6 shots and turning the ball over four times. But he was still in the game down the stretch because Finch has such deep trust in his defense and decision-making.

These Wolves dug deep because they believe in their defense. When shots are not falling, when stars are fouling out, when they are kicking the ball out of bounds, they can still bear down and get a stop on the other end. They spent all of last season searching for an identity that they could just never find amid the injuries and frustration that blurred their vision. Now, they look in the mirror and have a crystal clear picture of who they are and what they need to do. They see a hard-nosed, physical, defensive-minded group that won’t back down.

“We don’t let nobody push us around,” McDaniels said. “We’re always being physical defensively. I feel like we’re a tough team. Super tough.”

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(Photo of Anthony Edwards and Jayson Tatum: David Berding / Getty Images)

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