Timberwolves fall to Hawks 117-104 for third loss in a row

ATLANTA – Before Monday night’s road game, Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said his team’s offense was “going through it” after two rough outings at home.

The offense didn’t get any better by getting away from home, as the Wolves dropped another clunker, this time 117-104 to the Atlanta Hawks. The Wolves were fine for the middle two quarters, but to start and end the game, they reverted to the team that was drawing boos over its previous two games at Target Center. The Wolves scored just nine points over the first 10 minutes of the game, and that allowed Atlanta to open a 19-point lead in the first quarter. Given the offense’s struggles over the last several weeks, and given how poorly the Wolves have started this last stretch of games, is Finch considering a change to the starting lineup?

“Everything’s always on the table, for sure,” Finch said. “But we also need to keep looking at lineup combinations as the game goes on, too.”

The Wolves underscored Finch’s point in the fourth quarter when not just the starters but nobody in the game could put together a decent stretch of scoring. The Wolves led by three entering the fourth but began the quarter 1-for-8 from the field. Then their defense gave in as the Hawks shot 10-for-17 in the fourth and ran away with the win. The Wolves’ top two offensive options in the starting lineup again struggled. Anthony Edwards had 16 points on 7-for-20 shooting with five turnovers as he tangled with the tough Dyson Daniels, who had eight steals. Julius Randle scored 19 points on 6-for-15 shooting to go with 13 rebounds and seven assists, but he also had seven turnovers. The Wolves (14-14) shot 43% from the field and had 21 turnovers. Trae Young led Atlanta (15-15) with 29 points and seven assists.

When asked what he thought the offense needed to do better, Randle replied, “To be honest, man, I don’t know.”

“That’s about as honest an answer I can give you. I can tell you what’s working sometimes. Like when we’re playing with pace, moving, all that stuff. We just got to do it more consistent than that, but I don’t know, man.”

BOXSCORE: Atlanta 117, Timberwolves 104

The chemistry he once had with Edwards early in the season seems to have vanished, with Randle saying Edwards is seeing a lot of double teams and they have to find the correct spacing off that, find each other in transition to get themselves easy looks. But the Wolves aren’t a high-volume transition team. They’re not built for that, so transition opportunities are limited.

One of the larger concerns for the Wolves is how they deal with this stretch of games. They went through a rough patch in November in which they lost seven of nine. Naz Reid, who overcame a turned right ankle in the second quarter to score a team-high 23 points Monday, said the struggles the Wolves went through two seasons ago informs their mindset now.

“It’s tough, but we still learn from each other and, at the same time, put ourselves in situations to be successful later in the year,” Reid said.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker (11 points, four assists) said the team hears the complaints from fans, and while he said people in Minnesota have been “loving” since he arrived two seasons ago, there was frustration with the negativity he hears over the team still figuring out its issues 28 games into the season.

“It’s tough because of last year’s expectancy. You can tell that they’re holding on to that, and we’re not delivering to their liking,” Alexander-Walker said. “It’s like we’re not doing — waking up at 6 a.m. every day. They don’t know the schedule of what guys do. I’m in four hours before practice even starts. So I’m tired of hearing what fans think we should be doing. I am working my [butt] off.

The Wolves are searching for answers everywhere on offense, and the drumbeat of the season doesn’t let up. Four of their next five games come against teams in the top four of their respective conferences. Some more hard lessons may be on the way.