Coming off another frustrating loss, this time against an Indiana Pacers team missing their top-four scorers, snapping their eight-game win streak, the Minnesota Timberwolves looked to get back on track against another injured team, the New Orleans Pelicans.

The Pelicans, as they have been all season, were severely short-handed in the game with Dejounte Murray (Achilles), Herbert Jones (Rotator Cuff), and Trey Murphy III (Labrum) all out for the rest of the season.

The Wolves’ energy was much improved compared to their start Monday against the Pacers as Minnesota took an early 28-18 lead in the first quarter. Zion Williamson kept New Orleans in the game, scoring eight points in the first frame including a coast-to-coast buzzer-beater.

The Timberwolves would respond by scoring the first eight points of the second quarter, including a Jaylen Clark 3-pointer, pushing their lead to 14 points.

Just when it felt like the Wolves were taking control of the game, Minnesota did what they’ve done all season and refused to make things easy on themselves, allowing a 22-5 Pelicans run including a 14-0 stretch over less than three minutes of game time. The Wolves stopped the bleeding, but were unable to take the lead back before halftime, trailing 62-61 at the break.

The third quarter brought even more sloppy basketball for the Wolves as they turned it over nine times, the same number of made field goals they had in the quarter. Minnesota was able to keep the game close due in part to 12 made free throws but trailed New Orleans 96-91 heading into a pivotal fourth quarter.

The Wolves were able to slowly crawl back into the lead over the course of the fourth quarter, taking a three-point lead on a 3-pointer by Donte DiVincenzo with 5:49 left in the game. From that point, the Wolves offense went ice-cold, missing seven of their last eight shots. They did draw eight free throws during that time, but only converted four of them.

On the other end, the Wolves were unable to get stops as the Pelicans made six of their last ten field goals while grabbing offensive rebounds on two of their four misses.

The Wolves fell by a score of 119-115, their second loss in a row after winning eight straight. Anthony Edwards scored 29 points but shot 5-19 from the floor including 1-9 on shots inside the arc. Ant did make 15 of his 17 free throws. Zion was sensational all game also scoring 29 points, going 12-16 from the floor.

Key Takeaways

Another Loss in the Clutch

The loss to the Pelicans tonight was the Wolves league-leading 25th loss in which the game entered clutch time, defined by the NBA as a game that is within five points or less in the last five minutes of the game.

Tonight, both sides of the ball failed them late in the game as the Wolves had a hard time both putting the ball in the basket or securing stops late in the fourth quarter.

Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch talked after the game about why the offense struggled so much late in the game tonight.

“I mean, well we miss a wide open three, miss a layup, we miss some free throws. Those are shots that pretty happy with in general, and then at the other end of the floor we couldn’t get a rebound. So that’s it. That’s the story of clutch time.”

While Finch viewed the late-game offense as more about just missing open shots, he had stronger feelings about why the defense was unable to get stops most of the night.

“It’s ball contain. It’s ball pressure, ball contain, we’re not being disruptive, we’re not dictating on the ball. We’re giving the ball too much space. It comes at us. We’re on our heels in the kick, then they drive us again and now we’re scattered. That leads to a lot of things. It leads to fouling, offensive rebounding opportunities and those are things that we allowed them to have.”

Edwards echoed his coach’s statements specifically about rebounding and the team’s ability to finish possessions on defense.

“The coaches tell us every day to box out. Every day, check to see if your man crashing and box him out. We just did a poor job of it tonight. The last two games. I’m pretty sure they’re going to tell us again tomorrow. We even have boxout drills sometimes, so I don’t know how we’re not boxing out, myself included. It’s embarrassing.”

What has been so stark about these past two games has been the way the Wolves have struggled in the exact ways they were excelling just a few games ago. During their eight-game win streak that ended on Monday, the Wolves were doing a great job moving the ball, making open shots, defending on the perimeter, and securing rebounds.

Julius Randle talked after the game about what has changed with the Wolves during this two-game skip compared to the eight-game win streak.

“We’ve just got to get our energy back, man. Our swag man. It’s crunchtime in the season, and we’re kind of pressing. It’s out of something. The energy is off, it’s funky, we’re not playing with that same spirit or the same confidence. We’ve got to find a way to get our swag back and just go out and dominate like we’ve been.”

Jaylen Clark went to social media after the game to voice his opinion that the Wolves still have time to turn it around.

We gonna figure it out just need yall to keep supporting!

— Jaylen (@jayl7en) March 20, 2025

While it is true that the Wolves can and likely will play better than they have the past two games, they are running out of time to figure out all their issues. They only have 11 games left in the season and are two games back in the loss column from the current six-seed Golden State Warriors, who hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Wolves.

The Wolves have shown the entire season that their biggest enemy is themselves. If they can’t get out of their own way soon, the Wolves season will be doomed to the Play-in Tournament and a less-than-ideal first-round playoff matchup or worse, no playoffs at all.

Another Hot-Shooting Opponent

In each of the past two losses, the Wolves’ opponent has made a barrage of 3-point shots while missing very few. Last game it was Obi Toppin in overtime and tonight the Pelicans made 45 percent of their 3-pointers.

The takeaway should not be that the Wolves have just been getting unlucky, especially considering New Orleans was consistently able to generate good looks from beyond the arc. The bigger issue for the Wolves has been their inability to put teams away early in games, leaving the door open for shooting variance to swing the outcome of the game.

On Monday against the Pacers, the Wolves were down 14 points at halftime, meaning when they went on a run in the third quarter they were tied instead of taking a double-digit lead. Tonight, Minnesota built a 14-point lead of their own in the second quarter, but gave up a huge run, allowing New Orleans to take the lead by halftime.

This applies to the clutch time issues as well. If the Wolves were able to take larger leads earlier in games, they would not have to rely on clutch time to put the game away. So often this season the Wolves have either gone down big in the first half, like Monday’s game against Indiana, or when they have taken a lead, been unable to sustain that lead throughout the course of the game, like tonight.

The Wolves’ clutch-time struggles are a huge issue, and their opponent making shots, contested or not, can be frustrating, but the Timberwolves could lessen the impact of those factors if they were able to play more consistently and build bigger leads.

Good luck and bad luck will come and go in a long NBA season, but the good teams put themselves in a position to make things like shot-variance not matter. The Wolves on the other hand, haven’t looked like that type of team all season long.

Up Next

Next on the schedule is another matchup with the Pelicans on Friday. It is the final game of the Wolves season-high five-game homestand. The game begins at 7:00 PM CT airing on FanDuel Sports Network.

After that, the Wolves head out on the road for a rematch with the Indiana Pacers on Monday.

Game Highlights