Three reasons why the Minnesota Timberwolves will advance to the NBA Finals
Three reasons why the Minnesota Timberwolves will advance to the NBA Finals
The Minnesota Timberwolves are about to take on the toughest challenge the team has seen so far in the 2025 NBA playoffs.
The Oklahoma City Thunder have been the best team in the NBA so far this season by quite a bit. The 68-win team has seemed poised all year to return to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2016. But make no mistake — the Timberwolves won't just lay down here.
Minnesota is looking to make it to the Finals for the first time in the franchise's history. The Thunder might be tough, but the Wolves have a legitimate shot at advancing here, too. There are three big reasons why.
Anthony Edwards is a big game player
The Thunder defended Anthony Edwards well this season. He only shot 39 percent against Oklahoma City in five matchups this season. Thunder fans are probably confident coming into this series against the Timberwolves for that very reason.
But this is Anthony Edwards. You can throw out the regular season when it comes to this guy. He's a gamer in every sense of the word. Whatever the team needs, he will do when the time comes.
He's one of six players to score at least 1,000 points in the postseason before turning 24 years old.
That's an impressive list for Edwards to be part of — especially as the unequivocal best player on his team. With a guy like this, you can never quite count a team out even when the odds are slim.
The Timberwolves have a good zone
The Thunder have the best defense in the NBA, but the Timberwolves are an elite defensive unit, too. They feature length at almost every position and have several wings and forwards with a ton of switchability that can guard up or down lineups.
The Thunder struggled with the Nuggets' zone defense in the Western Conference semifinals. That's been an Achilles heel of Oklahoma City periodically throughout the season. Luckily for Minnesota, they've seen success with zone defense against the Thunder at certain points this season.
Here's some data from ESPN's Ramona Shelburne:
"According to GeniusIQ, Minnesota ran zone for 52 possessions against Oklahoma City in the regular season. The Thunder averaged just 0.81 points on those possessions. The Thunder will need to hit 3s at a much better clip than they did in this series if Minnesota goes with that approach defensively."
The Wolves haven't run too much so far this postseason — Minnesota hasn't really needed it. But, rest assured, we should see plenty of zone when the time comes in this series.
Julius Randle has been awesome
It's unreal how fantastic Julius Randle has been this postseason. He's playing the best basketball we've ever seen him play, which is not how things have typically gone for him in the postseason.
Through Randle's last two postseason runs with the Knicks, he's averaged 17.1 points per game while shooting 34 percent from the field, 3.9 turnovers to 3.7 assists and shot 28 percent from deep. That's as close to unplayable for an All-Star caliber player as it gets.
But Randle has been awesome in these playoffs so far. He's averaging 23.9 points per game while shooting 51 percent from the field and 34 percent from deep. But the shooting splits don't really tell the entire story. Instead, it's the combination of his scoring and playmaking that has turned the table for the Timberwolves.
Randle's ability to create and be a secondary playmaker for the Timberwolves has opened doors for Anthony Edwards, allowing him to play more off the ball and ultimately open up more of his offensive game.
The Wolves will need a lot more of this version of Randle to win this series. Considering how well he played through the first two rounds of the playoffs, Wolves fans should feel pretty good about their chances here.
This will be a tough series with a lot of tough matchups. And, while the Thunder might be the favorites here, it'd be a huge mistake to count the Timberwolves out.
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Indianapolis Star
40 minutes ago
- Indianapolis Star
Pacers can't get comfortable with 2-1 NBA Finals lead: 'We're still a long way away'
INDIANAPOLIS – A reporter started to ask Rick Carlisle a question about the Pacers being 3-0 in these playoffs in Game 4s when they've taken 2-1 leads in the first three games. The Pacers coach cut it off before he was completely done with the premise, but in a sense it served as the best answer he could give. "Yeah, listen, before you even ask the question, we're not getting into answering questions about the future or anything like that," Carlisle said. "I mean, you look at what Oklahoma (City) did the beginning of (Game 3), 16-7, boom, just like that. We have a lead at the end of the third quarter. Boom, all of a sudden, we're down five going into the fourth. There's no looking forward. We study some of the things that have happened leading up to this. Beyond that, I'm not talking about anything having to do with series standings or any of that kind of stuff. It would be foolish." Carlisle's response gives a pretty good sense of the Pacers' mindset going into Game 4 of the NBA Finals on Friday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in what will be the second Finals game in Indianapolis in 25 years after Wednesday's was the first. They are trying to maintain the edge they had going into Game 4 in each of the three series en route to their Eastern Conference championship by trying not to remind themselves they won those games. On one hand they're in the same situation they were going into each of those games in that they're up 2-1 with a chance to take a commanding 3-1 lead. On the other hand, in Game 4 in each of the previous three series, they were coming off a humbling Game 3 loss. Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle. In this series, wins and losses have alternated for the two teams so far with the Pacers having won Game 1 and Game 3 with the Thunder taking Game 2 in between. Also, the Thunder are the best team they've played so far by almost every measure having entered the playoffs with the No. 1 overall seed with a record of 68-14, which ranks as fifth-highest regular season win total all-time. When the Pacers lost to the Thunder in the regular season on March 29, Carlisle called the Thunder "the best team on the planet right now" and even though the Pacers still have a lead in this series, he's maintaining the same level of reverence for them. "That's the challenge before us right now, is to maintain," Carlisle said. "It's got to be a killer edge to beat these guys. We're going to be an underdog in every game in this series. It was 10 and a half in the first two games, five and a half last night, then tomorrow. It's a daunting challenge. Anything less than a total grit mindset, we just don't have a chance." The Pacers have never been this close to an NBA title before. In their only other Finals appearance they fell behind 2-0 and then 3-1 to the Lakers and though they won Game 5 to get within two wins of the title, they had to go back to Los Angeles for Games 6 and 7 because the format was 2-3-2 at the time rather than 2-2-1-1-1. So part of the challenge is keeping that reality where it serves them best. Acknowledging they can't guarantee for themselves they'll ever be in this position again, but also keeping in mind how much work there is to do and not getting ahead of themselves. "I think it starts from coach Carlisle, just keeping our attention on the main thing, taking it a day at a time, focusing on what's in front of us," All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton said. "I think that just trickles down. I think our jobs — me, Pascal (Siakam), Myles (Turner), James (Johnson Jr.), as leaders is to continue to share the same message that coach has. There's nothing to get excited about right now. We're still a long way away. ...There's no need to get super giddy or excited. There's still a lot of work to be done." And they know they're in for a punch from the Thunder, who have been every bit as good at adjusting after losses as the Pacers have. The Thunder have not only not lost consecutive games at any point in these playoffs, they lost consecutive games just twice in the regular season — once in November and once in April after they had clinched homecourt advantage throughout the Western Conference playoffs. They tend to be good at making adjustments and correcting mistakes and they see a lot they believe they can fix. They committed 19 turnovers in their Game 3 loss, for instance, and that's not typical for them at all. "Part of their pressure is affecting some of the way we're making reads," OKC reserve wing Aaron Wiggins said. "But that's more so in our control. We have to play at our pace, play the way we want to play and play our brand of basketball which is sharing the basketball and finding guys and creating opportunities. ... (We saw) a lot of controllable things. Turnovers. Our defensive lapses when we weren't making the right rotations and coverages after that. Offensively, just execution wise, making it easy for each other to find open shots and get looks." The Pacers scored 50 points in the paint after scoring just 34 in each of the first two games. Indiana clearly made adjustments to create more driving opportunities, but the Thunder still saw things they could adjust to. "A lot of it was us and things we could control," Wiggins said. "I think we just allowed them to be too comfortable. Their comfortability allowed them to play at their pace and find their rhythm and play the way they want to play." And generally, teams of the Thunder's caliber become more dangerous in the playoffs when they figure out what they can fix, which is why Carlisle wants to make sure the Pacers keep their edge. "We need everybody," Carlisle said. "We need everybody to put everything they have into it. That's how we've gotten to the Finals."
Yahoo
43 minutes ago
- Yahoo
A year ago Tyrese Haliburton was a punchline. Now he's the NBA's finest punch-out artist
Self-awareness may be Tyrese Haliburton's greatest attribute. That was obvious at last summer's Olympics as the 25-year-old All-Star was confined to the Team USA bench. Instead of hitting out at online fans who kept tabs on Indiana Pacers star's smiles, high fives and other displays of team spirit to make up for his lack of on-court statistics, Haliburton seized on the chance to dunk on himself. After the US pipped France in the final, Haliburton posted a selfie with his gold medal. 'When you ain't do nun on the group project and still get an A,' he wrote. Advertisement Schedule Best-of-seven-games series. All times US eastern time (EDT). Thu 5 Jun Game 1: Pacers 111, Thunder 110 Sun 8 Jun Game 2: Thunder 123, Pacers 107 Wed 11 Jun Game 3: Pacers 116, Thunder 107 Fri 13 Jun Game 4: Thunder at Pacers, 8.30pm Mon 16 Jun Game 5: Pacers at Thunder, 8.30pm Thu 19 Jun Game 6: Thunder at Pacers, 8.30pm* Sun 22 Jun Game 7: Pacers at Thunder, 8pm* *-if necessary How to watch In the US, all games will air on ABC. Streaming options include or the ABC app (with a participating TV provider login), as well as Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV, fuboTV, DIRECTV STREAM, and Sling TV (via ESPN3 for ABC games). NBA League Pass offers replays, but live finals games are subject to blackout restrictions in the US. Advertisement In the UK, the games will be available on TNT Sports and Discovery+. As for streaming, NBA League Pass will provide live and on-demand access to all Finals games without blackout restrictions. In Australia, the games will broadcast live on ESPN Australia. Kayo Sports and Foxtel Now will stream the games live, while NBA League Pass will offer live and on-demand access without blackout restrictions. This year, however, Haliburton has proved that he's no joke. His late-game heroics are the main reason why the Indiana Pacers are just two wins from the NBA title. Time and again during these playoffs Haliburton has snatched the Pacers back from what had looked like certain defeat – and with every M Night Shyamalan twist he orchestrates on court, he shows that no moment is ever too big for him. Where another player might struggle to add one clutch playoff bucket to his highlight reel, Haliburton has made a game-tying or game-winning shot in every round of this year's postseason – a heady accomplishment only Reggie Miller, Haliburton's Pacers archetype, can match. In the first round against Milwaukee, Haliburton beat Giannis Antetokounmpo for a layup to steal Game 5 in overtime and close the series. Late in Game 2 of the conference semi-finals versus Cleveland, Haliburton sank a three-pointer off his own missed free-throw to stun the home crowd and take a 2-0 series lead. In the opening game of the conference finals, Haliburton not only bounced in a buzzer-beater three to force overtime against New York. He celebrated by grabbing his neck and reprising Miller's notorious choking gesture from the 1994 conference finals series, triggering Knicks fans all over again as Miller looked on approvingly. Then, in the Game 1 victory over the Thunder in the NBA finals, the Pacers achieved their only lead when Haliburton hit the game's last shot with 0.3 seconds left to cap his team's fifth comeback while trailing by 15 points or more these playoffs – the most since Miller's Pacers stormed through the brackets in 1998. Advertisement Related: The unsinkable Pacers don't need the lead. They just need the last word | Claire de Lune Counting the regular season and the playoffs this year, Haliburton is a robust 86.7% on shots taken inside the final two minutes (including overtime) to tie or take the lead. The same fans who once joked about Haliburton's smiles-per-game at the Olympics have shifted to likening his uncanny talent for upending win-probability trend lines to basketball terrorism. Nicknames for Haliburton on social media include The Haliban and, when he beat Thunder in Game 1 of the finals, Himothy McVeigh, a play on the Oklahoma City bomber (It should go without saying that such wordplay is in questionable taste.) All of this has put the league, already under fire for its muted NBA finals spectacle, in the unfortunate position of having to astroturf another Haliburton nickname, The Moment, in hopes of stopping the more charged ones from spreading further. (Newsflash: it hasn't caught on with fans.) That Haliburton has suddenly emerged as the man for the moment is a development few outside Indianapolis saw coming. At the Olympics, Haliburton struggled to break a Team USA point guard rotation that included all-time great shooter Steph Curry and Derrick White, the freshly minted NBA champion from the Boston Celtics. Altogether, Haliburton sat out three of six games and played 26 total minutes in Paris – the fewest of anyone on the team. Speaking to ESPN's Jamal Collier last month, he'd call his Olympic experience an 'ego check' and said the online jokes hurt. (The smile, it turns out, was just a cover.) 'It got to the point where all that conversation was weighing on me in a negative way for the first time in my life, which was weird,' Haliburton said. 'Basketball has always made me happy. And for the first time I wasn't happy.' Adding to the insults: Haliburton was nursing a hamstring injury suffered during a Cinderella run through the 2024 playoffs that was cut short when the top-seeded Celtics swept the sixth-seeded Pacers in the conference finals. Advertisement The hits didn't stop there. As the playoffs began in April, The Athletic asked NBA players who they considered the league's most overrated player. With 158 anonymous replies (or more than a quarter of the locker room population), Haliburton won handily – with 14.4% of the vote – over Minnesota big man Rudy Gobert and Atlanta pest Trae Young. But Haliburton, who further confessed to learning a lot from how USA teammates Jayson Tatum (who also went overlooked in the Olympic rotation) and Joel Embiid handled criticism on their respective NBA squads, didn't let the disrespect get him down this time. 'I must be doing something right,' Haliburton said in response to the poll. 'My focus is on this locker room and securing victories. I know who I am. I'm confident in myself and not concerned with what others think.' Haliburton has shown as much throughout the season, wearing a goofy smile as he rips hearts out from coast to coast. All the while he has navigated the ancillary controversies around his game – from the NBA banning his father, John, from attending games as punishment for taunting Antetokounmpo; to Haliburton himself nearly upstaging Pascal Siakam's acceptance of the conference finals MVP award – with grace and maturity. 'When we brought him here, we had a vision,' Haliburton said of Siakam, shrugging off his unwitting echo of a popular meme from a past NBA All-Star celebrity game. 'We envisioned doing something like this, doing something special.' It just confirms what teammates already know about Haliburton: he's not playing for the spotlight. That was obvious again in the Pacers' 116-107 victory over the Thunder on Wednesday night – a nip-tuck affair in which Haliburton made the difference with his defense and distribution of the ball, and Indiana's bench carried the day. In one late-game sequence, he managed to outfox Gilgeous-Alexander – a solid off-ball defender – in a clever half court set piece from the left elbow. Instead of dishing the ball off to a cutting Miles Turner, who only had SGA to beat in the lane, Haliburton fired the ball past Turner to Aaron Nesmith on the opposite wing – who then buried a three over a wrongfooted Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to give the Pacers an eight-point lead with three minutes left. No, the play wasn't as sexy or as seismic as a Haliburton desperation heave. But there's no doubt it was clutch. 'I mean, I was like three months old last time they made the finals,' Haliburton joked to NBA TV while considering the significance of helping the Pacers to their first finals trip first finals trip in 25 years. 'As a group, every year we've taken a jump. We're here now, and we don't want to take this time for granted.' Now two wins from delivering the Pacers' first ever NBA championship (they had previously won three titles in the defunct ABA), Haliburton is on the brink of turning a series that began with low expectations into one that may forever live in NBA lore. It's quite the turnabout for a player who seemingly couldn't make the grade.
Miami Herald
an hour ago
- Miami Herald
Padres' Machado is on the verge of 2,000 hits. Could he be the last player to reach 3,000?
One night in April, after another line drive moved him closer to a rare milestone, Manny Machado heard a fellow member of the San Diego Padres raise a theory. Machado, the team's franchise third baseman, professes to have forgotten who said it. But the idea has stuck in his head. Maybe it was the fact that the club had just faced the Houston Astros and Jose Altuve, who reached 2,300 career hits Wednesday. Maybe it was Machado's proximity to hit No. 2,000. Maybe, more than anything, it was the audacity of it all. If Machado were to eventually reach 3,000 hits, could he be the last to ever do it? 'It does sound crazy,' Machado said, 'but at the same time, you kind of see how the game is going right now.' Machado, who turns 33 next month, finds himself on the doorstep of an increasingly exclusive club. There are four active players -- Freddie Freeman, Altuve, Andrew McCutchen and Paul Goldschmidt -- with at least 2,000 hits. Machado, with only 19 more hits, will make it five. Yet as recently as two decades ago, there were 27 such players. This downward trend might only be accelerating. Pitchers are pairing unparalleled velocity with a greater understanding of how to manipulate spin and ball flight. The contact hitter is not extinct, but home runs and uppercut swings still drive team success and nine-figure contracts. While extreme shifts are now outlawed, defenses continue to pursue optimal positioning. 'It's hard to hit the ball,' said Luis Arraez, the Padres' first baseman and a three-time batting champion. In 2025, the leaguewide batting average remains under .250 for a sixth consecutive year. If the season were to end today, the average on balls in play would mark a 33-year low. Arraez, 28, who has 915 career hits, secured the National League batting title last year with a mere .314 average. As players in their late 30s, McCutchen and Goldschmidt are long shots to even come close to 3,000 hits. Altuve was once considered a leading candidate, but he is showing signs of decline. Freeman is hitting as well as ever, but, like Altuve, is racing against time. Machado, meanwhile, has a chance to achieve something none of those decorated veterans did: become the 55th player to record 2,000 hits before age 33. He also has a $350 million contract that runs through 2033 and came with the understanding that he would provide the bulk of his production on the front end. So far, Machado, a six-time All-Star, has delivered few indications of offensive slippage. He spent much of the last three years playing through tennis elbow and then the lingering effects of reparative surgery. He still completed 2024 as the only active big leaguer to have hit at least 28 home runs in nine consecutive full seasons. Now, he is batting .320 with a seemingly healthy elbow and some of the best underlying numbers of his career. In a recent 3-2 loss to the San Francisco Giants, he lined an opposite-field single and pulled a two-run drive to become the 33rd player with 350 home runs by age 32. He was 3 for 5 with five runs batted in an 11-1 win against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday. 'It feels good to just be somewhat normal and be able to get some good swings out and not really be on the training room table every single day,' Machado said. Mike Shildt, the Padres' second-year manager, said he was seeing more 'consistency and clarity' from Machado. 'I just see a guy that's really comfortable where he's at, trusting the guys around him and not making the situation bigger than it is,' Shildt said. 'Just putting a good stroke on it, which is one of the best right-handed swings I've seen.' The team's hitting coach, Victor Rodriguez, added: 'He's healthy. He's not searching. He's not trying to feel how he can be comfortable. He's comfortable. And you see Manny sometimes get out of it, but the next day he's really focusing on getting back to the big part of the field and being himself.' Machado has been that guy from the beginning. On Aug. 9, 2012, when he was 20, he skipped over Triple-A and landed in a playoff chase with the Baltimore Orioles. In his second at-bat, he tripled into the right-center gap for his first career hit. In time, Machado turned consistent doubles power into 30-homer seasons. He won a Platinum Glove in 2013, given to the best overall defensive player in each league, and settled in as one of the finest defenders of his generation. After two knee operations cost him time early in his career, he demonstrated what would become another defining quality. Since 2015, Machado has started more major league games than anyone else. His only trip to the injured list over the last decade came in 2023, when a fractured hand forced him to miss two weeks. His durability reminds Los Angeles Angels Manager Ron Washington of Adrián Beltré, the third-base contemporary Machado most admired until Beltré retired in 2018. 'Injuries never stopped Adrián Beltré from playing,' said Washington, who managed Beltré for four seasons with the Texas Rangers. 'Adrián Beltré made other people want to be everyday players. There's a lot of guys that couldn't play every day, but because they were around Adrián Beltré, they'd think they could play every day. 'That's the kind of player that Manny Machado is. He makes everybody else want to come on the field and play.' As the games have piled up, so have the hits. Machado reached 1,500 hits in 2022, becoming the sixth third baseman to cross that threshold by age 29 -- and the first since Beltré in 2008. He has batted at least .275 in every season since his rookie campaign, and his gap-to-gap approach holds up in offense-suppressing venues. Given their continuing performances, Machado and Freeman, the Dodgers' metronome of a first baseman, appear to be the safest current picks to eclipse 3,000 hits. Both have supplied all-fields production in eerily similar fashion. Since the Statcast era began in 2015, Machado's batted-ball profile breaks down as follows: 37% to the pull side, 37% up the middle and 25% to the opposite field. The same goes for Freeman, who at 35 is leading the NL in batting average. 'Manny and Freddie, they came from a different era with a different philosophy and a different skill set on how to approach hitting, and they've been able to survive,' Shildt said. 'And yeah, their talent's extraordinary, but it's not so extraordinary that other people can't follow it. But the industry, including the amateur level, is tripled up where you're just devaluing the hit. It's not valued as highly.' A little more than three years have passed since Miguel Cabrera, an all-fields slugger Machado studied closely, became the 33rd and most recent player to enter the 3,000-hit club. Freeman and Altuve, with perhaps a handful more seasons, could approach elite territory around their 40th birthdays. Even Machado is far from a guarantee. Of the 10 players this century to reach 2,000 hits by age 32, five -- Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Beltré, Albert Pujols and Cabrera -- went on to attain 3,000. Victor Rodriguez, who worked as Cleveland's assistant hitting coach before the Padres hired him, suggested that 2,500 hits would be enough to earn Guardians third baseman José Ramírez entry into the Hall of Fame. (Ramírez, 32, has 1,581.) Washington, whose career in professional baseball began in 1970, said he could envision a world in which Machado winds up being the final player to amass 3,000 hits. 'It's not the pitching, it's the players,' Washington said, adding, 'You need pure hitters to reach that.' Future applicants will also need the kind of longevity Machado is tracking toward. Twenty-eight of the 33 members of the 3,000-hit club played in at least 20 big league seasons. Only one, Ichiro Suzuki, arrived in the majors after his 23rd birthday. Twenty-six made their debuts before turning 22. Sitting at his locker on a recent afternoon, Machado pointed out that the number of players who have ever reached the major leagues -- now almost 23,500 -- would not quite fill half of Petco Park. He marveled at that fact, as well as his proximity to 297 players who have crossed a lofty threshold. 'It's going to be pretty cool, man,' Machado said. 'Obviously, it always takes you back to that first hit. You kind of reflect on how that was your childhood dream, to get a hit in the big leagues. And now you're pushing 2,000, which is crazy.' He also considered a certain theory. Maybe one day the likes of Padres center fielder Jackson Merrill and Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. will have the opportunity to disprove it. Maybe future legislation will help swing the game back in favor of hitters. Maybe, if Machado does not do it, someone else will. Actually, he sounded certain of it. 'I'm pretty sure it will continue,' Machado said. 'We're going to be seeing a lot of great players come through the minor leagues and be really good baseball players and break a lot of records.' Still, as Machado marches toward his 2,000th hit and an even greater milestone, his career already puts him in rare territory. He could end up among the last -- if not the very last -- of his kind. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Copyright 2025
