MINNEAPOLIS — With the Target Center pulsating, Anthony Edwards decided to take the temperature of his shooting streak.
The Minnesota Timberwolves‘ dynamic young superstar, dripping with confidence, had already buried a string of jumpers, becoming more animated after each one widened the score. Then, with 48 seconds left in the game-defining third quarter, Edwards drifted toward the left wing and took aim.
Kevin Durant‘s infinite wingspan was a touch too late on the close-out and Edwards’ 3-pointer danced through the net, letting loose a deafening roar from a sellout crowd.
The Timberwolves lead stretched to 16, and the 22-year-old Edwards celebrated by bobbing his head up and down, pounding one hand on his chest and shouting at the 35-year-old Durant, who shook his head and smiled. The moment electrified a sellout crowd, but it also felt like something more, something with historic gravity — the future announcing its arrival, perhaps.
“I think everybody here knows that’s my favorite player of all time, so that was probably one of the best feelings ever in my whole life,” Edwards said Saturday after scoring a game-high 33 in the Timberwolves’ 120-95 win in Game 1 of their first-round playoffs series against the Suns.
The Timberwolves’ 25-point win marked their second-largest in postseason history, according to ESPN Stats & Information research, behind only a 28-point trouncing of the Lakers on April 22, 2003. And Edwards was the catalyst. The former No. 1 overall pick added 9 rebounds and 6 assists and another notch to his growing legend.
Dating to last season, Saturday proved to be his fifth straight playoff game with 25 or more points — the longest such streak in team history. Edwards’ sixth playoff game of 30 or more points also placed him one behind Timberwolves legend Kevin Garnett for the most such games in franchise history.
But Edwards’ biggest impact came in the third quarter, when he scored 18 points — tied with Sam Cassell for most in a quarter in Timberwolves playoff history — and notched more field goals (eight) than the Suns (six) did as a team.
By the end of that quarter, the Timberwolves led by 20 — just the second time in franchise history that they’ve led by that much…
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