Anthony Edwards’ daring move showcases Timberwolves’ desperate battle with injuries

At this point of the regular season, not a single rotation player in the NBA is 100 percent healthy; such is the reality of grinding through a six-month stretch of near non-stop basketball. For the Minnesota Timberwolves, they are facing a plethora of injury woes to a few of their most crucial players — all of whom can play the same position. During their Tuesday night battle against the Denver Nuggets, they were without three big men in Karl-Anthony Towns, Rudy Gobert, and Naz Reid.

Just to put in greater perspective how depleted the Timberwolves’ frontcourt was against the Nuggets, Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic pointed out that Minnesota had to call upon Anthony Edwards to go up against Nikola Jokic for the opening tip. Edwards may not have been the nominal starting center (Kyle Anderson was), but he has the best vertical in the team (as evidenced by his poster dunk over John Collins last night), making him the best candidate to go up for the opening jumpball.

Alas, one’s standing vertical may be helpful to win opening tips, but height and timing still makes a world of difference. So even though Edwards can pull off feats of athleticism that Jokic can only dream of, it was always going to be a lopsided battle at center court. Surely enough, the Timberwolves star lost out, with Jokic tipping the ball easily despite his negligible vertical leap.

The Timberwolves did not have a choice but to go small; Luka Garza is their only active player on the roster who can be classified as a center, and Garza has played a total of 74 minutes through his first 17 games. Against Nikola Jokic, the Timberwolves thought that they were better off relying on the guile of Kyle Anderson, especially with the added playmaking Anderson provides to compensate for whatever he lacks defensively.

And the Timberwolves’ gambit mostly worked; despite being very much depleted in the frontcourt, they went out and pushed the Nuggets to the brink. They only lost by three, 115-112, and they had a chance to send the game to overtime, only for Anthony Edwards to miss his three-point attempt at the buzzer.