Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kyle Anderson is going to quickly try to move past how the final seconds played out in the 107-105 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday afternoon.
Point guard Anthony Edwards took the ball up for the Wolves with a chance in the final seconds to at least tie the game and send it to overtime. The Trail Blazers were quick to double-team Edwards at the top of the key, which forced a quick pass to his right to Jaden McDaniels.
After another Blazers defender closed on McDaniels, he swung the ball to Anderson in the corner, and it looked like he was going to attempt a three-pointer, going for the win instead of the tie.
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But Anderson had a pump-fake in mind, and he got a wide-open lane after Portland defenders bit on it. Taking the lane, Anderson looked to have an easy layup for the tie, but that’s when everything went wrong.
A defender may have impeded the layup, but when Anderson released the ball, it went over the backboard, which immediately made it Portland ball with less than a second left in the game.
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He botched the layup and the chance for the Timberwolves to win.
Anderson and his teammates couldn’t believe what happened as the Blazers inbounded the ball and secured their upset win.
The Timberwolves can’t afford losses like these at this point of the season, especially with how tight the Western Conference race to the playoffs is with only a few games remaining on the regular-season schedule.
With the loss, the Timberwolves fell to 39-40, good for ninth in the West. If the season were to end today, Minnesota would be in the play-in tournament, facing off against the Oklahoma City Thunder to have a chance to play for the eight seed.
A win over the Blazers, though, could have had the Timberwolves moving up in the standings, which only helps their cause with securing at least the eighth seed.
The Timberwolves have just three games remaining on their schedule – Tuesday against the Brooklyn Nets, Saturday against the San Antonio Spurs, and the season finale against the New Orleans Pelicans on Easter Sunday.
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The NBA play-in tournament begins April 11 with the seventh and eighth seeds in both conferences going head-to-head to determine who the true seven seed will be in the playoffs.
Then, the ninth and 10th seeds will battle for a chance to play the loser of the seventh and eighth seed games to determine the true eighth and final seed for the first round of each conference.
Minnesota will hope to remain in that running when their regular-season schedule comes to an end.
