The Minnesota Timberwolves’ season ended with a 139-109 loss to the San Antonio Spurs in Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals, and head coach Chris Finch addressed the outcome in a detailed postgame press conference.
“Yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, disappointed in the results, you know, the certainly the margin of victories are a little tough to take. You know, for the most part, I thought, you know, guys fought, but we just couldn’t complete plays on both ends of the floor at times.”
Finch pointed to the opening stretch as a key turning point, taking responsibility for early adjustments. “I’ll take the blame for the start of the game. We flipped the matchups around and you know we tried to do some things there to maybe slow down their start but you know allowed Castle to get hot early… that’s on me.”
The Timberwolves attempted to limit early damage from Stephon Castle while adjusting defensive assignments, but Finch admitted the plan came with trade-offs. “We knew when we would do that we were going to be giving up some other things. So, but in all that, we lost a bit of our aggression.”
San Antonio’s transition pace and spacing repeatedly punished Minnesota’s defense, a point Finch acknowledged. “They obviously were quicker than us, you know, quicker than us up and down the floor… they leaned into the most was just trying to beat us down the floor as much as they possibly could and all credit to them they did.”
On Anthony Edwards’ series-long battle with defensive pressure from the Spurs, Finch credited both the opponent and his star guard’s effort. “They did a good job. I mean, they were really physical. They held him off ball… I got nothing but great things to say about Ant’s performance in this series because, you know, he wasn’t supposed to even be there until the middle of the series.”
Defensively, Finch addressed the challenges posed by Victor Wembanyama and the resulting breakdowns. “A lot of it had to do with just kind of coverage mistakes… when we weren’t helping, he got a little bit exposed.”
He also described the broader margin for error in playoff basketball. “You pay for every breakdown that you have. And some of the times you just pay by, you know, great players or a physical mismatch or something like that.”
Finch summarized the tactical challenge of facing San Antonio’s structure and size. “You either got to be a problem or have a solution. You got to either be built in a way that troubles your opponent… or you got to have a counter to what they do have.”
He also noted offensive limitations against Julius Randle and the Spurs’ physical matchups. “They have physical perimeter players that were able to kind of stand up a lot of Julius’s momentum drives.”
Minnesota also struggled to consistently convert advantages created by interior presence from Rudy Gobert, something Finch emphasized late in the series. “We just didn’t connect on a lot of those opportunities that he created for his teammates.”
Finch briefly touched on rotational decisions, including reserve contributions from Naz Reid. “No, not really. I mean, we went to him two minutes in, so you know.”
