The Timberwolves’ rough home loss to the Brooklyn Nets on Saturday night led to some eye-popping quotes from players in the postgame locker room.
After losing a Christmas overtime classic in Denver, the Wolves came into this one as clear favorites over a Brooklyn team that was still looking to reach double-digit victories on the season. But the two teams looked quite evenly matched in a first half that Minnesota won 63-62. The visiting Nets then proceeded to create some separation in a dominant third quarter (36-23), and the Wolves never got closer than than nine points after falling down by 18 early in the fourth.
123-107 was the final score, which makes it the most lopsided home loss of the season for Chris Finch’s team.
Michael Porter Jr. had 27 points and 10 rebounds for the Nets (10-19), while Cam Thomas dropped a game-high 30 points off the bench and was a +27. Anthony Edwards had 28 points for the Timberwolves (20-12), but the Nets simply made more shots as a group (55 percent on field goals vs. 45 percent for Minnesota).
Bruce Kluckhohn-Imagn Images
It was a flat, disappointing performance for the Wolves in a home game against a team they should’ve beaten. And it’s not their first letdown this season. They had a bad loss against a shorthanded Grizzlies team earlier this month and had a two-game stretch of collapses against the Suns and Kings in late November.
The Wolves played so poorly that boos came out from the fans at Target Center in the second half. Edwards, who was a -14 in 35 minutes, said he didn’t blame the fans for that.
“We got booed and s*** by the fans today,” Edwards said. “I’m with the fans. I would’ve booed us too. But yeah, lack of energy. I don’t know what’s going on. I guess this is just Timberwolves basketball.”
Anthony Edwards on a lack of energy tonight and how it gets corrected
“We got boo’d and s*** by the fans today, I’m with the fans, I would have boo’d us too, but yeah, lack of energy. I don’t know what’s going on, I guess this is just Timberwolves basketball” pic.twitter.com/DpbimivUWm
— Andrew Dukowitz (@adukeMN) December 28, 2025
“I guess this is just Timberwolves basketball” is quite the line.
The Wolves have had an issue for several years with playing up or down to their level of competition. They’ve shown they can hang with and beat the best teams in the NBA, but they’ve also come out flat against inferior opponents and looked like they expected to just cruise to a win that night. Sometimes they turn it on and win those games, and sometimes they don’t. Although it was a bigger issue last season than it has been this year, it hasn’t gone away completely. At least to an extent, it remains part of who they are as a team until proven otherwise.
Donte DiVincenzo, who was a game-low -22 in his 32 minutes, offered some interesting thoughts on that very topic.
“I truly don’t know,” he said. “We can’t have these peaks and valleys, it’s frustrating. That team, you give them credit, no disrespect to your opponent, but it’s a team that we’re supposed to come in and we’re supposed to handle business and do what we’re supposed to do. But they beat us to 50-50 balls, they beat us downhill, they just played with more physicality, they played with more energy, and that’s the type of team that they are.
“But they are that. We have spurts that that’s what we can do, but it’s not necessarily who we are, and that’s who we need to become. So we can’t get too low on this but we have to address it like we have in the past and turn it around. We have to hold that. We can’t just get up for OKC then come in for Brooklyn and just get punked. So we have to look ourselves in the mirror.”
It doesn’t excuse the loss, but it is worth noting that this Nets team, which started the season 3-16, is now 7-3 in December and has been better on the road than at home all year. Ideally, this is one the Wolves can learn from and shake off as they head out on a four-game Eastern Conference road trip to Chicago, Atlanta, Miami and Washington this week.
But with the February 5 trade deadline now less than 40 days away, the big question continues to be whether or not Tim Connelly will make some kind of major roster shakeup this season. As long as Edwards is healthy, the Wolves will have a chance at competing for a championship, but Connelly eventually has to decide if the pieces around Minnesota’s superstar are good enough.
“I guess we gotta change something,” Edwards said. “I don’t know what it is.”
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