{"id":554920,"date":"2026-01-23T06:28:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T06:28:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/554920\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T06:28:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T06:28:24","slug":"bulls-vs-wolves-edwards-scores-just-20-points-in-fourth-straight-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/554920\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulls vs Wolves: Edwards Scores Just 20 Points in Fourth Straight Loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a freezing cold Thursday night in Minneapolis, the Minnesota Timberwolves<\/a> desperately needed a win. They had lost their previous three games and had fallen to seventh place in the Western Conference. They were unable to get it as they were taken down by the middling Chicago Bulls 120-115.<\/p>\n

Just like the previous game<\/a> against the Utah Jazz<\/a>, the Wolves got out to a great start. They took a 14-point lead a little more than eight minutes into the game on the back of hounding defense. Minnesota forced misses on 10 of the first 12 Chicago shots, allowing them to get easy baskets on the other end of the court.<\/p>\n

As the game went on, though, that defensive intensity went away. The largest indicator for this was the Wolves\u2019 inability to avoid fouling. So often, the Wolves were not in the correct position to defend their man. Instead of moving their feet to defend properly, they either committed blocking fouls or reached in and made contact with a Bulls player\u2019s arms.<\/p>\n

In the second quarter, the Bulls were in the bonus with 8:48 left. In the third quarter, they were in the bonus with 6:56 remaining. Overall, Minnesota committed 27 fouls (plus a Naz Reid technical foul), which led to 33 Chicago free throws.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur inability to contain drives right now is really hurting us,\u201d Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch said about his team\u2019s defesive performance. \u201cKind of over helping in places that we didn\u2019t want to over help in, and a readiness to contain the next drive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wolves trailed by three points heading into the fourth quarter, and as they have so often this season, they came storming back. Midway through the fourth quarter, the defense finally started to get some stops, and the offense found a rhythm as a Naz Reid dunk gave them a six-point lead with five minutes left.<\/p>\n

The Wolves were unable to put the game away from that point, as they missed their next four shots, allowing the Bulls to cut the lead to one. The Wolves stopped the bleeding there, though, after an Anthony Edwards floater and a 3-pointer from Jaden McDaniels, the Timberwolves found themselves up four with a minute and a half left.<\/p>\n

That is when the game came crumbling down for the Wolves, as Edwards fell asleep guarding his man in the corner. Coby White drilled the 3-pointer from the corner to cut the Minnesota lead to just one.<\/p>\n

\u201cJosh Giddey made a good pass,\u201d Edwards said about the play. \u201cI wasn\u2019t expecting that pass. So my reaction was like Bones [Hyland] said I was stuck in quicksand when he caught the ball. It felt like it. So, I couldn\u2019t really get a contest. I know I\u2019mma get cussed out about that one.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wolves followed that up with turnovers on their next two possessions, allowing Tre Jones to streak to the rim off an inbounds pass to give Chicago a one-point lead. With the game on the line, on the next possession, Ant used up most of the shot clock and threw up a heavily contested three that came nowhere close to going in<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That would be as close as the Wolves would come to winning the game, as a pair of Jalen Smith free throws and an Edwards on a game-tying 3-pointer, the game was out of reach.<\/p>\n

Edwards finished with just 20 points, struggling to find his shot as he finished the game 9-25 from the field. Julius Randle led the Wolves in scoring with 30 points to go along with seven rebounds and six assists. Naz scored 20 points, including four 3-pointers, but aside from him, the Wolves\u2019 bench scored eight points on 3-14 shooting.<\/p>\n

The loss was the Wolves\u2019 fourth straight. The first two against the Houston Rockets without Edwards, and against the San Antonio Spurs on the second night of a back-to-back, were understandable. These last two versus the Jazz and Bulls, on the other hand, do not come with nearly the same benefit of the doubt.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know what we have to do to be better in that department,\u201d Julius Randle said about the team\u2019s energy. \u201cIt\u2019s a long season. There\u2019s going to be ups and downs. A week ago we could\u2019ve looked like the best team in basketball and this week we can look like the worst. We just gotta find a way to find a consistency.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is still plenty of season left, but this recent stretch may have cost the Wolves a top seed in the Western Conference, and they are now fighting to just stay out of the Play-In Tournament.<\/p>\n

The Wolves did this all a season ago. They struggled for most of the regular season, but turned in on late and made the Western Conference Finals after finishing as the sixth seed. They still have the ability to go on a similar run, but maybe that is what is holding this team back. It doesn\u2019t seem like the Wolves feel the urgency in fighting for a top seed because last year proved they don\u2019t need it. At least that\u2019s what it feels like they think.<\/p>\n

With the local temperatures set to dip below negative ten over the weekend, the Timberwolves stay home for a pair of games against the Golden State Warriors. The first is a Saturday matinee at 4:30 PM CT at Target Center. Wolves fans can watch the game on ABC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a freezing cold Thursday night in Minneapolis, the Minnesota Timberwolves desperately needed a win. They had lost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3782],"tags":[7,307,152,3954,6,308,51802],"class_list":{"0":"post-554920","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-timberwolves","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-minnesota","10":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","11":"tag-minnesotatimberwolves","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-timberwolves","14":"tag-timberwolves-scores"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115943001815102067","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554920","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=554920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}