Anthony Edwards Leads the Timberwolves to a Win Over Cavaliers, 109-104

The Minnesota Timberwolves defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 109-104 tonight, posting their fifth victory of the year.

Young T-Wolves are among the worst teams in the league, and even though many hoped that they might take a step forward in comparison to the last year’s performances, that didn’t happen. However, last night’s match gives hope, as the Timberwolves saw their No.1 pick from this year’s draft, Anthony Edwards delivering another good performance.

Edwards ended the night with 23 points, shooting 9-for-15 from the field, and 4-for-7 from downtown. He added five boards and four assists, with one steal and block. Edwards took over in the third period, once he dropped 11 points, helping the hosts erase the deficit and change the momentum on the court.

“People might think I was having fun because I was playing good,” Edwards said. “I don’t care about that. If my team is winning, everybody having great success, everybody’s happy — I was just enjoying the moment. Everybody was together and just excited for each other.”

His Wolves were down 59-47 with 1:41 until the end of the first half, but as time went by, slowly managed to get out of the hole. Even though the Cavaliers had some trouble due to Collin Sexton’s minor ankle sprain, it can’t be said that they lost the game because of that.

The young guard would leave the game for the moment but eventually played 32 minutes, scoring 16 points, with two boards and assists, way below his usual level.

Andre Drummond was unstoppable with 25 points and 22 boards, with the big fella becoming only the fifth active player with at least 9,000 points and 8,000 rebounds in the league. He was a major advantage for the guests, who outscored the rivals from the paint by 30 points, 72-42. Also, Cleveland had 64 rebounds, compared to Minnesota’s 38, all that primarily because of Drummond who had no worthy opponent in tonight’s contest. However, the Timberwolves adapted and overcame that adversity, hitting 16 threes in 40 attempts, while on the other side, the Cavs made miserable four threes in 16 tries.

“They’re big; 72 points in the paint is a lot,” Minnesota coach Ryan Saunders said. “I liked a number of things that these guys did, and I thought that was a definition of a team win. But you can’t be satisfied because games come quick, and we run it back tomorrow.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0Ne4SwyMKU

Apart from Edwards, the hosts had Malik Beasley, who also scored 23 points, only making five threes, shooting 9-for-17 overall. D’Angelo Russell ended the night with 19 buckets and five threes. Naz Reid added 13 off the bench. Ricky Rubio would also come off the bench to score 8 points and dish the same number of assists.

Cavaliers had Darius Garland with 17 points and five assists, Isaac Okoro added 13, while Jarrett Allen scored 10 coming off the bench in 15 minutes.

This is the fourth loss in the previous five matches for the franchise from Ohio, who now heads back home to play four straight games. The next one is against the Timberwolves again, and after that vs. LA Clippers and back-to-back nights against the Milwaukee Bucks.

As for the Timberwolves, Saunder’s boys have seven of the upcoming eight clashes on the road, starting as said in Cleveland. Following that one, Minnesota heads to San Antonio and OKC where they have back-to-back meetings with the Thunder, before squaring off with the Mavs in Dallas on February 9.