{"id":357318,"date":"2025-12-20T09:13:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T09:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/357318\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T09:13:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T09:13:07","slug":"anthony-edwards-heroics-help-wolves-hand-juggernaut-thunder-3rd-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/357318\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Edwards&#8217; heroics help Wolves hand juggernaut Thunder 3rd loss"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6j\">The stars came to play Friday night at Target Center, and the star of all stars was Anthony Edwards, who hit a go-ahead three with Lu Dort in his face and then made a key block and forced a steal on reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to help the Timberwolves beat the juggernaut Oklahoma City Thunder 112-107. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6m\">Minnesota trailed 107-104 before closing the game on an 8-0 run, highlighted by Edwards&#8217; step-back three to take a 108-107 lead with 36 seconds remaining. The shot gave the Wolves the lead, but it was his block and forced turnover that sealed the win and handed the Thunder only their third game of the season.   <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6p\">The game was wild, with Wolves head coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nba\/timberwolves\/onsi\/minnesota-timberwolves-news\/chris-finch-ejected-after-losing-it-on-officials-early-in-wolves-thunder-battle\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Chris Finch getting ejected<\/a> halfway through the first quarter, along with 11 lead changes, eight ties, and big-time plays from the likes of Edwards and Gilgeous-Alexander. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6s\">&#8220;It was electric,&#8221; Edwards said on the Amazon Prime broadcast. &#8220;The fans brought the energy. Coach brought the energy in the first quarter when he got threw out, and we had to respond.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6v\">Edwards, who missed the previous three games with foot soreness, led Minnesota with 26 points and 12 rebounds on a night where defense and missed shots ruled. The Wolves shot 37.5% as a team, but they held the Thunder to 37.0% shooting. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6y\">Minnesota was also woeful at the free-throw line, where they finished 33 of 47. Julius Randle was 12 of 16 by himself at the line, which proved critical considering he shot just 3 of 15 and finished with 19 points. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"71\"> The Thunder made 28-of-30 free throws, including a perfect 8 for 8 by Gilgeous-Alexander, who led all scorers with 35 points to go along with seven assists and five rebounds. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"74\">Among the unsung heroes was Bones Hyland, who finished with 13 points and hit four threes in 15 minutes off the bench. His effort was necessary considering Minnesota played without Mike Conley (Achilles) and Jaylen Clark (illness). <\/p>\n<p>More Timberwolves coverage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The stars came to play Friday night at Target Center, and the star of all stars was Anthony&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-357318","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}