PHOENIX – There's a fiery nature inside Timberwolves coach Chris Finch that he can often suppress when he speaks to the media before and after games. Players say it can come out in practices, but in public, Finch usually doles out praise and criticism of his team in the same even-keeled, mild manner.
But that fire came out a bit after the Wolves' Game 3 victory over the Suns on Friday night when Finch was asked how this group of players has seemingly put decades of franchise futility behind it while approaching the first playoff series victory for the Wolves since 2004.
"I don't care what happened beforehand," Finch said. "But the reality is that we have a bunch of guys who love playing together, play the right way, they're young, they let me coach them hard, and it's been fun.
"That's been the foundation of being able to grow this little by little. Long way to go for us but, yeah, we don't really care what happened before because it doesn't relate to any of us."
The Wolves, who won the first three games of the best-of-seven Western Conference quarterfinal series, will go for the sweep Sunday night at Footprint Center.
The saying goes that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Perhaps in the case of this Wolves team, not knowing, or not caring, about the team's history might be for the best.
Nobody is weighed down with the baggage of losing season after losing season, false hope that never materialized and lottery after lottery that didn't see the Wolves get a paradigm-changing talent the way the 2020 draft did with Anthony Edwards. In his four seasons, Edwards has been to the playoffs three times. The only history he cares about is his own recent history of not making it out of the first round — and he knows the Wolves will not take the Suns lightly, even with the large lead in the series.
"We can't think that they're going to give us the game because they're down 3-0," Edwards said. "They want to win a game. They don't want to go out and get swept. We got to come out and be ready to compete at a high level, even more than we did in the first three games. We gonna be ready."
The only player who has had firsthand experience with several losing seasons in Minnesota on this team's roster is Karl-Anthony Towns, who made the playoffs once in his first six seasons and would at times appear frustrated during seasons in which the team wasn't competitive.
"What I think is great about this team is we have guys who have playoff experience and have made it past first rounds, second round, even conference finals," Towns said. "Everyone in this locker room is understanding the team that's on the other side, how great they are."
The Wolves have had a knack this series for making Phoenix look not so great after all. At no point have any of this team's own demons from the last two seasons come back to bite them — such as losing large leads or immaturity with officials. Along those lines, Mike Conley has been especially helpful.
If a Wolves player starts getting especially angry with a call, they can expect a visit from the veteran point guard to help calm them down and move on.
"We've got an emotional team, from our coaches to our players," Conley said. "For us to just stay locked in … it's my job to try to keep us grounded to that point. So I'm trying to keep the nonsense out of it and keep our minds focused and let the other team worry about that."
That message Conley delivers includes Finch too. At one point, that competitiveness in Finch came out a little too much, and he said he got so worked up at the officials that Conley needed to calm him down too.
"For a young team and an emotional team, these are little tests of your maturity and Mike has his finger on the pulse of that," Finch said. "That's why he's so valuable for us."
Conley's career nearly bridges the gap between the last time the Wolves won a playoff series and now. Before the playoffs began, he told the team how much he wanted to make a deep run in these playoffs, and he reminded the team that nothing is given, that playoff success isn't guaranteed. He was speaking about his own career, but he may as well have been speaking about the Wolves as a franchise too.
"It's not easy in closeout games at all, especially on the road," Conley said.
It's a mindset with which not many fans and players are familiar.
