Still fuming, Wolves' Chris Finch warns of missing 'special' opportunity

"We've had a nice season and we're only halfway through it."

Twelve hours did nothing to dispel the anger and frustration Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch felt after Monday night's embarrassing loss to the Charlotte Hornets.

"It's frustrating," a still-upset Finch told Paul Allen on his weekly radio hit. "But if the foundation of effort, concentration and application is not there it's just a shell game. You're just moving things around but nothing is really changing."

Charlotte's 28th-ranked offense took it to the Wolves Monday night at Target Center, shooting 56% from the field. Minnesota's normally stingy defense was nowhere to be found as they tried desperately to fend off a Hornets team looking for just their third win in their last 21 games.

"Having been in the game long enough, we've all seen or been apart of these kinds of games. I even mentioned at halftime, and I mentioned it in my presser after the game, at halftime I was like, 'Why don't we play some defense so when they make shots and we fail to make shots this game doesn't flip on us?' Which is exactly what happened. We've been through this a number of times," Finch said. 

Finch is still "100%" certain this Wolves team can accomplish something special if they get back to the defensive play that rocketed them to the top of the league in the early portions of the season.

After Oklahoma City and Denver both won Tuesday night, Minnesota's 67-day reign as the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference is gone. OKC and Minnesota are tied at 30-13, but the Thunder own the tiebreaker thanks to a 2-1 edge on the Wolves in head-to-head matchups. Denver is just percentage points behind at 31-14 overall. 

"It's all part of this growth curve we're on right now," Finch continued. "You have to try to maximize these opportunities. It has to be about winning and it has to be about winning for winning's sake. Not just trying to win on the terms you want to win on. Your readiness to want to play every night, it has to be there because winning is a hard, long, boring process and it takes mental toughness as well as everything else.

"That mental toughness is, 'Can you repeat it every single night?' I think we have depth. I think we have versatility. We have uniqueness to our team. There are a lot of things that give us the chance to do something special but we haven't done anything right now. We've had a nice season and we're only halfway through it. We've got to do it all over again for another 40 games."

Finch pointed out that the "league has never been more open" than it is now. 

"It's never been more competitive, if you will," Finch said. "Five years, five different champions. Two years ago, Denver pretty much, I think, gets swept in the first round and the next year they win the championship. Fortune can switch quickly. Windows can close quickly. Look at Memphis, a couple years ago everyone thought they were the bell of the ball and due to circumstances out of their control, or for whatever reason, they are where they are now."

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The loss to the Hornets left a sour taste to squash any reason to celebrate a franchise-record 62 points from Karl-Anthony Towns. Even if Minnesota has squeaked out a victory, Finch still would've been mad. 

"This is a results business. There's no doubt about it, would much rather have won and [Karl-Anthony Towns] had a special night," Finch continued. "But it wouldn't have changed the process. The process wasn't good enough. It wasn't repeatable. It wasn't to the standard we had played. It wasn't to our identity. It wasn't about the right things. So yeah, we'd take the win and at the end of the day they don't ask how, they ask how many. We would have moved on but I would have still been annoyed. We would have still covered the same things we're going to cover in a film session having lost the game. Of course we'd rather win than lose but you're 100% right, I don't think I would have felt that much better about the overall performance had we won the game."

Minnesota has a chance to once again right the ship when they return to action Wednesday against the 7-35 Washington Wizards.