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Karl-Anthony Towns directs his fury at a dominant Timberwolves performance

April 24, 2022
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Cities of Karl Anthony He’s spent most of his career trying to say the right things, trying to craft his image, and trying to be your friend. And where did that come from?

Prior to this season, he had a Minnesota Timberwolves she was NBA After thinking. Cities are rated as Soft, Empty Square Points, and Losing Player. In the wake of Timberwolves Meltdown vs Memphis Grizzlies In Game Three of the playoff series, all that old criticism and more were pouring out on him and his team once again.

Cities bore the brunt of it, his four shot attempts, the 50-13 Grizzlies race and his comments afterward, giving outspoken critics even more howl. In the two days before Game 4 on Saturday Night, people around the cities noticed a change in it. He was angry about losing Game 3, and angry about not getting enough touches as the game slipped in the fourth quarter. And for one of the few times in his seven years in the NBA, Townes told everyone so.

colleagues. coaches. friends. opponents. There was no one in his ark who did not understand that Townes was upset and demanded that things change. For once, he wasn’t worried about stepping on anyone’s toes. He was not meant to hurt feelings. He wasn’t choosing his words carefully. He wanted the ball, and he wanted it now, damn it.

“He was very focused,” said coach Chris Finch. “He was angry. The goal today was to go in, play angry and loose. I thought our guys did.”

Cities have Score more points Out of the 33 he placed in the game 4. He’s got more rebounds than the 14 he’s got against the Grizzlies. He was more efficient 8 for 17 off the field than he was on Saturday. But it would be hard to find a better match from him than his 119-118 victory over Memphis that may have saved the Timberwolves season. She tied her best streak out of seven with a score of 2-2 and turned Game 5 in Memphis on Tuesday into a decisive contest rather than the podium it would have had if the Grizzlies had taken this.

In one game after getting those four shots, Townes led the team with 17 attempts. He also hit the line for 17 free throw attempts, but he channeled all that anger and emotion into the overly aggressive Timberwolves so badly needed. Had they gone down, 3-1, with two home losses, the streak would have ended. Instead, Wolves pulled out of goal post on Saturday fully believing the streak was there to enjoy it. If he plays Towns like he did in Game 4, they might be right.

Some cities described Finch’s description of him as “angry” in the run-up to this game “vfair. It’s not just what makes me happiest when I’m angry.”

Cities have been wired from the start, and sometimes that can be a bad thing. If feelings aren’t heated up, he can complain to officials too much, force them to shoot wild rides to the basket and pick up ridiculous mistakes that threaten his ability to stay on the ground. There was plenty of that for him in games 2 and 3, both losing to Wolves, when he collected 10 personal fouls and 11 shot attempts.

Lots lined up to allow towns to have it. Some of the criticism had weight. His ups and downs with officials can sometimes seep into the rest of the wolves and cause them to lose focus. His fatal problem, in game 2 more than in game 3, can throw the attack out of rhythm. And the ease with which he was knocked out by some important games, especially just one shot in the final quarter of Game 3, was alarming.

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But the inability to maintain a 25-point lead in the third quarter wasn’t entirely attributed to Townes’ behavior or his fatal problem. Taking only one shot in the fourth quarter, wolf guards D’Angelo Russell And Patrick Beverly Combined to go to 0 for 8 in the period. Both Russell and Beverly take pride in committing a foul, but their inability to get it while looking for their shots was evident, as evidenced when Towns hit his only shot in the quarter, staring at his hands to suggest it. It’s been way too long since he’s gone without getting a shot.

He was asked about his lack of touches after the game and gave a surprising answer with “next question,” a rare short answer from one of the league’s most talkative players. The implication wasn’t that he didn’t like the question, he just didn’t want to say what he really had in mind about not getting enough touches. He saved that message for the movie session the next day and Game 4 on Saturday.

In years past, the darling may have bitten his tongue, preferring not to do a spectacle of him. Not this time.

“He was angry, I think, at a lot of different things, but not in a distraction,” Finch said. “I thought he did a great job of keeping his feelings in place. He played with a lot of passion, which he needs to do because it fuels his game. But he directed it to his game and nowhere else.”

This time he was focused. His anger was controlled. There was nothing standing in his way. Not a right knee injury temporarily knocked Anthony Edwards Out of the game, not another demonstrator was tackled when she climbed onto the field.

In pre-match drills, he went 3-for-4 from the logo, then buried three in a row from the top of the arc and started barking at anyone in particular. He came out strong in the first quarter, scoring only one field goal attempt, but hitting the goal line for eight free throws. Each time after his foul, he would chase and stomp on the logo and get back into the line, breathing deeply before each shot in an effort to calm himself.

“It allows me to calm down and get my Chi right,” Townes said. “I just feel like the free throws give me a good opportunity to put good energy on the ball, whether it’s the next shot for me (or) the next one for my teammates.”

Towns hit eight of 18 free throws at Wolverhampton in the first quarter, a staggering number of attempts for a team that often complains that it doesn’t benefit from suspicion with officials. For the match, the Grizzlies were called for 33 fouls on the Minnesota 23, and Wolves went 31 for 40 from the free throw line to 19 for the Grizzlies.

“I haven’t seen a conflicting, arrogant official match,” Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins said, adding later, “We know we have to get better. But from the start it was ugly, sloppy, sloppy, sloppy inconsistency.”

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Edwards ignored the knee scare to score 24 points. Beverly had 17 points, five assists, two blocked hits, and Jordan McLaughlin He had a whopping 16 points off the bench. McLaughlin did not play in Game 3, a decision that Finch said occurred due to “sSometimes you do stupid things.” Ho It was a 5-for-6 from the field and a 4-for-4 from a 3-point range. With Russell’s shot not falling again – he was 3 for 12 and scored 10 points – and owner beasley Oddly enough, not even trying to shoot at 11:35, the Wolves desperately needed to get McLaughlin out.

“Jordan McLaughlin,” Edwards yelled in his post-game comedy routine. “Anything you ask me about, that’s what I say. You may not want to ask me any more questions. Jordan McLaughlin. This is my answer. Everything. Everything.”

Beverley and Russell combined on 34 shots in Game Three. They only took 20 in Game 4, with Beverly moving 5 for 8 off the field and 4 for 6 of 3. The reduced volume from the starting backcourt meant the ball could be in the hands of the cities much more. The Timberwolves entered the board in Quadrant 1 Towns 3, looking at his hands again as if to say, “I told you so.”

He then proceeded to throw the entire bag at the Grizzlies, beginning with a euro move so glamorous that it might have to be called a “Dominican move” in honor of his mother’s legacy.

This one-legged clown Dirk Nowitzki has had it for a few years now. The more he mastered it, the harder the defense would be to neutralize him with a quick double-team, as the Grizzlies did for a second night in a row.

On the fourth, Finch stopped a play the team hadn’t been through much lately, if at all. Towns came out of the parking lot like a goalkeeper and let his shot fly, that broke the 107-107 tie. He only tried three seconds in the previous two games in the series.

“This is something we used to do a lot for,” Finch said. “We felt we could maybe take a good look at him there. He was in a good groove. Just the time to get him the ball. PB put on a great screen.”

He also had three assists, two of them Jared Vanderbilt Cut to the basket.

“He’s been really good right from the start,” Finch said. “Just being aggressive, putting pressure on them. Forcing them to blow the whistle to get to the free throw line. Things he hasn’t been doing in the last two games.”

Russell and Beverly were also combined to provide 12 assists. They saw that Towns had the hot hand early on and continued to feed him. Here is the recipe for progression to the next round: Play Cities over 40 minutes, get away from critical problems and dictate the terms of engagement. His last two matches were among the best in defense of his career. He plays the high wall to near-perfection, confused Ja Morante In the process, edge protection and grabbing bounces.

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“It starts with not having a lot of mistakes,” said Towns, who scored only three in the game. “I do my job and never forget to do my job, whatever it takes to win. Dominate the game and do whatever it takes to get some touch ups.”

His fourth quarter was clean: 13 points on a 4 for 5 shot, 2 for 2 of 3 with two rebounds, two free throws to close the game and a block from Morant to keep Wolves in the lead at 102-101.

“I saw the best big guy in the league tonight,” Edwards said.

If he really wanted to take part in that claim, that was the kind of game he had to make day and night. This is the approved standard for Nikola Jokic And Joel Embiidtwo players considered to be higher in the ranking of the mega man’s choice from Towns.

The Timberwolves will begin preparations for Game 5 in Memphis on Tuesday with the belief that they are better than the Grizzlies, and that the streak could easily be 3-1 if it didn’t fold in a big way during the last 13 minutes of Game Three. A strong case must be made that the Wolves have been the better team for longer periods of this series than the Grizzlies. But they also need to know that there are a lot of things working for them that they can’t plan to happen again.

Morant had 15 assists but was poor overall, shooting 4 for 13 and scoring 11 points. All five Grizzlies players have at least four fouls, with Garen Jackson Jr. pollution and Dillon BrooksAnd Desmond Ben (who led the way with 34 points) and Xavier Tillman All that is called to five. Wolves made another 15 free throws and stopped the Grizzlies in front of only six offensive rebounds, a very difficult maneuver to pull off against the best offensive rebound team in the league, yet they only won by one point.

The Wolves can expect a sharper, more vibrant Grizzlies at the FedEx Forum in Game 5. Cities have had two good games and two vacation nights in the series. It must be as cool as Saturday, because when it is, the Grizzlies can’t handle it.

Decency and decency have gone out of the towns window over the past two days. He told his teammates and coaches that the loss and the way they underestimated the stretch was unacceptable. He told them he needed the damn ball in his hands.

Some people may not like the way cities speak at press conferences. Some may not like the way he deals with officials. Some may hate it when they get into a nasty problem or when they flap their arms on a trip to the basket.

When he plays as he played in Game 4, and directs that anger and emotion in positive directions, it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks.

(Carl Anthony Cities Image: Joe Murphy/NBAE via Getty Images)

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