Timberwolves waxed by Pacers for third loss in four games

That eight-game winning streak now feels like decades ago.

The team Minnesota has been over the past week looks nothing like a crew that could reel off so many wins in succession, or contend for anything of consequence in the playoffs, should it even get there.

No, the panic meter needle shouldn’t tilt that far to the right at this point, but Minnesota’s 119-103 loss to the Pacers in Indiana raised some major red flags.

The Timberwolves’ typically potent defense was rendered irrelevant by Indiana’s pace. The Pacers played with a pace and rhythm in the transition and halfcourt that didn’t allow Minnesota to sink its teeth in physically and bother Indiana in any way. The Pacers shot 48% from the field, with 30 assists on their 46 buckets.

Frankly, it was Indiana’s defensive physicality — something for which the Pacers are not traditionally known — that bothered Minnesota.

The Wolves committed 17 turnovers while shooting 27% from distance.

“It was kind of a funky, off performance all around,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch told reporters.

Anthony Edwards was a gametime decision with a hand laceration. He played, but not well. The guard, who was piping hot from beyond the arc for the first half of the season, has not been since the calendar flipped to February. That trend continued Monday, as the guard went 1 for 11 from 3-point range.

Minnesota was outscored by 24 points in Edwards’ 34 minutes. The next worst plus-minus on the team belonged to Nickeil Alexander-Walker, who was a minus-13.

Edwards settled for threes on a night where he was successful inside the arc, going 6 for 8 on two-point attempts. That was the story of the game for Minnesota, who settled for a number of bad shot attempts against a defense that it traditionally could pick its attempt against.

“I thought we could’ve gone to the hoop a lot more than we did. They were pretty physical on the ball and we needed to with the ball and at the point of attack offensively, and we were never able to do that,” Finch said. “We didn’t have any composure. We were wild tonight offensively, whether that was wild with the ball or wild with our shot selection. Every time we had a chance to tighten up the game, or did tighten up the game, we’d get a stop, come down, take kind of a rushed three in transition.”

Minnesota fell to Indiana’s skeleton squad last week in overtime at Target Center, a night in which Obi Toppin had 34 points while shooting 7 for 10 from distance. Indiana was near full strength Monday, but it was still the same Toppin. The forward buried six triples in the win. But he had more help this time around. Indiana star guard Tyrese Haliburton had 24 points and 11 assists.

Whatever Indiana wanted to do, it did with relative ease.

“I think our offense is bothering our defense a little bit too much,” Finch said. “That’s something that’s reared it’s head at times for us. We’ve got to get back to guarding at a high level like we were doing.”

The Wolves have now lost three of four games. And while the fight for a top-six seed to avoid the play-in tournament rages on — Minnesota, currently in eighth in the West, is a full game back of Golden State for the No. 6 seed, and two back in the loss column — the Wolves are torpedoing their chances with their current run of poor play.

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Timberwolves waxed by Pacers for third loss in four games

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