PHOENIX — Boos spread in the third quarter Friday night when the Minnesota Timberwolves began to pull away, just as they had in the first two games of the series. Soon, that trickle turned into a deluge, and by the end of the quarter, a steady stream of fans were pouring out of the Footprint Center.
And by the time Game 3 reached its final minutes, most of the sellout crowd had long departed into the desert night after their team’s disastrous performance.
The Timberwolves’ 126-109 wire-to-wire victory put the Phoenix Suns, a team that began the season with championship expectations, on the verge of being swept in the first round of the playoffs.
It also put the Timberwolves one win away from winning their first playoff series since 2004.
The discontent among Suns fans was palpable – and the team, which was down by as many as 24, certainly heard it.
“They expect so much from us and they pay their hard-earned money, and they deserve to react the way they want to react,” said Suns star forward Kevin Durant, who finished with 25 points. “It’s up to us as players to use it as fuel, and hopefully it will ignite us for the next game.”
Game 4 will take place Sunday at the Footprint Center.
“I’ve never been swept a day in my life,” said Suns guard Bradley Beal, who scored a team-high 28 points. “I’ll be damned if that happens.”
No team has come back from a 3-0 deficit in NBA playoff history.
“They say no one has ever done it before,” said Suns guard Devin Booker, who scored 23 points. “That’s exciting.”
Added Suns head coach Frank Vogel: “There is no giving up in our group. This group does not want the season to end.”
The game played out in familiar fashion, with the Timberwolves taking control in the third quarter. In doing so, they made seven 3-pointers, the most in any playoff quarter in franchise history, and took a 22-point lead.
As the deficit grew, the Suns came unstuck again, giving up easy looks. According to research from ESPN Stats & Information, nine of the 13 baskets the Timberwolves made in the third quarter were open looks. The Suns, meanwhile, had just eight total completions in the quarter.
Suns fans rained boos throughout the quarter — “rightly so,” Booker would later say — as the Timberwolves consolidated their lead. And when Timberwolves guard Mike Conley found teammate Naz Reid for a wide-open dunk with 1:08 left to give the Timberwolves a 95-73 lead, a notable number of Suns fans headed toward the exits.
In the third quarter of this series, the Timberwolves dominated the Suns by 34 points.
“This third quarter is kicking our ass, isn’t it?” » said Beal.
Anthony Edwards led the Timberwolves with 36 points, and the Timberwolves outscored the Suns in the paint by a margin of 56-36. Minnesota received a balanced effort, with 19 points and 14 rebounds from Rudy Gobert, whose defense troubled the Suns all night. Karl-Anthony Towns added 18 points and 13 rebounds.
The Timberwolves entered the night as the only NBA franchise to never win three straight playoff games, let alone a series, but that streak is over.
The Suns have lost five straight playoff games, tied for their longest losing streak in franchise history.
For Suns fans, the outcome of the series so far is even more confusing given that Phoenix beat the Timberwolves in all three regular season meetings.
The Timberwolves have only won one playoff series, in 2004, when they reached the conference finals.
Meanwhile, the Suns’ big three, Bradley, Booker and Beal, have underperformed against the lofty expectations placed on them. They have shared the floor for 98 minutes in this series, the most among any trio, and the Suns have been outscored by 42 points when all three share the court, according to ESPN Stats & Information. That number is tied for the worst plus-minus of all three players in the playoffs.
To say the Suns’ season has failed is an understatement, and their future is uncertain if they fail to complete a historic comeback.
The Suns will enter the offseason with $206 million in salary, the largest payroll of any NBA team, and, over the next two seasons, $312 million alone will be committed to Booker, Durant and Beal, whose collective salary next season is higher than payroll. from 14 other NBA teams.
“We really want this, so it’s disappointing,” Vogel said. “It’s frustrating. We’re all very invested in this and we’re all doing everything we can to give these fans a team that they could be proud of, and we think we can still do it, but we don’t have not played well enough in this series.
