Embiid's 'don't force it' message shines light on 'immature' Wolves

"We haven't done a thing yet; we haven't accomplished a thing yet," Wolves coach Chris Finch said.

There’s something to be said for feeding the hot hand. But when that hot hand starts to cool, there’s a point where you have to get back to making the right plays.

That’s something the Timberwolves didn’t do Monday night in a 128-125 loss to the Charlotte Hornets at Target Center. Karl-Anthony Towns was that hot hand, getting off to a torrid start in which he knocked down the first eight 3-pointers he shot.

“He hit his first six, seven shots, I think everybody was pretty much just trying to see him get 100 points,” Anthony Edwards said. “I knew I was.”

Towns remained the hot hand through three quarters, but then came the fourth when he scored just four points on 2-for-10 shooting, with several of those shots not being particularly good looks. He finished the game with a franchise-record 62 points, but the Timberwolves didn’t finish the job that mattered most: beating the Hornets.

Asked postgame whether it looked like Towns was just hunting for shots down the stretch, Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said “absolutely.”

“Obviously we’re gonna try to feed a hot hand, look for a hot hand, but at some point, we gotta get back to making the right play,” Finch said. “We gotta get back to doing the right things. Like I said, there’s a lot of ways to be immature.”

Edwards said the Wolves were “immature as (expletive)” during Monday night’s game, with the whole team looking for Towns to have a big game more than they were looking for the win.

Meanwhile in Philadelphia, Joel Embiid scored 70 points for the 76ers in a 133-123 victory over the San Antonio Spurs. Embiid’s message while he had the hot hand: “Please, don’t force it.”

“Let’s just play basketball. If I’m open pass it. If I’m not, just make sure you make the right play,” Embiid told reporters after the game. “… We were just trying to play the right way and make the right plays. But, I think, obviously, I made shots, and they found me a lot.”

If the Timberwolves want to be championship contenders, they need to make those right plays. They’ve certainly matured since last season — Monday night’s loss to a bottom feeder in the Hornets is an anomaly, not the norm like it was last season when it seemed like the team couldn’t ever wake up for games against the league’s worst.

The Timberwolves are still 30-13, tied with the Oklahoma City Thunder for the best record in the Western Conference. But Monday night’s game showed there are still traces of that immaturity, and when it rears its ugly head, the results aren’t favorable to the Wolves.

“It’s a long season, you’re gonna have bad games. I was hoping that we were beyond it, but until you go through it all, you really can’t tell. We’ve been better in not having many of these type of performances, but, yeah, this is certainly a disappointing one,” Finch said. “But we got a lot of basketball left to play and that’s what our guys need to understand. We haven’t done a thing yet; we haven’t accomplished a thing yet and we gotta play with a better desire and better purpose and a better readiness on every single night.”

Minnesota Timberwolves center Karl-Anthony Towns (32) misses a shot at the buzzer against the Charlotte Hornets in the fourth quarter at Target Center in Minneapolis on Jan. 22, 2024 :: Brad Rempel / USA TODAY Sports