The Wolves’ series came to a close all too soon with a loss to the Rockets on Wednesday night in Houston. Though this one didn’t end the way Wolves fans hoped, there’s a lot of room for optimism.
The Rockets were one of the best teams in the NBA this year, and they proved it against the Wolves. Minnesota fought hard, but at the end of the day, they just didn’t have quite enough to steal the upset. As much as the loss hurts, the Wolves can walk away from this season with their heads held high. They faced a ton of adversity, and they came away stronger for it. The Wolves will be back in the playoffs, and they may end up looking back on this series as a key piece in their development into an even more dangerous squad.
Before Game 4, coach Tom Thibodeau said that experience is the best teacher. Towards the end of the regular season, we heard pretty much all of the Wolves’ veterans talking about how difficult it is to prepare for the playoffs in practice—you really need to be there to know what it's like.
Now the Wolves have been there.
For young players like Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins, who in many ways carry the future of the franchise on their shoulders, this series could end up being exactly what they needed. Missing the playoffs hurts, no player wants to be watching the postseason from home, but being there and getting knocked out has to light a different kind of fire.
Towns needs to get stronger around the basket and learn how to better handle double teams. Wiggins needs to work on his consistency shooting the ball, and figure out where to go when his moves don’t get him to the rim like he expects. Now they know how teams will play them in the playoffs, and they can develop specific ways to improve. They’ll have tape from this series showing some of their best moments of the season, and some plays they’d like to have back. That’s valuable information, and the Wolves staff will be there to help them learn from this loss.
In many ways, this wasn’t the Wolves’ year, but they never quit. The loss of Jimmy Butler for the team’s stretch run undoubtedly hurt them, and they had trouble developing consistency in the later part of the season. But if you look at some of the defensive stands they had against the Rockets, if you look at the season-long development of their young talent, if you look at the way Butler, veterans Jeff Teague and Taj Gibson, and Thibodeau have instilled a culture of competitiveness and accountability to this locker room, it’s hard not to be optimistic.
One step at a time, Wolves fans, the team knows what it feels like to win, and you can't take that away. The future is still very bright.