After the Timberwolves were torched by a plummeting Indiana Pacers team that was missing three of its best players and playing the second night of a back-to-back, Anthony Edwards went searching for a way to describe what Minnesota needed to do to fix a leaky defense. “You watch New York night-in and night-out, they don’t have great single defenders. Whatever their defensive plan is, that shit is great. They play great defense as a team at all times,” Edwards said after a 141-137 loss to the Pacers on Wednesday night. “I love watching them play defense. I feel like they’re the best defensive team in the league. They play hard. They take you out of your stuff. They press you.”
Anthony Edwards Rumors
All NBA Players
Position: G
Born: 08/05/01
Height: 6-5 / 1.96
Weight:225 lbs. / 102.1 kg.
Salary: $9,757,440
Born: 08/05/01
Height: 6-5 / 1.96
Weight:225 lbs. / 102.1 kg.
Salary: $9,757,440
Dane Moore: Anthony Edwards says it’s on the players, not the coach, for the Timberwolves to start playing defense: “Coach can’t come on the floor. He can’t do shit but tell us what to do… Shit, he just saying words. We gotta go out there and do the shit. Defense is effort.”
Karl-Anthony Towns: Anthony Edwards is the ROY
Jon Krawczynski: KAT on Edwards: “He’s the Rookie of the Year. I don’t know what else to say. He’s proven he’s the most talented player in the draft class. … He’s the best of the best.”
Anthony Edwards has played 1,436 minutes for the Timberwolves this season. His first 936 were much less productive and impactful than his most recent 500. The first overall pick has made a mini leap in recent weeks. Wiseman, the second overall pick, has only played 713 minutes, half of Edwards’ allotment. The Warriors’ internal hope is that his rookie path, pushed back by a wrist injury, trends similarly as his minute total spikes past 1,000 with a healthy amount on a nightly basis. But it isn’t just about the raw minute total. The details within clearly matter. The Warriors have now decided to tie his minutes almost exclusively with Green and Curry, at least temporarily scrapping his inclusion in the second unit. That gives him Green as a confidence booster and protector on the defensive end and Curry as the space-creator and pick-and-roll partner offensively.
And Edwards, No. 1 pick in the 2020 NBA Draft out of Georgia, said Barrett, the third pick in the 2019 draft, was the guy the Timberwolves wanted to decide the game. “We told Jaden [McDaniels] try not let Randle catch the ball, we’re going to make someone else beat us,” Edwards said on the Wolves television broadcast after the game. “Gladly RJ caught it and if he made the shot, we would’ve lived with it. Because that’s who we wanted taking the shot. We didn’t want anyone else taking it.”
