Timberwolves' Anthony Edwards sends defiant NSFW message after embarrassing loss to Blazers

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The Minnesota Timberwolves haven’t quite hit the ground running to start the 2024-25 season, and their uneven play continued on Tuesday night to open the 2024 NBA Cup. Despite facing one of the worst teams in the association, the Portland Trail Blazers, who are coming off a three-game stretch in which they lost all games by a combined 93 points, the Timberwolves couldn’t get much of anything going on both ends of the court as they suffered a 122-108 defeat.

The Timberwolves have now lost two straight games, and this is made even concerning by the fact that they lost to a Blazers team that was terrible and looked stuck in a rut. Regardless, Anthony Edwards isn’t sweating this mini-slump too much, as he is simply looking towards the future and what he and the Timberwolves can control in their bid to improve moving forward. But in classic Edwards fashion, he did add a little bit of spice to his comments.

“We can’t get down on ourselves after two f**king games. I mean, we can win 10 in a row. We need to lock in on that than being more worried about the s**t that just happened. I mean, It’s over. We can’t go back and change it,” Edwards told reporters following the Timberwolves’ defeat, per Chris Hine of The Minnesota Star Tribune.

There have been a few growing pains for the Timberwolves to navigate to start the new season. The process of integrating Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo into the team continues; DiVincenzo, in particular, hasn’t been very consistent, and he has not been the impact player Minnesota expected he’d be following the blockbuster offseason trade.

The Timberwolves’ defense hasn’t quite reached the levels they were at least season yet. Through the first 11 games of the season, Minnesota’s defense is ranked 10th — a drop-off from their league-leading defense last season. This is something they are going to have to rectify moving forward, beginning with a rematch against the Blazers on Wednesday night in the second of a back-to-back.

Anthony Edwards has to be better in taking the leadership mantle for the Timberwolves

As the old adage goes in the NBA, a team can only get as far as their best player can take them. For the Timberwolves, they decided to hand over the keys to the franchise to Anthony Edwards in the aftermath of trading Karl-Anthony Towns away. And Edwards has to take the lead in setting the tone for his team on a nightly basis.

While being defiant and not panicking after a loss to the lowly Blazers may be the way to go, especially given how early the season is, there has to be a greater sense of urgency in figuring things out. The Western Conference is unforgiving, and any brutal stretch will go punished.

Edwards also has to play better; he shot 16-43 over the past two games, and that simply will not cut it. The Timberwolves will also have to figure out a way to get the likes of Rudy Gobert and Mike Conley going amid a slow start to the year.

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