The NBA’s hardest, meanest, nastiest team. No, I’m not referring to the Miami Heat, who this season have made a big show of their toughness. I refer to the once humble and unimportant Minnesota Timberwolves. The “brawl” that broke out during Tuesday night’s match against the Golden State Warriors at minute and forty-three seconds in was a gift to the Wolves. It was a chance to solidify a story that had been developing since the beginning of the season.
When I was younger, I tended to snap easily. Being an emotional child, I didn’t have many tools to control my feelings. My hands and my tears were with me. I was fighting, or rather, getting punched by kids I had no business fighting, far too often. I interacted with older children because I lacked self-control, not because I felt tough. My brain’s switch that should have warned me, “Hey, that guy is going to kick your ass,” wasn’t quite working properly. But I came out okay after all the licks. People occasionally need to learn difficult lessons in order to get their lives in order. I became more composed. to remain rational in my thinking.
The Karl-Anthony Towns Wolves have long seemed incapable of maintaining the poise required to achieve the much-heralded degree of success they have preached. The Timberwolves The term “trap games” has been adopted by Twitter (or X, as you may know it) to describe matches against teams who are missing their best players.
The Wolves have never been able to overcome their own mentality and emerge victorious in the games that they should have won. (See the team’s 3-7 record from the previous season against the league’s bottom four teams.)The game on Tuesday night was the ultimate trap game. Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, and Steph Curry were all out for the Warriors right away. Green attempted to choke the life out of the Timberwolves, forcing them to gather themselves. Enter Brandin Podziemski, the league’s poster child for unidentified Wolves murderers. I’ve witnessed this occur countless times. Entering the game, a player that most NBA fans have never heard of completely destroys the Timberwolves. The 15-point fourth quarter s Davis Bertan had in December of the previous season instantly came to mind. Every Wolves supporter undoubtedly has a game, aplayer, a veritable NBA nobody who dwells in the darkest recesses of their minds — a wicked puppet master, pulling on the strings of trauma in moments like this.
Throughout the course of the past year, the Wolves have both taken and delivered a ton of punches. Rudy Gobert once punched Kyle Anderson, and Jaden McDaniels once punched a wall. There have even been non-literal punches, such as when the Timberwolves attempted to easily win the game at halftime against the Atlanta Hawks, but Dejounte Murray had other ideas. In the second half, he delivered a masterful barrage of blows that left Minnesota reeling. The Wolves had a 1-2 record as the 20-point lead at the half vanished in front of our eyes.
Tuesday, though, was distinct. Every shot that Golden State made was retaliated against by the Wolves. That is the mark of a combat-tested, seasoned fighter. Minnesota has gone on a 7-1 run since the Atlanta game. Their only setback came on the second night of a back-to-back against the startlingly desperate Phoenix Suns at this point in the season.
They are tough, the Timberwolves. They are winning against every opponent head-on and doing it with gritted teeth and aggressive defense. The Wolves’ ball-hawking, extremely aggressive, but terribly ineffective defensive attack isn’t the same as what fans witnessed in the 2021–2022 campaign. Regretfully, Pat Bev, podcasters are not permitted in this locker room. Minnesota is a really hard state. Despite not punching Draymond Green in the face in response to the choke, Karl-Anthony Towns had his best game of the year in response. In response, he sealed the victory.
“It is better to be a warrior in the garden, than a gardener at war,” goes a Chinese proverb. Though Towns and the Wolves may never be regarded as true tough guys in the league, the hardest thing to do in situations like these is to remain composed. The NBA exists primarily to demonstrate your ability to win games, not to demonstrate your ability to win fights. After defeating Golden State on Sunday, it appears that the Wolves will win a lot more games this season.
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