NBA playoffs 2025 - Why Wolves' offensive evolution is stalling in West finals - ESPN

The Minnesota Timberwolves were reeling at the end of February.

They'd just lost to the league's worst team, the Utah Jazz, in a game in which Anthony Edwards was suspended for exceeding the NBA's technical foul limit. They were stuck with a 32-29 record, ninth in the West, and their big offseason trade of Karl-Anthony Towns for Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo looked like a bust.

In sum, Minnesota had seemingly regressed from upstart conference finalist to also-ran, and the franchise was dealing with an ongoing ownership dispute for good measure.

But in March, a switch flipped inside the Target Center. Over the rest of the regular season, the Timberwolves went 17-4, rising out of the play-in morass to the No. 6 seed. They beat the Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors in five games apiece — eliminating LeBron James, Luka Doncic, Jimmy Butler III and the injured Stephen Curry along the way — to return to the Western Conference finals. They even resolved their long-simmering ownership fracas.

And although the Timberwolves lost Game 1 of the conference finals in a blowout against the No. 1 seed Oklahoma City Thunder, they've proved they aren't your average No. 6 seed. Instead, they have a solid chance to become just the third No. 6 seed in NBA history to reach the championship round, joining the 1995 Houston Rockets, who won the Finals, and the 1981 Rockets, who lost there.

Ahead of Game 2 of the West finals (8:30 p.m. ET, ESPN), let's examine how the Timberwolves turned their season around, the stars who have stepped up and how exactly the top-seeded Thunder took it all away.

From March 1, the Timberwolves had the second-best record (17-4) and point differential (plus-11.4) in the NBA.

To be fair, they benefited