Grizzlies, Timberwolves still have plenty to figure out after wild Game 3

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• 2022 NBA Playoffs

MINNEAPOLIS – Never get too high, they tell the guy as he buckles up and hunkers down on a roller coaster.

Never get too low, he hears right before he steps Wile E. Coyote-like off a cliff, gravity taking hold in 3, 2, 1…

Two of the youngest teams in these 2022 NBA Playoffs, the Memphis Grizzlies and the Minnesota Timberwolves, already were trying to navigate their first-round Western Conference series with limited experience from which to draw. Now, in the wake of the Grizzlies’ astounding 104-95 comeback in Thursday’s Game 3 at Target Center, things are even more muddled.

Do the Grizzlies tap into the resiliency and pluck that enabled them to bounce back twice from deficits as large as 25 points? Or do they fixate on the flaws that had them digging those holes in the first place?

The same goes for the Wolves. Should they be encouraged by how they raced out to those big leads, seemingly solving something about their second-seeded rivals? Or should the Wolves sit in a corner flicking the lights on and off, catatonic – KAT-atonic? – after letting that game, and possibly the series, slip away not once but twice?

There were lessons to be found in that herky-jerky Game 3, strewn all over Target Center, but none of them definitive.

“You’ve got to forget about it honestly,” Grizzlies forward Kyle Anderson said Friday afternoon. “Like it didn’t happen. We have to play with the same sense of urgency we did the last 14 minutes of the game. Learn from our mistakes in Game 3. Go out and try to correct them. Not let them get a big lead – you’ve got to put your foot on their necks.”

One man’s ceiling was another man’s floor Thursday. For instance, Minnesota raced out to a 12-0 lead through the first three minutes. Wolves: good. Grizzlies: bad.

Delighting its raucous home crowd, Minnesota was up 39-21 after one quarter and 47-21 after Malik Beasley’s 3-pointer early in the second sent Memphis coach Taylor Jenkins and crew into a timeout. Wolves: good. Grizzlies: bad.

Over the final 9:19 of the first half, Memphis stiffened and outscored Minnesota 23-4, cutting that gap down to seven at halftime. Wolves: bad. Grizzlies: good.

Whatever the visitors had found, they lost in the intermission. The Wolves outscored them 28-10 over the first 8:50 and were still up 83-62 with 1:05 left in the third quarter. Wolves: good. Grizzlies: bad.

Which of course means that from there, the Grizzlies closed out the night’s scoring in a 42-12 rush, a free fall for the Wolves that might have them seeking a spatula to scoop themselves off the ground. Wolves: horrible. Grizzlies: great.

Outcome-wise, anyway, if not execution-wise.

In their remarkable comeback win last night, the Grizzlies went on a 15-0 run in the 1st half, and a 21-0 run in the 2nd half.

Per @EliasSports, they're the 3rd team over the last 25 seasons with multiple 15-0 runs in the same playoff game, and the first since 2010. pic.twitter.com/rRlc5zJkNc

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) April 22, 2022

“We still have a lot of work left,” Jenkins said. “The way we start games has to significantly get better. Our urgency, physicality. It’s our 1-on-1 defense that really let us down, our rotations let us down in the first quarter.

“We just didn’t get a good rhythm, because of our lack of urgency on the defensive end. Offensively we were scattered, frantic. We weren’t playing our style. We didn’t have the ball movement, we didn’t have the pace, we didn’t have the spacing that we needed. You wrap all that up, it’s just ‘Do what we do better.’”

Grizzlies big man Jaren Jackson Jr. and Wolves center Karl-Anthony Towns have been mired in early foul trouble for much of the series’ first 144 minutes. Jenkins made the highest-profile adjustment on his side of the table, basically benching center Steven Adams because Towns’ range and mobility make Adams a defensive liability.

But no one’s walking around with a “genius” label. Not Minnesota coach Chris Finch, whose failure to stem the bleeding in the second half with a timeout has been roundly criticized. And not Jenkins, whose 56-26 team put itself in those big holes.

“Despite the win, our guys were still, I like to say, pissed that … we didn’t have our ‘A’ game,” Jenkins said. “We found a way to come back from significant deficits. A lot of that [is] just us staying together and chipping away and making enough plays in spurts. But for 48 minutes, against the Timberwolves, you have to be significantly better, and it definitely starts with how we start the game.”

Finch and the Wolves stayed away from the practice floor as well as the media Friday. Probably a good thing, given how hard their double-swoon must have hit.

All Minnesota has to do is:

1. Get Towns playing like the All-NBA player he purports to be.

2. Get a more sustained performance from primary guard D’Angelo Russell.

3. Hope 20-year-old Anthony Edwards can get as precocious as he did in the opener (36 points).

4. Fast track some maturity they haven’t really earned yet when it comes to seizing success.

Towns has sputtered in three of the past four games, beginning with his foul-saddled Play-In performance. He took only four shots in Game 3 – on his way to eight points, four turnovers and five fouls. Struggling to pass out of double-teams is part of the reason, but when things start really going sideways, in a playoff game, stars have to force their opportunities.

During the fourth quarter on Thursday, Towns, Russell and Edwards combined to shoot 2-for-7, while Patrick Beverley took five shots – and missed them all.

It’s a heckuva time to be figuring out your pecking order and points of emphasis, but no one is waiting for the Timberwolves. Do or do not – there is no try in the NBA postseason.

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Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Twitter.

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