Chris Finch takes blame for Timberwolves' recent late-game collapses

There's plenty of blame to go around for the Timberwolves' epic collapses in Phoenix and Sacramento over their past two games. Head coach Chris Finch has now claimed responsibility for his share of it.

Last Friday night, the Wolves led the Suns 113-105 in NBA Cup action with less than a minute on the clock. Their estimated win probability was around 99 percent. Three awful Minnesota turnovers, a pair of missed free throws by Anthony Edwards, and several clutch Suns shots later, the final score was 114-113 for the home team.

Monday's game against the Kings perhaps wasn't quite as stunning, but it was a horrific loss in its own right. The Wolves led 99-89 with three minutes left and had a win probability of nearly 98 percent. They proceeded to miss their final five field goal attempts of regulation, with a turnover mixed in. It went to overtime at 101 apiece, where three more mind-boggling Timberwolves giveaways contributed to a 117-112 Kings win.

While the players were the ones who failed to hang onto the ball or make shots down the stretch in both games, Finch also bears fault in his role as the head coach. In the Kings game, he elected not to take a timeout while the lead was evaporating in the final three minutes, for which he's drawn criticism on social media.

Notably, there were no Timberwolves beat reporters at either game, so we've hardly heard much from Finch until his segment with KFAN's Paul Allen on Wednesday morning.

"I mean obviously execution down the stretch, game management, those little small pieces of the game that are not small at all, the things you gotta do to win the game," Finch said on what went wrong in the collapses. "Two losses that should've been wins. All credit to our opponents for making the plays to beat us. We didn't make the plays that we needed to make.

"Those losses are largely on me as well, for not handling the end of the games in the way that I could have done or should have done. But there's nothing else to do but move on. We got sixty-plus more games to play, and as I said the other night, you can't let one loss become two and I do think we fell victim to that a little bit the other night. And that's certainly not the mindset you need to be in as you move forward."

As harsh as it may sound, the other person who has to be pointed to for a share of the blame is Edwards. He scored 84 points in those two games (41 in Phoenix, 43 in Sacramento) to break out of a four-game shooting slump. But against the Suns, his baseline inbounds turnover and two missed free throws were the critical plays that gave Phoenix life. Against the Kings, Edwards got into hero-ball mode and missed a bunch of shots — some of them tough contested looks — late in the fourth quarter and in OT.

The balance of wanting the ball in Edwards' hands while also wanting ball movement and high-quality shot attempts will always be an interesting one for the Wolves to seek.

"We did get a little stagnant down the stretch in both games," Finch told Allen. "But (Edwards is) a guy that we want the ball in his hands and from that, we're gonna create good offense. Surprisingly, of all these high-end superstars in the league, his shot percentage — basically the number of times he actually takes a shot in those (late-game) situations — is a lot lower than some guys. And that is a result of all the double teams that he does face. We gotta make 'em pay when people double."

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