The Timberwolves exited from the playoffs on Thursday night, losing to the Dallas Mavericks at Target Center and dropping the NBA Western Conference finals series 4-1.
This was the most basketball Wolves all-league guard Anthony Edwards played in any of his four NBA seasons, and his minutes tend to be among the most intense on the team, given what the Timberwolves ask of him on the offensive end of the floor.
After the season-ending Game 5 loss, Edwards said he will be attacking his offseason differently now that he knows what is required to play at a high level deep into the playoffs.
“I’ve never played this deep into a basketball season,” Edwards said. “So now I know, like, OK, in order for me to be dominant in the third round, and if we get past this and finally go to the Finals, I’ve got to train like I’m going to go to the playoffs. So I can’t be missing training days, I can’t take days off, you know what I mean? So I know what it takes, and I’ll be ready.”
This is going to be a busy offseason for Edwards. Not only is his time off shorter thanks to the extended playoff run, but he’ll also be competing with Team USA in the Paris Olympics, with preparations set to start for that in early July. Edwards said not just himself, but the entire team has to take a different approach to their training regimens this offseason.
“We trained this year as if we were going to just play 82 games, maybe one round of the playoffs. We didn’t know we were going to go this far. We didn’t train like it this summer,” Edwards said. “I know nobody did. Especially myself. So I think this summer is going to be huge for all of us, because we know what type of team we’ve got and we know what we’re capable of, so we need to train like it, like we know what we’re going to do.”
Center Naz Reid said he could feel the effects of that in Game 5, that the Wolves were lacking the energy both mentally and physically that was required to win the Western Conference finals.
“I know a lot of guys were tired today,” Reid said. “I say that as well. It’s a long season. Once you get to this point, you’ve played over 100 games. Being in shape, having the mental to where you can get through anything, anything is possible. I think everybody pretty much had that mindset. We didn’t really break through that barrier.”
Edwards, who already has days in the offseason where he holds four workouts per day, said he plans to hearken back to his college training days as he prepares for a busy offseason.
“The year that I was going to college, I think I was in the best shape of my life in my freshman year of college,” Edwards said. “The bike stuff, a lot of stuff like that, man, that makes me uncomfortable.”
