MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Minnesota Timberwolves have seen Anthony Edwards writhing in pain on the floor several times throughout his career, before eventually welcoming their star guard back to the game. This looked a little different. The sprained left ankle that forced Edwards out in the second quarter of Game 2 against Golden State on Thursday night even gave him a scare.
“This one, I was really worried about, actually,” coach Chris Finch said. “There are lots of ways being an elite athlete pays off. Being able to shake those things off is certainly one of them. But this one, I was really planning on not seeing him the rest of the game, to be honest with you.”
Edwards managed to make it back yet again, causing a roar from the crowd when he walked back onto the court for warmups right before the start of the second half. The 23-year-old finished with 20 points, nine rebounds, five assists, and three steals for the Timberwolves in the 117-93 victory over the Warriors that tied the second-round series.
“That one was crazy,” Edwards said. “But I’ll be all right.”
Edwards tried to finish a fast break with a layup that Warriors center Trayce Jackson-Davis blocked before landing on Edwards’ left foot as they both came down. Edwards immediately grabbed for his ankle as he sat on the floor under the basket. He was unable to put weight on his left foot as he was eventually helped off the court, after Golden State’s Draymond Green even came over to check on him.
Once Edwards reached the locker room, David Hines, the vice president for medical operations and performance therapy, went to work. “Once we got to like the third movement in my ankle, I’m like, ‘All right, it’s starting to feel good. If we tape it, I’ll see how it feels,’” Edwards said. “He does a great job of making sure I’m good before I get out there, so big shoutout to David.”
Edwards, a three-time All-Star who was fourth in the NBA in scoring during the regular season, had just seven points on 2-for-7 shooting before he got hurt. His production once he returned was strong enough to assure the Wolves and their fans there wasn’t anything to worry about moving forward in the series. Edwards went up to catch a lob from Julius Randle and dropped it in for a layup late in the third quarter, passing an important test for his ankle.
“Superman, for real,” teammate Jaden McDaniels said.
They had to survive a couple scares in Game 2, but the Minnesota Timberwolves evened their second-round playoff series 1-1 against the Golden State Warriors on Thursday. Minnesota went wire-to-wire in a 117-93 win over a Warriors team still reeling from losing superstar Stephen Curry for at least a week.
However, the Timberwolves seemed poised to lose their own leading scorer when Anthony Edwards went down with an ankle injury. So there were several sighs of relief when Edwards returned after halftime, with no apparent issue. He finished the game with 20 points on 6-of-13 shooting, 9 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 steals.
It was Julius Randle who led the way for the Timberwolves throughout the night, with 24 points, 11 assists, and 7 rebounds. Meanwhile, without Curry, Jonathan Kuminga came off the bench and led the Warriors in scoring with 18 points.
Game 3 is scheduled for Saturday at 8:30 p.m. ET at the Chase Center in San Francisco.
Edwards' injury occurred in the second quarter when Edwards went down to the floor clutching his left ankle. Replays showed the foot of Warriors big man Trayce Jackson-Davis landed on Edwards' ankle, leaving the 23-year-old sitting on the floor holding his lower leg as play went on. Edwards was later helped to the locker room, with athletic trainers preventing him from putting any weight on the ankle. The Timberwolves later announced he was questionable to return with a left ankle sprain.
However, over the course of halftime, Edwards went from barely being able to walk on a sprained ankle to running onto the court with the rest of the team. He was healthy enough to start the third quarter, despite the team up big with a 56-39 lead.
Again, videos immediately above and below were taken less than a half-hour apart. Edwards previously tweaked that ankle in Game 1 on Tuesday, amid a performance that was poor enough that Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch called out Edwards after the game.
The Warriors having to survive any amount of time longer than a single game without Curry is not an enviable position. The team's entire offense revolves around not just what the greatest shooter in NBA history does with the ball, but what defenses have to do when he doesn't have the ball.
With no Curry, the calculus of how you guard every player on the Warriors gets turned into basic arithmetic. So naturally, Kerr's plan for Game 2 was to throw everything against the wall and see what stuck. And that's how you become the first team in NBA playoffs history to use 14 different players in the first half.
Draymond Green is now perilously close to making that happen. The veteran big man and raconteur picked up his fifth technical foul of the playoffs in the second quarter, leaving him two techs from an automatic one-game suspension. The foul occurred Thursday night when T-wolves big man Naz Reid fouled him in the second quarter. Green responded to the contact from Reid by jumping and flailing his arms out, catching his opponent in the back of the head and sending him to the floor. The officials reviewed the play and deemed it a common foul on Reid and a technical foul on Green.
Not only is Green two technical fouls from a suspension, he's also two flagrant fouls from having to miss a game. Fortunately for a briefly nervous Target Center crowd, the Timberwolves responded with an 11-0 run to put the game out of reach again. When Buddy Hield hit the 3-pointer to cut the Timberwolves' lead to seven points midway through the third quarter, we would not have blamed you for thinking another 20-point comeback was underway, even with Curry in street clothes.
This postseason has seen an NBA playoff-record five comeback wins of at least 20 points, the most recent being the New York Knicks' unraveling of the Boston Celtics in Game 2 on Wednesday in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
As the Timberwolves look ahead to Game 3, they will need to continue their momentum and ensure that Edwards remains healthy while they navigate the challenges posed by the Warriors.
