How Anthony Edwards' hero-ball evolution began with Kobe and Michael Jordan - ESPN

TWO DAYS AFTER what Anthony Edwards termed the «most important game» of his career, securing a win against the Golden State Warriors to avoid an 2-0 hole in the Western Conference semifinals, the Minnesota Timberwolves star again found his team in another fight, on the road for Game 3.

With «Playoff Jimmy» Butler fully engaged, returning to the primary scorer role he'd mastered in Miami, Edwards — the league's No. 4 leading scorer in the regular season — began to simmer. Butler had scored 18 first-half points, leading his Stephen Curry-less squad to a two-point halftime lead.

Edwards, for his part, had scored only eight points in the first half, on 3-for-12 shooting, including 1-for-6 on 3-pointers. The Wolves had been outscored by 11 points during his 20 minutes on the court.

But then, as he so often does, the 23-year-old All-Star came out firing, his supreme skill and elite athleticism often leaving even an 18-year veteran such as Wolves point guard Mike Conley in awe.

«There's moments where I'll go home and I'll sit there and [think] I could be, right now in this moment, [in the midst of] being a teammate of one of the best players that ever played this game,» Conley told ESPN.

Edwards didn't just score points — 28 in the second half alone — there was panache in how he did it. His second-half highlight reel was a reminder of why the chiseled 6-foot-4, 225-pound shooting guard has already evoked comparisons to Michael Jordan.

There was his dunk, his team trailing by five late in the third quarter, when he launched from the semi-circle just inside the free throw line and finished with a right-handed hammer that reduced the Warriors' 6-9 power forward Kevon Looney to the basketball equivalent of a smashed bug on a