Mike Conley remembers the Malice at the Palace, a 2004 brawl between the Detroit Pistons and Indiana Pacers that spilled into the stands.
The Minnesota Timberwolves melee with the Pistons on Sunday also rolled into the crowd. Still, it didn’t spiral out of control like it did at the old Palace at Auburn Hills over 20 years ago. Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson started fighting with fans who threw things at them in suburban Detroit. Naz Reid only wagged his finger at Ron Holland II, and Donte DiVincenzo got between Reid and Holland, setting off the donnybrook.
Fans didn’t get into it with players, but a young spectator may have been shaken up. The officials ejected Wolves assistant Pablo Prigioni and Pistons head coach J.B. Bickerstaff. They also removed Detroit’s Stewart, Holland, and Marcus Sasser, as well as Minnesota’s Reid and DiVincenzo, from the game.
The Wolves were down 10 when the fight broke out with 8:36 left in the second; they won 123-104. Minnesota outscored Detroit 82-49 over the last 28 minutes. Anthony Edwards scored 20 of his 25 points in the third quarter, and Mike Conley scored 11 of his 17 in the second half.
“When something like that happens,” Rudy Gobert said, “it either makes you or breaks you. It gave us a boost of energy.”
Conley, the wily veteran, was mum on the situation.
“I plead the fifth,” he said.
The issue with the Wolves this season is nobody knows whether they’ll fight or give up on a game. Going 4-0 against the Phoenix Suns, 3-0 against the Denver Nuggets, and splitting with the Oklahoma City Thunder? That’s fight! Losing to the Milwaukee Bucks without Giannis Antetokounmpo and splitting with the Portland Trail Blazers, Washington Wizards, and Toronto Raptors?
That’s flight.
After trading Karl-Anthony Towns, the Wolves have reverted to the team they were two seasons ago. A year after winning 56 games and reaching the Western Conference Finals, the Timberwolves are losing to sub-.500 teams and fighting to get out of the Play-In Tournament again. Instead of boat-racing lousy teams, they take on water until they feel a burn in their lungs. They don’t go full bore until they need a gasp of air.
Perhaps Minnesota’s fight-or-flight approach will work out. They won’t play Toronto or Washington in the playoffs. However, the Timberwolves are 0-2 against the Boston Celtics, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Indiana Pacers, three of the East’s four best teams. They’re also 0-2 against the Memphis Grizzlies, a potential playoff opponent.
Regular-season records only mean so much. To fully contextualize them, you’d have to look at who is available for each team and how well they’re playing at any point in the season. Last year, the Wolves didn’t beat the Suns in the regular season and swept them in the playoffs. Still, we have enough information in the regular season to know Minnesota is a Jekyll and Hyde team, and it’s hard to be inconsistent and go on a playoff run.
However, Minnesota is rounding into form when it matters most. The Timberwolves are 11-3 in March, their best March record in team history. We’ll have to see who gets suspended. Edwards also picked up a technical foul, meaning he’ll serve a one-game suspension if the officials give him another.
Regardless, we learned this team still has some fight in it.
“I thought we reacted the way we should,” said Conley. “In a sense, you know, it woke us up out of how we were playing at the moment. I think it gave everybody a little bit of adrenaline. You hate to lose guys in the middle of a game like that. But they turned the game around for us, honestly.”
The Wolves are a fight-or-flight team. However, they better have fight once the postseason starts because the only flight in the playoffs is a flight home.