The Minnesota Timberwolves recorded a pivotal 99-96 victory over the Golden State Warriors on Sunday night. They did so thanks to a grabbing three-pointer in the closing seconds by Karl-Anthony Towns, which ended with 14 points and five rebounds, but also thanks to a critical error by the officials.
With 27.7 seconds left, Rudy Gobert fouled and earned two free throws to potentially tie the game. However, he only made one of two, and with such a small difference between the shot clock and the game clock, the Timberwolves had to foul to go into overtime.
That’s exactly what Mike Conley was trying to do when he just bagged Steph Curry inside halfcourt. For whatever reason, the umpires did not disallow that foul and allowed play to continue. Even Conley threw up his arms in bewilderment in what may be the first time in the season that a player has complained that a foul was not called them.
As the game progressed, Curry played catch with Draymond Green, and yet the Wolves couldn’t make a mistake. When Green got the ball back at the top of the key for the second time, Kyle Anderson ran at him with what appeared to be a foul, but Green would not take the free throws and quickly tried to get off the ball. ball. However, Anderson reached out and rebounded the ball, leading to a steal and a Wolves fastbreak, which Towns finished off with what ended up being a game-winning three-pointer.
Now there are a few things to note. First of all, Towns had to hit the shot, which was cold-blooded, especially in one of his first games back. In addition, the Wolves had a foul to issue, so an attempted foul by Conley would not have resulted in free throws. Then, even if the Wolves fouled again to send the Warriors to the line, they would have been down three at most and had a chance to tie. In addition, the Warriors had a poor turnover after the Towns’ shot and then missed a potential tie 3 on the final possession.
But even if the Warriors weren’t guaranteed to win if the foul was called on Conley, that was a huge turnaround in that situation. Conley’s openly attempting to commit an offense only made the situation more bizarre; this was not a typical missed call on a bang-bang play.
The Wolves won’t be complaining though, especially after some calls against them in recent weeks. Now on a three-game winning streak, the Wolves are back above .500 at 38-37 and sit only seventh in the crowded Western Conference. They are half a game behind the Warriors for the sixth and final guaranteed playoff spot and just 1.5 games behind the Suns for fourth and home field advantage in the first round.