Finch Frustrated By Wolves' Effort in Loss to Grizzlies: 'It's On Them'

Looking to complete a two-game sweep of the Grizzlies in Memphis, the Timberwolves came out flat on the defensive end and never fully recovered in a 137-128 loss on Monday night. They allowed 36 points in the opening quarter and at least 30 in all four quarters. The 137 in total is tied for the second-most points the Wolves have allowed in regulation through 51 games.

Even against an opponent hungry for a win, this is a game the Timberwolves (31-20) should've won. The Grizzlies (19-29) had lost six in a row and 13 of their last 16. Instead, the Wolves let Memphis shoot 50 percent from the floor, hit 19 threes, and get to the line for 35 free throw attempts. Minnesota got its deficit down to four points in the third quarter, but then Memphis ballooned it back to 20 early in the fourth and held on the rest of the way.

The frustrating part for everyone involved with the Wolves is that this isn't the first time something like this has happened this season. They've had several disappointing losses to teams they should be beating, and the central theme is that they don't come out with the kind of defensive intensity that they're capable of bringing.

Asked by beat reporter Jon Krawczynski how to get the necessary competitiveness out of his players, head coach Chris Finch showed his frustration by redirecting the question.

"Ask them, Jon," he said. "Ask them. It's on them. They gotta come and put the work in. It can't be a sometimes thing."

The players who were asked about it in the locker room took ownership for the lack of effort. The issue is that we've heard the same answers many times before, especially from Anthony Edwards. He frequently says the right things about needing to play harder and take every game seriously, but then the actions don't follow.

"It's definitely on us," said Edwards, who scored a game-high 39 points and was a plus-2 in his 40 minutes. "We knew everything they was gon' do. They just played at a little better pace than us. They wanted it more tonight."

"We waited 'til we were down 20 to put the work into the game," Donte DiVincenzo said. "It was too late by that time. We just have to respect our opponent for a full 48 (minutes). Stop getting up for big games and not getting up for the teams that we have to respect, night in and night out."

Jaylen Wells | Petre Thomas-Imagn Images

It's been an issue the Wolves have had for years. They've shown that they can compete with the best teams in the league, as evidenced by making two straight trips to the Western Conference Finals. This season, they've beaten the Thunder twice and the Spurs twice. They'll get up for those games and play with a ton of intensity. But when it's a Monday night in Memphis or a Tuesday night in Utah a couple weeks ago, that compete level isn't always there.

Fans have been frustrated with Finch at times this season, and there are understandable reasons for that. But at some point, with losses like these, it does seem to fall on the players to bring the energy.

"It's internally," DiVincenzo said. "I said this before, during that (five-game) losing streak, the coaches put the game plan together, they put everything together, at some point it's up to you to get ready for the game, it's up to you to turn that switch on at the start of the game and for us to play for a full 48."

"If you look at the standings and (if) we handle the business that we're supposed to handle, we're supposed to be sitting 2 or 3 (in the West) right now. And we can't be losing games by 20 points in the fourth quarter. That's not us. That's not the team we are.

"The encouraging thing is we do it against the teams that we need to do it against. But we also need to do it against teams that are below .500 and struggling and handle business early, for the first three quarters. That's what the great teams do. All the young guys and their bench guys get to play the fourth quarter. That should be us and it can be us."

Jaren Jackson Jr., who didn't play in Saturday's Wolves win, returned and led the Grizzlies with 30 points on Monday. Six other players scored at 13 points for Memphis, who got four threes apiece from Vince Williams Jr. and Jaylen Wells.

The Wolves played well enough on offense to win the game. They shot 49 percent overall and hit 16 threes of their own. In addition to Edwards' 39, they got a very efficient 29 points from Jaden McDaniels, 21 from DiVincenzo, and 19 from Julius Randle. This loss was all about defense.

"We struggled with all the movement and their closeout contain in the first half in particular, and then in the second half it was a lot of fouling," Finch said. "It's physicality, it's rotations, it's next effort, it's ball contain. We helped off the strong side corner a bunch tonight on drives. We just kind of started gambling and losing our minds and trying to chase things that weren't there."

Next up for the Wolves is a trip to Toronto on Wednesday night, where they'll try to snap a 20-game losing streak at Scotiabank Arena (formerly Air Canada Centre) that dates back to 2004.

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