It was a bit unusual when Anthony Edwards was a late scratch for Monday night’s Timberwolves game against the Warriors.
Edwards sitting wasn’t the odd part; he’s now missed six games in the last two months due to a lingering right foot injury. What was different from previous instances was that Ant wasn’t on the injury report until 90 minutes before game time, when it was announced that he was questionable to play. 20 minutes later, he was ruled out due to “right foot injury maintenance.”
In his postgame press conference after the Wolves’ victory, head coach Chris Finch made it sound like Edwards had some pain pop up in pregame warmups, which caused the team’s performance staff to make the decision that he wasn’t going to play.
“Yeah, it was news to me, honestly,” Finch said. “He had pain from the foot that’s been troubling him.”
Chris Finch | Benny Sieu-Imagn Images
Edwards had played over 34 minutes the night before in a Minnesota loss to Golden State, and he wasn’t on the injury report that came out on Monday afternoon. This wasn’t a pre-planned decision to rest Edwards on the second leg of a back-to-back. And if back-to-backs are going to be an issue for the Wolves’ best player moving forward, that’s not something Finch was aware of.
“That’s not been communicated to me,” he said. “Again, I haven’t talked really to the performance team since the decision was made to sit him tonight. So yeah, I don’t know. We have a back-to-back coming up. We’ll see.”
The Wolves are set to travel to Dallas to play the Mavericks on Wednesday night, then will return to Minneapolis to take on the top-seeded Thunder in a nationally-televised game on Thursday. It’ll be interesting to see if Edwards, who has missed one leg of the Wolves’ last two back-to-backs, plays in one or both of those contests.
Edwards first missed three games in mid-December due to this foot injury, which we’ve since learned is related to the effects of a toe infection. He then missed a couple games in mid-January, and a sixth on Monday. Adding in four absences due to a hamstring injury early in the season, and Edwards has missed 10 of the Wolves’ 47 games thus far. Players can miss a maximum of 17 games and still be eligible for All-NBA selection or other postseason awards.
Edwards has averaged a career-high 29.7 points per game this season, which ranks third among qualified players. He’s shooting 50 percent overall and 41 percent from deep.
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