What happened to the most outstanding star of this postseason in the conference finals? The Mavs are doing everything they can to quell him.
There are countless hallmarks of the arrival of a transcendent basketball phenomenon. The most predictable, necessary and difficult among them might be the physical and mental toll paid during their first extended playoff run. With that comes one or two understandable stumbles. Those fights are expected, natural, and a rite of passage for any young star blessed and burdened with being the top choice.
This postseason, that big talent is Anthony Edwards, the 22-year-old Timberwolves star who spent the first two rounds averaging 28.9 points, 6.2 rebounds and 5.9 assists per game, with a true shooting percentage of 62.4. With the confidence of a fire-breathing dragon, he gutted and humiliated Devin Booker and Kevin Durant before a momentous surge that helped lead the Timberwolves past the defending champions in Round 2. For a moment it looked like Edwards was ahead As expected, a rare super-First option that could go all the way long before reaching its prime.
But in these conference finals, against a Dallas Mavericks defense that has enough size, athleticism and rim protection to keep even the most dynamic ball players out of the paint, Edwards hasn’t dominated like he did in the playoffs. first two rounds, when people couldn’t say his name without an immediate comparison to Michael Jordan. Ant’s efficiency and raw score have plummeted in this series. He is averaging only 22 points, with a horrendous field goal percentage (38.6). After shooting 74 percent in the restricted area against Denver, Edwards has dropped to 47.4 percent in his last three games. (Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II are not Jusuf Nurkic and Nikola Jokic.)
Edwards has seen aggressive double teams behind the 3-point line, been bombed in the pick-and-roll, processed sudden zone coverages and sought early help against defenders who are shrinking the floor. Everything the Mavericks have thrown at Edwards, they’ve thrown with discipline, whether it’s executing any of the tactics mentioned above or swinging a big and then “2.9-ing” him from the weak side.
Mavs coach Jason Kidd’s essential strategy against Ant is similar to the one he imposed on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder: If Dallas is defeated, it won’t be because the other team’s best player scored too many points in the game. way in which they. You feel more comfortable scoring a lot of points.
Against the Mavericks, Edwards doesn’t often dribble and create his own shots inside the arc. The percentage of his 2-point field goals that were unassisted in Round 1 was 82.1 percent. That dropped to 73.1 percent against Denver. In the conference finals he drops to 60 percent.
Instead, the Mavs are more or less daring everyone else to beat them from outside, no matter how accurate their opponents were from deep during the regular season. Many of those looks are created by Edwards, who, by the time he finally reaches the downhill, has been forced to pass further than ever before.
Against Dallas, he ends 45.8 percent of his drives with a pass instead of a shot, foul or turnover. Against their first two playoff opponents, that number was 29.8 and 33.0 percent, respectively. (During the regular season, Ant’s percentage of drives that ended in a pass was 30.9.) The space Edwards is used to has become a traffic jam. Dallas’ entire focus is geared toward stopping him. He is exhausting, frustrating and confusing; At times, he leads to the kind of indecision that is deadly against this defense.
“The ball got stuck in my hands a couple times,” Edwards said after Game 3. “I’ve got to get free of it a little more.”
Edwards won’t beat the Mavericks by dribbling seven, eight, nine times and giving the defense time to charge. When he moves it, quickly and easily, Dallas’ layers shift and cracks appear. The Wolves have to adopt a quick “0.5” offense if they want to get their best player going. He also needs to do a better job of acceptance. Good things happen when he does. That doesn’t mean he won’t have to make tough shots, but the series will end if he loses trust in his teammates.
Both plays below start with Edwards in the corner before breaking out of a wide hold and catching a pass. It’s a great way to loosen up Dallas’ defense because it’s harder to contain a moving target in this spot than one who is at the top of the court running a pick-and-roll. The sooner you recognize the need to pass it on these points, the better:
Minnesota is losing 0-3, but every game was winnable in decisive moments. Ant deserves credit for some of the passes he’s thrown that aren’t forced or rushed, and that have helped keep Minnesota in these contests. He has 24 assists and 10 turnovers in three games. That’s a better ratio than what he put up in the regular season and the first two rounds. Edwards’ assist-generated 20.3 points per game are tied with Luka Doncic for second in the conference finals. He is punched in the gut when his dimes don’t turn. If a few more open shots had come in from Karl-Anthony Towns or Nickeil Alexander-Walker, this series would look a lot different.
Suffice to say, Edwards has a lot on his shoulders. The only players who have accumulated more minutes in these playoffs are Doncic, Kyrie Irving and Pascal Siakam. None of them have taken on the grueling nightly defensive challenges with the ball that Edwards faces. That’s not to excuse his poor play, but it helps explain, in part, why Edwards has mostly disappeared in the decisive moments of this series. In 14 decisive minutes, he scored two baskets and assisted only two others. He fell asleep in some critical spots on defense and collapsed in the final 90 seconds of Game 2, committing two brutal turnovers when Minnesota seemingly had a victory in hand.
It’s all part of the process. Edwards will grow from this experience. He will learn how to better deal with a level of defensive attention he has never seen before and persevere through the pain and exhaustion that 40-plus minutes of playoff basketball forces a body to endure. This series technically isn’t over yet. And it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Edwards have a strong performance against a Dallas defense, which will be without Lively in Game 4. But to make history and beat Dallas four straight times, Edwards will have to be perfect against a connected team. defense that has done a fantastic job of making him think too much in a chaotic environment.
That’s a lot to ask of any star, let alone one who’s still 22 years old.
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