The Wolves had a collapse for the ages as a 34-3 Bucks run turned a 24-point fourth-quarter lead into the most costly loss of the season.
There are just four games left in the season for the Minnesota Timberwolves, each with incredibly high stakes in a tightly packed Western Conference. Before tonight’s set of games, five teams currently seeded four through eight have exactly 32 losses, setting up an incredible stretch run to the NBA season.
The Wolves started their final week of the season with a matchup against their neighbors to the east, the Milwaukee Bucks. The last time these two teams faced off, the Bucks beat the Wolves without both Damian Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo. While Lillard remains out, the game tonight looked much different with Giannis back in the lineup.
Minnesota got off to a good start, playing tight defense while making three 3-pointers and an alley-oop dunk by Anthony Edwards to give the Wolves an early double-digit lead.
THE LOB. THE JAM. pic.twitter.com/sLqqUbTToI
— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) April 9, 2025
Milwaukee mounted an 8-0 run late in the first quarter, eventually tying the game midway through the second quarter. The Timberwolves responded right back with a 12-0 run of their own. Minnesota led the Bucks 56-45 heading into the halftime locker room.
The scoring remained streaky for each team in the second half as after the Wolves built a 15-point lead early in the second half, the Bucks responded by scoring seven straight points to keep them in the game.
After a Timberwolves timeout to stop the bleeding, the Timberwolves took over the game with a barrage of makes from beyond the arc including three from Donte DiVincenzo, two from Edwards, and one from Naz Reid to push the Minnesota lead to 20 heading into the fourth quarter.
IMPOSSIBLE ANGLE?!?
don’t matter. ♂️ pic.twitter.com/zo6Sid2vJg
— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) April 9, 2025
Following a DiVincenzo 3-pointer that gave the Timberwolves a 24-point lead with 10:09 left in the game, the game turned completely upside down for the Wolves. The Wolves offense fell off a cliff, missing their next ten shots while turning it over nine times over the next eight minutes of play.
After the dust settled, the Bucks rattled off a 34-3 run, turning a 24-point lead into a seven-point deficit with 1:47 remaining in the game. DiVincenzo hit another shot from deep to stop the run, but it was too little too late as the Wolves fell to the Bucks 110-103 in a game that will surely go down in Wolves lore forever.
Edwards led the Wolves with 25 points but needed 27 shots to do it, making only two of his 11 attempts from beyond the arc. DiVincenzo had a nice bounce-back game, scoring 24 points including six 3-pointers.
Antetkounmpo led the Bucks in all three major categories with 23 points, 13 rebounds, and 10 assists. Bobby Portis Jr. returned from his 25-game suspension with 18 points and 10 rebounds.
Key Takeaways
Michael McLoone-Imagn Images
Fourth Quarter Horror Show
In what has been an up-and-down season for the Timberwolves that has seen some outstanding wins and terrible losses, this one might take the cake for not just the worst loss of the season, but of recent Wolves memory. With ten minutes left in the game, the Wolves were up 24 points and not just lost the game but allowed the Bucks to all but wrap the game up with just under two minutes left.
The 34-3 run surrendered by the Timberwolves in just over eight minutes will go down as one of the most costly stretches of basketball as it may end up being the difference between home court in the first round of the Playoffs to participating in the Play-In tournament.
Timberwolves coach Chris Finch spoke after the game about what happened in the fourth quarter.
“We just kind of froze. We didn’t move the ball. We just over-surveyed. When we did make the pass to the middle of the floor, it was late, and then turnover, turnover, turnover.”
Finch spoke specifically about how the Bucks’ zone defense gave the Wolves issues, pointing to poor spacing and lack of ball movement that caused the offensive implosion. When asked about whether or not the fourth quarter was a microcosm for the entire season, Finch immediately disagreed.
“It’s a bad fourth quarter against a zone defense. I don’t think it’s a microcosm of the season.”
The rest of the team took a similar stance, acknowledging what happened while also speaking on the importance of moving forward. DiVincenzo was the first to talk in the locker room after the game about moving on before the game on Thursday against the Memphis Grizzlies.
“Yeah, everybody in here is pissed off. But just regroup and come back because we know we have a huge game on Thursday.”
Julius Randle was next to say they have to put it behind them.
“We have no choice. We can’t sit here and pout at this point in the season. Gotta move on to the next one.”
Finally, Edwards talked about how the Wolves will move on from the difficult loss.
“We good. I mean it’s a part of the game. Of course we didn’t want to lose, but we can’t be in bad spirits because we need to win the next game so we can’t think too much about it. It happened.”
For fans, it can be understandably frustrating to hear players downplay the importance of such a devastating loss. Unfortunately, once the game ends, there is not much more they can do. The damage has been done and while they cannot just ignore what happened tonight, they need to put it behind them, and fast.
There will be time in the coming days and the offseason to diagnose why late-game collapses, poor fourth-quarter execution, and overall poor mental fortitude have been such an issue for this version of the Timberwolves. For now, though, the players and coaches are focused on winning the most crucial game of the season on Thursday.
Seeding Scenarios
Coming into the game, the Wolves were tied in the loss with four other teams setting up an insane potential tiebreaker that would have seen the Wolves as the fourth seed in the Western Conference. After this loss, and wins by the other teams around them in the standings, the Wolves sit alone in eighth place, a game behind everyone else.
If the Wolves had found a way to win tonight and avoided the 24-point collapse, they would currently sit in fourth place in the Western Conference via a five-way tiebreaker. With three games left to play in the season, a single loss has caused the Timberwolves to tumble four spots down the standings.
The Wolves are not fully out of the race for a top-four seed, but the path has become much harder. Minnesota will likely need to win their final three games to avoid a date with the Play-In Tournament. Given the final two games of the year are against teams that would rather lose than win, coming up victorious on Thursday against a Memphis team that is just one game ahead of the Wolves in the standings becomes a near must-win game.
If the Wolves can win out, their seed will be determined by how many teams currently above them end up losing one or more games. The Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State Warriors play each other, so one is guaranteed to lose at least one game.
The Grizzlies and Denver Nuggets, who shockingly fired their coach and general manager today, also play each other, setting up a scenario where Wolves fans will likely be rooting for the Grizzlies to drag Denver into the morass of teams with 33 losses.
Even with the loss tonight, there is still so much to play out in the Western Conference. If the Wolves can beat the Grizzlies on Thursday, it opens a ton of seeding possibilities for the Wolves. If not, Timberwolves fans should prepare themselves for the franchise’s third Play-In appearance in four years.
Up Next
The Timberwolves finish this five-game road trip with a monumental game in Memphis against the Grizzlies. With the two teams separated by just one game in the standings, the game becomes a must-win for the Wolves to have any hope of getting a top-six seed. The game begins at 8:30 PM CT, airing nationally on TNT.