Minnesota Timberwolves at New Orleans Pelicans
Date: December 24th, 2025
Time: 7:00 PM CST
Location: Smoothie King Center
Television Coverage: FanDuel Sports Network – North
Radio Coverage: Wolves App, iHeart Radio

The Wolves Escape Disaster in the Big Easy. Now They’d Better Learn From It.

A two-game trip to New Orleans looked like the NBA’s version of picking up two cupcakes at the register. Spend a quick 72 hours down the Mississippi, slap around the worst team in the league twice, and head back home 14–8 with a shrug. That’s how it looked on paper. But anyone who has spent more than five minutes with this franchise knows exactly how Minnesota handles “easy wins.” They don’t walk around traps. They sprint headfirst into them.

And on Tuesday night, they nearly found themselves wrapped up in the net like crawfish in the bayou.

Minnesota needed a miracle just to survive regulation. An Anthony Edwards kamikaze drive to the rim with two seconds left bailed the entire organization out of a night that should’ve been unacceptable. That heroic basket tied the game and bought the Wolves five precious minutes. In overtime, the team finally remembered they were actually good at basketball and played up to their potential. It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t proud, but it was a win: Wolves 149, Pelicans 142.

That sentence alone probably made a few Timberwolves fans throw their phones at their coffee tables all over Minnesota. Not because of the win — because of the 142. Because on the road against the worst team in the league, Minnesota somehow gave up 103 points in the first three quarters. The Wolves treated the first half like an outdated preseason scrimmage; a choose-your-own-misery highlight reel of flat-footed closeouts, vapor defense, and turnovers so casual they looked like Vegas Summer League.

If you watched it from beginning to end without turning off the TV, yelling obscenities, or entering a stress-induced coma, congratulations. You’re a stronger person than the rest of us.

Let’s be clear: Minnesota had absolutely no interest in playing like adults for the first 30 minutes of this game. The Pelicans, a collection of rookies and role players, ballooned their halftime lead to ten late in the second quarter and spent most of the third convincing the Wolves that this might actually be the night they got a rare win. Minnesota did just enough late in the third to drag the game back into arm’s reach. But even that wasn’t enough to shake New Orleans, who went up 4 with 48 seconds left and the ball.

At the time, ESPN’s win probability dropped the Wolves to just 10.8% to win the game. Honestly, that might have been generous. The Pelicans had control of the situation, the clock, and the momentum. Minnesota needed a miracle, and they received three:

DiVincenzo, after missing a layup and botching the putback, somehow knocks the ball loose from Jose Alvarado.McDaniels recovers it and hits a ridiculous high-degree-of-difficulty banker to cut it to two.Minnesota gets the stop, Edwards slashes to the rim, and ties it.

If you wanted a “heart pounding, pulse racing, sweat-through-your-shirt” win, this is the exact drug NBA fans inject into their veins. If you wanted a sign of maturity from a team that should’ve swept through this matchup? No such luck.

And that’s the real problem.

It isn’t that the Wolves almost lost. It’s that they conducted themselves like a team that feels entitled to wins instead of earning them, against literally the worst team in the league. One more bad bounce on one of those Pelican threes, the ones that hit the rim, rolled to Baton Rouge, then fell back in, and we’re talking about the absolute worst loss of the season.

Minnesota avoided disaster. But they certainly didn’t avoid embarrassment.

To their credit, a handful of Wolves did contribute like professionals.

Rudy Gobert was excellent: 26 points, 13 boards, 9-for-10 from the field, 8-for-10 from the line. When your defensive anchor is shooting 80% from the stripe in crunch time, you know the basketball gods have decided to spare you.

Jaylen Clark deserves his flowers too. The kid changed the tone of the game. When he came in during the third, his defensive chaos finally slowed the Pelicans. His on-ball pressure and willingness to get dirty helped swing momentum when Minnesota looked one possession away from a total collapse.

And then there’s Anthony Edwards, who showed up like the hero in a final boss battle. 44 points. Shoulder the offense. Carry the team. Play Superman. Save the city. Repeat.

Edwards did everything down the stretch — scoring, facilitating, refusing to crack. He bailed the franchise out when it looked like they were one possession away from reenacting the Portland Debacle of 2024. It was a monster outing. The kind of performance that reminds the world why he’s the future of the league.

But even Superman shouldn’t be asked to stop train wrecks of his own team’s making.

The Lesson? You Got Lucky. Now Fix It.

No ticker-tape parade will be thrown for beating the 3-win Pelicans in overtime. There will be no framed score sheet, no commemorative DVD. Just deep relief and the uneasy knowledge that it was way too close.

And now the Wolves get to do it all again in 48 hours.

New Orleans is going to walk into the rematch hunting your heart like a catfish, believing, knowing, that they were one bounce away from stealing the first one. The Wolves have to treat Game 2 the way a real contender treats a bad opponent: show up, hit them in the mouth, and leave no doubt.

No charity. No adrenaline-dump comebacks. No “play with your food” nonsense.

Keys to Game 2: Don’t Tempt Fate Twice

Key #1 — Play Like the Better Team

Don’t recreate the sequel to your own trauma. Don’t wait until the fourth quarter to play defense. Don’t let the crowd smell blood. Minnesota cannot afford another night of lazy switches and half-speed closeouts. Step on the Pelicans’ throats early and keep your foot there. If you let desperate teams stick around, they will absolutely try to rip your heart out.

Key #2 — Fix the Perimeter Defense

Clark’s minutes helped late, but the Pelicans torch was real at 57% from deep. Some of those shots bounced off the rim like college beer pong before finding their way in, but that doesn’t mean Minnesota played sound defense. The Wolves repeatedly lost shooters, failed to close out, and gave New Orleans effortless rhythm looks. Regression to the mean is not a strategy. Contest shots. Recover to the corners. Make the Pelicans work for threes instead of gifting them.

Key #3 — Stop Chucking and Start Running the Offense

Minnesota shot an absurd 51 threes, not because they were carving up the Pelicans’ defense, but because they stood around, dribbled, and launched. Randle went 0-for-3. Conley went 0-for-4. Dante 5-of-15. You can’t win consistently playing “my turn / your turn / YOLO ball.” New Orleans doesn’t have an elite rim protector. Minnesota should’ve been vulture-attacking the paint, not reenacting the 2017 Rockets.

Shoot threes? Yes.
Shoot good threes? Absolutely.
Shoot 51 because you forgot how to run an offense? No.

Key #4 — Julius Must Show Up Early, Not Only In Overtime

Randle’s line (16/5/6) looks respectable, but the reality is he disappeared for most of regulation. Then, in OT, he remembered he was Julius freaking Randle and helped close. Edwards can win you a quarter, but he shouldn’t have win you every quarter. Randle needs to be the stabilizer. He needs to be the No. 2 option who plays like a No. 2 option, not a bystander who wakes up once the game has already caught fire.

Final Thought: You Escaped Once. Don’t Make Yourself Do It Twice.

The Wolves escaped the worst team in basketball. Barely.

A win is a win in the standings… but not in the psyche. You don’t hang banners for overtime victories in New Orleans. You exhale, you regroup, and you treat the second matchup like a business meeting. Show up early, slam the door, and don’t let the Pelicans fantasize about playing spoiler.

Minnesota got their wake-up call.

The only question now is whether they answer it, or hit snooze again.