Two days later What Anthony Edwards calls the "most important game" of his career, winning against the Golden State Warriors to avoid a 2-0 hole in the Western Conference semifinals, and the Minnesota Timberwolves star once again found his team in another game.

With Jimmy and Butler fully involved in the playoffs, back to his main scorer role in Miami, Edwards – the league’s fourth-place lead scorer in the regular season – started working hard. Butler scored 18 first-half points, with his Stephen Curry's team leading two points in the half.

Edwards scored just eight points in the first half and only eight out of 12, including three 3-pointers. In his 20 minutes on the court, the Wolves scored 11 points in his 20 minutes.

But then, as he often does, the 23-year-old All-Star played, and his highest skills and elite athleticism often brought even 18-year-old veterans like Wolves point guard Mike Mike Conley.

"Sometimes I'm going to go home, I'll sit there, think now, at this moment, I'm a teammate who has one of the best players ever played this game."

Edwards not only scored -- scored 28 points in the second half alone -- his approach came out. His second half highlight reel reminds people why the Chisel's 6-foot-4-foot-225-pound shooting guard has evoked a comparison with Michael Jordan.

His dunk was five behind at the end of the third quarter when he fired from a semicircle inside the free throw line and ended with a right-hand hammer, which lowered Warriors 6-9 power forward Kevon Looney to the equivalent of a bed bug on the windshield in a basketball game.

There was also his three-pointer, and his team dropped six points early in the fourth game when Warriors defender Brandin Podziemski refused to ced any space he had, so Edwards simply created some space, took a step back and reached the peak of his leap before releasing his jump shot.

Then maybe it was his most critical game.

On the left wing, Edwards is triple teamed by Butler, Looney and Podziemski. Given his obvious offensive rhythm, it would surprise him to see him rise up and catch fire on the three.

Instead, he fed an open Julius Randle on the top of the key and then waved to the right to make Jaden McDaniels look clean, with 3:20 left with 3:20. After that, Golden State never cut it to more than four.

Edwards has no official statistics. Randle received an assist. But this sequence is a tangible example of Edwards' real-time evolution as a full-range threat, and his decisions fueled the Wolves' bondage from one of the most unreliable teams in the NBA, the most unlikely one.

According to ESPN research, Minnesota features clutch time this playoffs, playing a 4-0 record with a score of 45-16 in those few minutes.

Edwards has 15 points in his 14 playoff minutes with 4-4 shooting, and he strengthened the effort with five assists and turnovers - no player has made a mistake in the 2025 playoffs.

"My coach (Chris) Hines always told me, 'Michael Jordan has Steve Kerr.' "He always tells me something like that. So, this is the ability to trust my teammates. ”

But while it may be a search for Edwards' nature now, bringing him there has been a seasonal process.

Five months agoEdwards entered the Chase Center for the second night of the Family and Home Series against the Golden State Warriors. The Wolves lost 114-106, reducing the season's record to 12-11, and Edwards was the reason.

He continued to shoot his team out in the third quarter, scoring 15 points on 6-for-8 and hitting 3 points in the fourth inning with a 4:47-for-1, and he continued to shoot his team out. During the tightening time, he shot 0 at the turnover rate. The Warriors ended with a 9-0 record.

The Wolves have seen them before.

"For the last five minutes, he just wanted to score, score, score, score, because he wanted to prove to the Warriors that he could knock them out," Minnesota coach Chris Finch told ESPN. "He joined the team after that, and he apologized. He said, 'That's on me.' He just stopped creating one for everyone."

The fact that aggravates Finch's frustration is that the Wolves easily beat the Warriors just two days ago, with Edwards scoring 30 points and snatching nine assists.

"He played an amazing game," Finch said.

Hines remembers the loss - and learns a lesson from it.

"He's the kid you told him not to eat chocolate, he had chocolate on his face." "And you're like, 'Hey man, did you just eat chocolate?' He's like, "No." ”We’re just telling you guys, don’t eat chocolate!

Despite this, his teammates were poor in his later executions, but his teammates also tended to him.

"It's part of our growth," Randall told ESPN. "And it's really not on him. He's like, 'F, let me try to get our team to win.' He's the ultimate competitor, but he's able to recognize, "Hey, I'm going to be better." "That's who the ants are.

Hines said he knew Edwards saw himself as an alpha and attracted killer rivals like Jordan and Kobe. But of Jordan’s six champions, all of them were before Edwards was born. His birthday came two months after Kobe's second title in Los Angeles, so Hines is still introducing their game to Edwards, surpassing the dunk and game champions that are still flooding social media.

“Jordan has Steve Kerr,” Hines said. “He has (John) Paxson sometimes. Lebron (James) has Boobie Gibson. Those who really do shoot in time. (Robert) Horrys and Whats have not been in the entire history of the game.

“So it’s a good transition to see it. When he hits Rick Fox, we’ll watch Kobe’s clips. He doesn’t know who Rick Fox is.

Edwards admits he has been working on developing his hero-ball tendency.

“What time in the playoffs, I always want to win the game by myself,” Edwards said. “Because growing up, when you watch the game, you always think, ‘Oh, they always play big shots!’ But sometimes they get extra passes, the right game.”

but According to ESPN Research, he still struggles to match the heroes late in the game or Jordan and Kobe, who was 15-0 (3 seconds) in the regular season career in the fourth quarter or the final 10 seconds of overtime. Including the playoffs, he scored 18-1.

Minnesota stumbled 20-26 in close range this season, the second-largest clutch time loss in the league - Edwards was a major factor. He scored 7-0 in those equalizers or eliminations - not the most attempts not made in the league this season and not the most in the last five seasons.

They said Edwards’ coach and teammates weren’t trying to disable what drove him to take over. It was a shift, another, while also providing him with all the defense range he would surely see.

He is studying.

"That's the balance he has to deal with because he's a guy who goes, goes, goes, goes, goes, goes, goes, goes, goes," Conley said. "And we kept telling him that we wanted him to be aggressive. I think that was when he slowed down a little bit, and when he was like, "Oh, I just have to go through it." ”He is just a passer.

“So it’s just making him understand, keep the offensive mode, keep being aggressive all the time, but when you do that, can you handle it? When you see someone coming to help and help the last minute, can you pick it up?

This is not intuitive yet. "Every three properties, I'm going to shoot a third," Edwards said. "Especially in the extension."

The metronome in his mind reminds him: pass, pass, shoot. Or shoot, pass, pass. Or pass, shoot, pass. He also has the motivation to give up the ball as he has been working hard to optimize his capture and shooter. Play like Kerr, as we all know, is not just passed to him.

He was coached by Kerr at the Olympics last summer and worked with Curry, James and his idol Kevin Durant.

"KD told me that being able to catch and shoot would be the biggest thing for me," Edwards said.

Sometimes it is a messenger, not a message.

"We've been trying to get him to do this for years because the numbers are so good," Finch said. "He's a good catch shooter, but he's been hitting that rhythm with the ball in his hand, trying to shoot his own shot from the dribble. So I think even though he's a huge success, I feel a little uncomfortable."

His teammates said his success in Paris last summer, winning the gold medal, made him better.

"He's talking about Team America more than anything. He's talking a lot," Conley said. "I think it opens up a new world for him."

At the same time, it only enhances his worldview. "(It) put him in a realm," Hines said.

As the evolution continues, Edwards has a Wolves' successive final victory. He ended the Lakers with 1:22 left in Game 5 of the first round with three points. But he was still 16 of 16 of 30 points in the fourth quarter of the second quarter in the second quarter, giving the Wolves a 3-1 lead over the Warriors.

The Wolves think he can be the player who will eventually lead them to their first championship in 36 years of history.

Randall told ESPN: "I used to have a lot of great players. He has confidence in his belief in himself and... like Kobe. I'm near Kobe."

"He is not afraid of any moments, he wants those moments. His belief and confidence in himself as a player is the highest moments I've ever seen or been around."

As Edwards grew to trust his teammates around him, they were committed to trusting him immediately.

"We said to him, 'Do the right game, do the right game.' "The ant said to me once, 'Maybe I'm the right play. '

"He is right."