Just two days after what Anthony Edwards called the most crucial game of his career – a victory against the Golden State Warriors that prevented a 2-0 deficit in the Western Conference semifinals – the Minnesota Timberwolves star once again found his team battling on the road in Game 3.
With `Playoff Jimmy` Butler fully engaged, stepping back into the primary scoring role he mastered in Miami, Edwards, who ranked fourth in regular-season scoring, initially seemed subdued. Butler had racked up 18 points in the first half, giving his team, playing without Stephen Curry, a two-point lead at halftime.
Edwards, conversely, managed only eight points in the first half, shooting 3-for-12 overall and 1-for-6 from beyond the arc. During his 20 minutes on the court, the Wolves were outscored by 11 points.
But then, as he frequently demonstrates, the 23-year-old All-Star exploded in the second half, his exceptional talent and supreme athleticism often astonishing even seasoned veterans like Wolves point guard Mike Conley.
“There are moments where I`ll go home and just sit there and think, `I could be, right now, a teammate of one of the best players who ever played this game,`” Conley shared with ESPN.
Edwards didn`t just score points – he tallied 28 in the second half alone – he did it with flair. His second-half highlight reel reminded everyone why the muscular 6-foot-4, 225-pound shooting guard is already drawing comparisons to Michael Jordan.
There was his dunk late in the third quarter with his team trailing by five, when he launched from the semi-circle inside the free throw line and finished with a powerful right-handed slam that left the Warriors` 6-9 power forward Kevon Looney looking like a splattered insect.
And there was his three-pointer early in the fourth, with his team down six, when Warriors guard Brandin Podziemski stuck tight, so Edwards simply created space with a step-back, reaching the peak of his leap before releasing his shot.
Then came perhaps his most critical moment.
On the left wing, Edwards was triple-teamed by Butler, Looney, and Podziemski. Given his obvious offensive momentum, it wouldn`t have been surprising to see him rise and shoot over the three defenders.
Instead, he passed to an open Julius Randle at the top of the key, who then swung the ball to the right wing for Jaden McDaniels, who hit a clean three-pointer to put Minnesota up by six with 3:20 remaining. Golden State never got closer than four points after that.
There was no official stat credited to Edwards for the play; Randle received the assist. But the sequence was a concrete example of Edwards` real-time development as a complete offensive threat, with his improved decision-making fueling the Wolves` remarkable transformation from one of the league`s least reliable clutch teams to one of its most dependable.
Minnesota holds a 4-0 record in games featuring clutch time this postseason, outscoring opponents 45-16 in those crucial minutes, according to ESPN Research.
Edwards has contributed 15 points on 4-for-7 shooting in his 14 postseason clutch minutes, bolstered by five assists and zero turnovers – the most assists without a turnover in clutch time of any player in the 2025 playoffs.
“My trainer Chris Hines always tells me, `Michael Jordan had Steve Kerr,`” Edwards told ESPN. “He always tells me things like that. So, it`s about being able to trust my teammates.”
However, despite how natural it may appear now, reaching this point has been a season-long process.
Five months prior, Edwards stepped onto the court at Chase Center for the second game of a back-to-back series against the Golden State Warriors. The Wolves lost 114-106, dropping their season record to 12-11 – and Edwards was a significant factor.
After bringing his team back into the game in the third quarter with 15 points on 6-for-8 shooting and hitting a go-ahead three-pointer with 4:47 left in the fourth, he then proceeded to shoot his team out of contention. In crunch time, he shot 0-for-6 with a turnover. The Warriors ended the game on a 9-0 run.
The Wolves had witnessed this pattern before.
“In the last five minutes, he just wanted to score, score, score because he wanted to prove to the Warriors he could finish them off,” Minnesota coach Chris Finch explained to ESPN. “He came into the team meeting afterward and apologized. He said, `That`s on me.` He just stopped creating opportunities for others down the stretch.”
What intensified Finch`s frustration was that just two days earlier, the Wolves had comfortably defeated the Warriors, with Edwards scoring 30 points and dishing out nine assists.
“He played an incredible game,” Finch remarked.
Hines remembers that loss vividly and the lessons derived from it.
“He`s the type of kid you tell not to eat chocolate, and he ends up with chocolate on his face,” Hines told ESPN. “And you ask, `Hey dude, did you just eat the chocolate?` He says, `No.` We just told you not to eat the chocolate! So, that`s him.”
Still, despite his noticeably poor late-game execution, his teammates remained supportive.
“That was part of our team`s growth,” Randle told ESPN. “And it wasn`t really his fault. He was like, `Forget it, let me try to carry our team to a win.` He`s an ultimate competitor. But he was able to recognize, `Hey man, I need to be better.` That`s just Ant. He`s not afraid to take blame – and obviously, he receives praise – but he constantly wants to improve.”
Hines acknowledges that Edwards sees himself as an alpha player and is drawn to fierce competitors like Jordan and Kobe Bryant. However, all of Jordan`s six championships occurred before Edwards was born, and his birthday was two months after Bryant`s second title with the Lakers. So, Hines continues to educate Edwards about their games, looking beyond the dunks and game-winners that flood social media.
“Jordan had Steve Kerr,” Hines reiterated. “He had Paxson. LeBron James had Boobie Gibson at times. Guys who could truly make timely shots. The Robert Horrys, and so on, throughout basketball history. If he doesn`t study that kind of stuff, he`ll keep hitting his head against a wall.”
“So, it`s been a positive change for him to see it. We`ll watch clips of Kobe when he passes to Rick Fox. Ant will ask, `Who`s Rick Fox?` He had no idea who Rick Fox was. But he sees that Fox made the shot. So, he`s gaining a much better understanding of the game`s history and how it`s repeating itself with him.”
Edwards admits he has struggled to move past his “hero-ball” tendencies.
“In my first few playoff runs, down the stretch, I always just wanted to win the game myself,” Edwards said. “Because growing up, watching games, you always think, `Oh, they always hit the big shots!` But sometimes they make the extra pass, the right play.”
However, despite his desire to emulate the late-game heroics of Jordan and Bryant, he holds an 0-for-15 record (0-for-10 on three-pointers) in his regular-season career on tying or go-ahead shots in the final 10 seconds of the fourth quarter or overtime, according to ESPN Research. Including the playoffs, he is 1-for-18.
This season, Minnesota finished with a 20-26 record in close games – the second-most clutch-time losses in the league – and Edwards was a primary factor. He was 0-for-7 on those tying or go-ahead attempts – the most such attempts without a make in the league this season and tied for the most without a make over the past five seasons.
Edwards` coaches and teammates aren`t trying to stifle his competitive drive or his desire to take over, they emphasize. It`s about adding another dimension to his game while helping him recognize the defensive strategies he`ll face.
He is learning.
“That`s the balance he`s had to manage because he`s a constant `go, go, go` type of guy,” Conley stated. “And we tell him all the time, we want him to be aggressive and score. Don`t even think about us like, `Oh, let me try to get Mike the ball.` I think that`s when he hesitates a bit, when he`s like, `Oh, I just need to pass it.` He becomes solely a passer.”
“So, it`s about helping him understand: stay in attacking mode, be aggressive consistently, but while doing that, can you process the game? Can you react when you see help defenders coming last minute, knowing where your open teammate is? And I think he`s reaching that point.”
It isn`t instinctive just yet. “Every three possessions, I`m going to shoot one out of three,” Edwards admitted. “Especially down the stretch.”
The internal rhythm reminds him: pass, pass, shoot. Or shoot, pass, pass. Or pass, shoot, pass. He`s also motivated to pass more because he has focused on optimizing his catch-and-shoot jumpers. He`s learning to play *like* the proverbial Kerr, not just pass to him.
He picked up on this last summer while being coached by Kerr at the Olympics and teaming up with Curry, James, and his idol, Kevin Durant.
“KD told me being able to catch and shoot the ball is going to be the biggest thing for me,” Edwards recalled.
Sometimes, the messenger matters more than the message.
“We`ve been trying to get him to do that for years because the numbers were so good,” Finch said. “He was such an effective catch-and-shoot player, but he had always played with a rhythm based on having the ball in his hands, trying to create his own shot off the dribble. So, I think it felt a little awkward, even though he had great success doing it.”
His success in Paris last summer, winning a gold medal, changed him for the better, his teammates believe.
“He talks about Team USA more than anything else. And he talks a lot,” Conley laughed. “I think it opened up a new perspective for him.”
At the same time, it reinforced his self-belief. “[It] put him in a realm of, `Look, they`re just like me. Hell, I`m actually better,` in his head,” Hines noted.
As his evolution continues, Edwards has the Wolves one win away from a second consecutive conference finals appearance. He assisted Conley on a key three-pointer with 1:22 left in Game 5 of the first round to finish off the Lakers; but he`s also still the player who scored 16 of his 30 points in the third quarter of Game 4 of the second round to give the Wolves a 3-1 lead over the Warriors.
And the Wolves are confident he can be the player to finally lead them to the first championship in the franchise`s 36-year history.
“I have been around many great players. He is as confident in himself as… it`s Kobe-like. And I was around Kobe,” Randle told ESPN.
“He`s not afraid of any moment, and he seeks those moments. His belief and confidence in his abilities as a player are the highest I`ve ever witnessed or been around, for anyone.”
As Edwards has grown to trust the teammates around him, they, in turn, have fully committed to trusting him back.
“We constantly tell him: `Make the right play, make the right play,`” Finch said. “Ant told me one time, `Maybe I`m the right play.`”
“And he`s not wrong.”
