LOS ANGELES — Ever since Mike Conley arrived in a midseason trade with Utah last season, he has served as a fulcrum for the Minnesota Timberwolves’ rise to contention in the Western Conference.
His steady hand, experience playing with Rudy Gobert and career-best, long-range shooting made him the perfect fit in coach Chris Finch’s system, a quarterback who knows every one of his teammates’ roles as well as they do.
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Now that they are banged up worse than they have been all season, the Wolves need Conley to rediscover that kind of impact to help them weather this storm. He just has not seemed to have the same grip on the steering wheel of late, and the grueling post-All-Star break schedule and injuries to several other key players may be contributing to his slump.
Conley had nine points, six assists and went 1 of 3 from 3-point range in 28 minutes, 32 seconds in a 120-109 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday. Their starting point guard was far from the biggest reason that the Wolves lost the game, but Conley’s ordinary play of late has been indicative of a team that is struggling to stay healthy and find enough scoring of late.
The Wolves played without Rudy Gobert (hamstring), Karl-Anthony Towns (knee), Kyle Anderson (shoulder) and Monte Morris (hamstring) on Sunday, taking four of their eight players out of the rotation. It also reduced a rotation that has used its superior size to its advantage this season to a small-ball unit, one that started Naz Reid at center and Nickeil Alexander-Walker at small forward against the Lakers, one of the few teams that has looked bigger and stronger than the Wolves this season.
Anthony Davis had 27 points, 25 rebounds, seven steals and five assists for the Lakers, who outrebounded the Wolves 56-38. Ten of Davis’s 15 boards were on the offensive end, where he used his size, strength and the absence of Gobert and Towns to wreak havoc.
“He should’ve dominated us. Size, length, all that stuff,” Finch said. “Was in the paint for seven, eight seconds every time they shot the ball. It’s easy to go get it. But we got to do a better job of rooting him out.”
Davis also had three blocks and was 9 of 13 from the free-throw line. Minnesota shot 13 free throws total, a number that did not sit well with several coming two days after Cleveland’s Jarrett Allen shot 21 free throws to Minnesota’s 22 in the Cavs’ overtime victory.
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“It’s tough every night when we don’t get to the free-throw line as much as the other team,” said Anthony Edwards, who had 25 points and took only four free throws. “When one player shoots more free throws than you’re entire team, it’s tough. It’s tough to compete. When you miss a shot and they’re going to the free-throw line every time down the floor, it’s tough, man.”
Edwards lamented the officiating on the same day that Gobert was fined a whopping $100,000 for insinuating after the Cavs loss that referees were being influenced by sports betting. It was an uncommonly large fine, one that NBA executive vice president Joe Dumars said was handed down because of Gobert’s past criticism of officiating. It comes in the same season that Edwards was fined $40,000, another number greater than the standard $10,000-$30,000, for his public criticism of referees.
“If every time they get the ball and we so-called foul them and they get to the free-throw line, it’s tough,” Edwards said after the loss to the Lakers. “I don’t know how to explain it. We want to compete out there and be able to play without the foul calls.”
There were certainly some calls that did not go the Wolves’ way on Sunday. One easy one was a play in the fourth quarter when LeBron James swiped down on Luka Garza in the post and smacked his arm but was not called for a foul. But the Timberwolves have made their feelings about officiating known often this season. It might be time for them to start biting their tongues.
The last thing the Timberwolves want is a reputation with officials that they complain too often and too loudly. Gobert’s remarks in Cleveland were scathing and struck at the core of the officials’ integrity. Edwards picked up a technical foul midway through the first quarter for bickering with officials. The protesting is not helping their cause.
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With so many players out because of injuries, the Timberwolves cannot afford to be giving points away at the free-throw line by arguing for calls. Their margin for error is almost zero, so they need to buckle down, refocus and execute at a much higher level across the board.
Getting Conley on track could help that process. The Wolves were outscored by 24 points in his 28 minutes, his worst plus-minus of the season. Individual plus-minus scores can often be deceiving. Sometimes they have little to do with how that particular player played on a given night and more to do with how his teammates around him performed. But it was the fifth time in the last seven games that the Wolves have been outscored in Conley’s minutes. That happened only eight times in their first 31 games.
Conley admitted it was “weird” looking at those numbers in the box score. He knows there can be a lot of noise in that statistic. He watches each game back after he plays it and does see times when he just happens to be on the floor when the opponent makes a run. But he said he also is seeing times where his defense or his missed shots are helping to fuel the opponent’s success.
He is shooting 19 percent from 3-point range in March after shooting 45 percent in the first 40 games of the season. Everything looks a little harder for him right now, and he acknowledged that he was in a bit of a funk at the moment.
Early in the fourth quarter, Conley had a clear lane to the basket but missed a contested layup that would have cut the Lakers’ lead to 100-96. Instead, James took it right back the other way for a six-point lead, part of a 0 of 9 start to the quarter by the Timberwolves.
Missing open 3s and layups are uncharacteristic for the ultra-reliable Conley, but the Wolves are in a particularly daunting stretch of the schedule that could be playing a factor for the 36-year-old point guard. Minnesota had four sets of back-t0-backs in its first nine games and Conley played in every one.
“I’m tired. I’m not gonna lie,” Conley said. “Completely running in the mud. But super, super happy that I was able to get through it. A lot of our guys got through it.”
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Naz Reid scored 21 of his 25 points in the first half as he stepped in to replace Gobert in the starting lineup. Nickeil Alexander-Walker had 15 points, seven rebounds and five assists while starting for Anderson, who was starting for Towns.
But Jaden McDaniels missed all five of his 3s and was 5 of 17 overall, Edwards went 2 of 9 from deep and the Timberwolves were outscored 29-17 in the fourth quarter in letting the game slip away. With the best defender in the league watching from the bench, the Lakers shot 67 percent in the first half and James made a run at a triple-double with 29 points, eight rebounds and nine assists. That certainly wasn’t all on Conley’s shoulders.
While Towns will be out for weeks following surgery on his left knee, it is less certain when Gobert and Anderson will return from their injuries. Missing so many quality defenders caused the Wolves to change their identity on the fly. They hit 10 of 24 3s in the first half and forced 11 turnovers with some scrambling, frenetic defense that was a departure from the Gobert-centric units of the past. The Lakers used all of their size to their advantage, but all it got them was a one-point lead at the half.
“We (were) supposed to win tonight,” Reid said. “Everybody after the game was like, ‘No way.’ We’re all comfortable. It’s not like we don’t need (Towns). Obviously, we need him. But we’re all comfortable, we’re all capable of being winners.”
Conley has been doing this for too long to be overly concerned about a tough stretch — for himself or the team. The Timberwolves (44-21) dropped to third place in the Western Conference, 1.5 games behind first-place Oklahoma City (45-19) and a game behind Denver (44-20).
“It doesn’t worry me because I know on a big scale standard, I know who I am and I know what I bring every night,” Conley said. “It’s just that time of year when you run in the mud a little bit. Just gotta find your way out of it. I’ll do that and this team will do that as well.”
(Photo of Mike Conley and D’Angelo Russell: Kiyoshi Mio / USA Today)