OKLAHOMA CITY — With Minnesota's season having come to a screeching halt just short of the first NBA Finals berth in franchise history for the second straight year, Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards made a promise to improve.
«I'm going to work my butt off this summer,» Edwards said after Minnesota's 124-94 Game 5 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday. «Nobody's going to work harder than me this summer. I'll tell you that much.»
The statement came after the Thunder, the league's No. 1 overall seed led by MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, made the 23-year-old budding superstar work for everything he got in the Western Conference finals. After he finished the regular season with a 27.6 points average — fourth best in the NBA — he was held below 20 in three of the five games against Oklahoma City.
He had 19 points in the closeout game and went 7-for-18 (1-for-7 from 3) with three turnovers. Minnesota was outscored by 29 points in the 39 minutes Edwards was on the court.
«They were the better team, they came out and beat us, punched us in the face,» Edwards said, «and we lost the game, we lost the series.»
He was hardly the only culprit in Minnesota's demise in Game 5. In fact, when the Wolves trailed 26-9 after the first quarter, Edwards had six points while the entire rest of the roster had mustered only three on 1-for-15 shooting.
«We lost our connectivity,» Wolves coach Chris Finch said. «But all credit to the Thunder. They certainly deserved this. They played outstanding. We came up short in a lot of ways.»
Minnesota committed 21 turnovers, leading to 18 points for the Thunder and igniting the crowd that celebrated its team's first trip to the Finals since 2012. Naz Reid (11 points, 5 rebounds) had five turnovers
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