Minnesota Timberwolves vs. Golden State Warriors – Game 5
Date: May 14th, 2025
Time: 8:30 PM CDT
Location: Target Center
Television Coverage: TNT\/TruTV\/MAX
Radio Coverage: KFAN FM\/Wolves App\/iHeart Radio<\/p>\n
It\u2019s Time to End Them: Game 5 Is the Wolves\u2019 Moment of Truth<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re a Timberwolves fan, I don\u2019t need to tell you what\u2019s at stake Wednesday night. You already know. You\u2019ve been living it. Breathing it. Tensing up at every Buddy Hield pump fake. Yelling at every Draymond cheap shot. Cursing that Game 1 brickfest like it personally wronged your family. Because this right here\u2014Game 5, at home, with a chance to send the Golden State Warriors packing\u2014isn\u2019t just a basketball game. It\u2019s a moment 21 years in the making.<\/p>\n
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The last time the Wolves clinched a playoff series at Target Center, Kevin Garnett was leaping onto the scorer\u2019s table like a madman with a towel in one hand and the whole state of Minnesota in the other. That was 2004. George W. Bush was president. The iPod Mini was a thing. And nobody\u2014nobody\u2014had ever heard of streaming a game unless they were talking about fishing. In the two decades since? Just a never-ending montage of heartbreak, collapse, dysfunction, and just enough glimmers of hope to keep the pain fresh. Until now.<\/p>\n
Because now, it finally feels like the Wolves aren\u2019t just crashing someone else\u2019s party. They are the party. And Game 5 is their chance to send a message that echoes all the way from Hennepin Avenue to the league office in Manhattan: The Timberwolves are not going away. They are not a fluke. And they are not afraid of the moment.<\/p>\n
This Is the Moment to Finish the Job<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s be honest\u2014after that Game 1 performance where the Wolves couldn\u2019t throw a basketball into Lake Minnetonka if you spotted them a dock and a breeze, we all had flashbacks to every Minnesota sports trauma of the last 30 years. But since then? Three straight wins. Three straight reminders that this team is bigger, deeper, and simply better than a Curry-less Golden State squad clinging to the final wisps of its dynasty.<\/p>\n
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Game 2 was a wire-to-wire beatdown. Game 3 was a grind-it-out road win where they withstood a vintage Jimmy Butler haymaker. Game 4? That was the statement. A 17-0 third-quarter run that broke the Warriors\u2019 spirit.<\/p>\n
This series has been ugly at times\u2014flops, fouls, flailing limbs, and officiating straight out of a mid-2000s WWE storyline\u2014but the Wolves have found their identity. Defense first. Relentless effort. And stars who know exactly when to shine.<\/p>\n
Now they have to slam the door.<\/p>\n
Because while it\u2019s fun to imagine Golden State limping into Game 5 with nothing left in the tank, we\u2019ve all watched enough playoff basketball to know what happens when you give an old champion a reason to believe. You don\u2019t want to go back to San Francisco. You don\u2019t want to let Steph Curry sniff the court again. You don\u2019t want Draymond Green rolling into Game 6 like it\u2019s a cage match with nothing to lose.<\/p>\n
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You want to end this now.<\/p>\n
The Keys to Game 5:<\/p>\n
1. Fast Start, No Letup<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t the time for the \u201cfeel it out\u201d offense. No more waiting until the second quarter for Ant to wake up, no more standing around while Julius Randle slowly dribbles through every shade of midrange purgatory. Come out firing. Take a page from Game 2 and punch first. Golden State doesn\u2019t have the firepower to chase you down without Steph. So don\u2019t give them a reason to try.<\/p>\n
Let Julius cook early. Let Ant attack off the dribble. Let McDaniels throw his limbs around like he\u2019s auditioning for The Matrix: Timberwolves Edition. Build the lead. Crush their hope.<\/p>\n
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2. Lockdown Defense<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been the constant. The calling card. The secret sauce. Rudy Gobert might not be putting up massive stat lines, but his presence has changed everything. The Warriors aren\u2019t even trying to finish at the rim anymore. They\u2019re settling. Second-guessing. Running Buddy Hield in circles just to get a glimmer of daylight\u2014and even then, it\u2019s fleeting.<\/p>\n
When Rudy\u2019s patrolling the paint, when McDaniels is in someone\u2019s jersey, this team becomes an immovable object. Keep that energy. Smother them for 48 minutes. Make the Warriors miss the 2018 version of themselves.<\/p>\n
3. Julius Randle, the MVP of the Series?<\/p>\n
Look, I love Anthony Edwards. You love Anthony Edwards. We all love Anthony Edwards. He\u2019s the present and the future. But if you\u2019re giving out the MVP of this series right now? It might be Julius.<\/p>\n
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He\u2019s been rock-solid. Reliable. Early-season Julius could bulldoze his way to 20 points while also torching three possessions per quarter and getting cooked on defense. This version? He\u2019s playing smart, making the extra pass, digging in defensively, and\u2014when needed\u2014putting his shoulder into someone\u2019s chest and reminding them that grown man strength still matters.<\/p>\n
4. Keep Hitting Threes<\/p>\n
After a stretch of bricklaying that made you wonder if the team had been cursed by the ghost of Sam Cassell\u2019s groin injury, the Wolves have finally remembered how to shoot. Naz, NAW, Donte\u2014when those guys are connecting, it changes everything. Suddenly the paint opens up. Suddenly the pressure on Ant evaporates. Suddenly the Warriors are asking Jonathan Kuminga to play 30 minutes and make decisions, which is never ideal.<\/p>\n
Keep spacing the floor. Keep taking good shots. You don\u2019t need to go 20-for-35. You just need to hit enough to keep the pressure on.<\/p>\n
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5. It\u2019s Ant\u2019s Time to Close<\/p>\n
This is what stars do. The game\u2019s close? You bury them. The crowd\u2019s waiting to explode? You give them the spark. The opponent\u2019s clinging to life? You drop the anvil. Game 5 is Anthony Edwards\u2019 chance to channel his inner Jordan\u2014or at least his inner 2008 Paul Pierce\u2014and put his stamp on this series.<\/p>\n
He doesn\u2019t need to score 40. He just needs to let Golden State know\u2014physically, emotionally, spiritually\u2014that it\u2019s over. That this is Minnesota\u2019s time.<\/p>\n
The Moment<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re a Wolves fan, this isn\u2019t just about this year. It\u2019s not just about beating a Steph-less Golden State team. It\u2019s about proving that everything you\u2019ve believed\u2014through the heartbreak, the coaching changes, the blown draft picks, the time Jonny Flynn was taken before Steph Curry (yep, that happened)\u2014was leading to something real.<\/p>\n
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You don\u2019t get many of these nights. A home closeout game. A rising team. A hungry fan base. An opponent on the ropes.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t play with your food.<\/p>\n
Finish the job.<\/p>\n
Send the Warriors to Cancun.<\/p>\n
And let Target Center explode like it\u2019s 2004 all over again.<\/p>\n
canishoopus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minnesota Timberwolves vs. Golden State Warriors – Game 5Date: May 14th, 2025Time: 8:30 PM CDTLocation: Target CenterTelevision Coverage:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3782],"tags":[375,7,1328,200,164,313,867,376,3064,511,307,152,3954,9862,6,2078,373,9861,932,1010,3687,308],"class_list":{"0":"post-32050","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-timberwolves","8":"tag-anthony-edwards","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-buddy-hield","11":"tag-draymond-green","12":"tag-golden-state-warriors","13":"tag-jimmy-butler","14":"tag-jonathan-kuminga","15":"tag-julius-randle","16":"tag-kevin-garnett","17":"tag-mcdaniels","18":"tag-minnesota","19":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","20":"tag-minnesotatimberwolves","21":"tag-moment-of-truth","22":"tag-nba","23":"tag-paul-pierce","24":"tag-rudy-gobert","25":"tag-state-of-minnesota","26":"tag-steph-curry","27":"tag-target-center","28":"tag-the-wolves","29":"tag-timberwolves"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}