“We at home now”: The night Minnesota silenced the Thunder

At the very least, we now know this much: tomorrow night’s Western Conference finals Game 4 will be a real playoff game, the kind that offers answers. Because what we saw in Game 3 demands questions – was it an outlier, or the start of something sustainable, even if not quite so grotesquely extreme? When a game leaves you reeling, the next one has to explain it. Was that a fluke? Was that real? What happened in the 1,300-kilometer journey north from Oklahoma to Minnesota?

The Timberwolves annihilated the Thunder 143-101, transforming the desperate energy of a team down 0-2 into a sense of blazing resurrection. And now we’re left wondering. Any team that makes a conference final is, by definition, very good. But the Wolves weren’t just good – they were flawless. That level of execution might be hard to repeat, but there’s a wide scale between a narrow +1 win and a +42 demolition where Minnesota can still feel they’re on OKC’s level. The Thunder, by contrast, were unrecognizable. Was it a bad night after three excellent ones (one against Denver, two versus the Wolves), a stumble born from a 2-0 lead earned too easily? Or have the Wolves arrived for good, ready to raise the temperature in a series that felt tilted before the venue changed?

The old playoff adage holds: a series doesn’t really start until someone wins on the road. Just ask anyone in the East.

Only fifteen teams in NBA history have reached at least 79 wins across regular season and playoffs (topped by the 88-win 2015–16 Warriors… who didn’t win the title). The Thunder will remain stuck at 78 for now (68 regular season + 10 postseason), a number that speaks to just how consistent they’ve been – which is why their collapse in Game 3 was so shocking. The Target Center crowd began the night tense (down 0-4) and finished electric, feeding off the energy of Julius Randle as he roared to the fans in the third quarter: “We at home now!” Despite their 78 wins, the Thunder were run off the court, a competitive team completely unspooled. No NBA champion has ever won the title after a 40-point playoff loss. Then again, in the modern era of threes and swings, there have been exceptions: the 2021 Bucks and 2022 Warriors both had a -39 blemish on their way to rings.

From that opening 0-4, the Wolves stormed back (34-10 in the final 10:43 of the first quarter), and cruised from there (38-27 in the second). At halftime, it was 72-41 – the largest halftime lead in West finals history, and the Wolves’ highest-scoring half in a playoff game. They would go on to break their postseason scoring record, and hand a number one seed the second-worst beating in NBA playoff history. Yes, Minnesota at their best is terrifying. And yes, OKC is entitled to a bad night. But this wasn’t just a blowout – it was everything. A complete, overwhelming reversal in rhythm, rebounding, second-chance points, control of the paint – every aspect of the game flipped.

Chris Finch made the biggest adjustment, and it worked. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, dominant in OKC (34.5 points, 14.5 free throws per game), was reduced to just 14 points – his lowest output of the season – and only four trips to the line. He had four turnovers in the first half alone, more than his total across the first two games. After the break, Mark Daigneault benched Isaiah Hartenstein for Isaiah Joe, and for a second it looked promising – a 2-11 burst cut the gap to 22. But the Wolves countered with a 23-4 run to stretch it back to +41. The lead peaked at 45, and Daigneault waved the white flag before the third quarter ended.

Minnesota sat deeper on Shai, dared him to shoot from range, and packed the lane to block off drives. They forced OKC to shoot from outside, and the results were night and day: Wolves hit 20-of-40 from three, while the Thunder finished 14-of-44. At one point they were 10-of-31 and 22-of-60 overall. Meanwhile, the Wolves had just eight turnovers and were shooting over 50% from deep (16-of-31). The team that had dominated rebounding and pace in the first two games got thoroughly outplayed. If OKC has a weakness, it’s their three-point instability. Their 32.4% playoff average ranks 13th out of 16 postseason teams. But until now, their elite defense and surgical execution had papered over that crack – the same one that cost them against Dallas a year ago. Can Minnesota keep attacking that flaw?

Everything felt different. Maybe it was just the jolt of a home crowd, or maybe it’s a shift in the series. Anthony Edwards finally looked like the franchise player he is – 16 first-quarter points (more than the entire Thunder team, which had 14), finishing with 30 on 12-of-17 shooting, plus 9 rebounds and 6 assists. Julius Randle added 24 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists, looking re-energized and deadly from mid-range.

Naz Reid, Donte DiVincenzo and Nickeil Alexander-Walker all hit threes on their first touches, and rookie Terrence Shannon Jr – playing his first real playoff minutes at 24 – scored 15 with an eye-catching physical burst. When he entered in the second quarter, a gamble by Finch, he scored nine points in three minutes. At that point, he had outscored every player on the Thunder. That one stat says it all – how massive the blowout was, how brilliant the Wolves were, and how alarming OKC’s collapse became.

Was it a freak night or a sign of what’s to come? We’ll find out in Game 4. For now, at least, we have something we didn’t before: real, burning questions. The West finals are suddenly very much alive.

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Minnesota Timberwolves

Stats

3 Jaden McDaniels
30 Julius Randle
27 Rudy Gobert
10 Mike Conley
5 Anthony Edwards
9 Nickeil Alexander-Walker
22 Jaylen Clark
4 Rob Dillingham
0 Donte DiVincenzo
55 Luka Garza
7 Joe Ingles
33 Leonard Miller
8 Josh Minott
11 Naz Reid
0 Terrence Shannon Jr.

Stats

	Min	Pts	TR	OR	DR	Ast	Los	Rec	Blk	S1	S2	S3	RF	CF	Val
3 Jaden McDaniels	26	10	6	4	2	4	0	0	0	2/2	1/5	2/4	0	2	0
30 Julius Randle	29	24	4	0	4	3	0	0	0	4/4	7/10	2/5	0	4	0
27 Rudy Gobert	28	7	7	2	5	2	0	2	1	1/2	3/6	0/0	0	2	0
10 Mike Conley	21	6	3	0	3	2	1	1	0	0/0	0/2	2/6	0	0	0
5 Anthony Edwards	29	30	9	1	8	6	4	2	0	1/2	7/9	5/8	0	2	0
9 Nickeil Alexander-Walker	18	12	3	2	1	2	3	0	0	0/1	3/5	2/4	0	0	0
22 Jaylen Clark	9	4	3	0	3	1	0	0	0	0/0	2/2	0/0	0	0	0
4 Rob Dillingham	7	1	1	0	1	4	0	0	0	1/2	0/1	0/1	0	0	0
0 Donte DiVincenzo	16	6	1	0	1	3	0	0	0	0/0	0/0	2/2	0	2	0
55 Luka Garza	5	7	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0/0	2/2	1/1	0	0	0
7 Joe Ingles	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0/0	0/0	0/0	0	0	0
33 Leonard Miller	7	11	3	2	1	0	1	0	0	0/0	4/5	1/1	0	0	0
8 Josh Minott	7	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	0/0	0/1	0/2	0	0	0
11 Naz Reid	18	10	8	0	8	2	0	0	1	0/0	2/3	2/3	0	4	0
0 Terrence Shannon Jr.	13	15	2	0	2	1	0	1	0	4/4	4/5	1/3	0	2	0

Oklahoma City Thunder

Stats

7 Chet Holmgren
8 Jalen Williams
55 Isaiah Hartenstein
5 Luguentz Dort
2 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
9 Alex Caruso
13 Ousmane Dieng
11 Isaiah Joe
3 Dillon Jones
25 Ajay Mitchell
22 Cason Wallace
21 Aaron Wiggins
6 Jaylin Williams
34 Kenrich Williams

Stats

	Min	Pts	TR	OR	DR	Ast	Los	Rec	Blk	S1	S2	S3	RF	CF	Val
7 Chet Holmgren	20	10	5	1	4	2	0	1	0	3/3	2/3	1/4	0	1	0
8 Jalen Williams	24	13	4	0	4	2	4	0	0	5/6	1/4	2/5	0	2	0
55 Isaiah Hartenstein	19	6	6	0	6	0	0	0	1	0/1	3/6	0/0	0	0	0
5 Luguentz Dort	21	6	1	0	1	0	2	0	0	0/0	0/0	2/4	0	3	0
2 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander	27	14	2	0	2	6	4	0	1	4/4	2/8	2/5	0	2	0
9 Alex Caruso	9	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0/0	0/2	1/3	0	2	0
13 Ousmane Dieng	6	6	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	0/0	0/0	2/2	0	0	0
11 Isaiah Joe	17	2	3	0	3	0	0	1	1	0/0	1/2	0/5	0	0	0
3 Dillon Jones	9	10	3	2	1	1	0	1	0	0/0	2/3	2/2	0	1	0
25 Ajay Mitchell	18	14	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	1/1	5/7	1/4	0	2	0
22 Cason Wallace	15	2	1	1	0	1	0	0	0	2/2	0/0	0/0	0	1	0
21 Aaron Wiggins	16	5	0	0	0	2	1	0	0	0/0	1/2	1/3	0	2	0
6 Jaylin Williams	17	2	5	1	4	3	2	1	0	2/2	0/0	0/6	0	3	0
34 Kenrich Williams	14	8	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	0/0	4/5	0/1	0	1	0