They don’t win 50 games, but they do win playoff series. Why the Wolves are built for the postseason
The Timberwolves are two wins away from earning their third-consecutive trip to the Western Conference Finals. It’s an unprecedented level of sustained success – both league-wide in today’s game, and especially for an organization that, prior to the arrival of Anthony Edwards and Co. , previously reached the stage just once.
The prior trip came in 2004, when Kevin Garnett was finally surrounded with the necessary supporting case to get Minnesota over the first-round hump that’d stalled the Wolves in each of their first seven playoff appearances with “The Big Ticket. ” Those teams were considered decent, but far from great. And yet, they consistently out-performed the current editions of the Wolves during regular season play.
In the five-season run from 1999-2004, the Timberwolves logged four 50-plus win seasons. The Anthony Edwards-Chris Finch era has one. That’s semantics to a degree, Minnesota has won 49 games each of the last two seasons.
But, on average, Minnesota averaged 51. 2 wins per season from 1999-2004. During this five-year streak of consecutive playoff appearances, the Wolves are averaging 48.
4 victories. Yet their playoff performances far out-shine those of their predecessors. Why the discrepancy?
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