Julius Randle scored 29 points on 13-for-18 shooting, and the Minnesota Timberwolves held on for a 121-110 win over the Golden State Warriors to clinch their Western Conference second-round playoff series in Minneapolis.
Anthony Edwards finished with 22 points and 12 assists for Minnesota, which won the best-of-seven series in five games. The Timberwolves advanced to the conference finals, where they will await the winner of the series between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Denver Nuggets.
“It’s great,” Randle said on Wednesday night. “We’ve had a season full of adversity. Coach (Chris Finch) said at the end of the regular season that we didn’t do anything as far as trades or firing coaches. We just stuck together, and we got through it together.
“I’m super proud of our team, everybody that stepped up in some type of way this year. We got win No. 8 (in the playoffs). We’ve got to keep going.”
Brandin Podziemski scored 28 points on 11-for-19 shooting to lead Golden State. Jonathan Kuminga added 26 points off the bench, and Jimmy Butler III chipped in 17 points and six assists.
“It was a fight,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “I’m really proud of our guys. They hung in there and they battled the whole way through.
“(It was) quite a turnaround in our season from where we were a few months ago to giving ourselves a chance and having a swing at the plate for some real chances to go deep. We were right there. Obviously, it didn’t go our way. The Wolves were great, they deserved it. But I’m very proud of our team.”
The Warriors dropped their fourth straight game without Stephen Curry, who watched in street clothes from the bench. Curry injured his left hamstring in the series opener after leading Golden State to a first-round playoff series win over the Houston Rockets.
Kerr said of the challenge of playing without Curry, “Injuries are part of the playoffs. I learned a long time ago that the playoffs are really about health and then just guys stepping up and making some big shots, big plays in key games. That’s what decides every series.
“We’ve been on both ends of that. It’s just part of it. There’s no sense in dwelling on it, and I don’t want to take anything away from what Minnesota just accomplished.”
The Timberwolves led by as many as 25 points late in the third quarter. Randle dribbled the ball from one end of the court to the other and finished with a running layup to give the Timberwolves a 93-68 edge with 1:01 remaining in the third.
The Warriors made a determined push in the fourth quarter to cut the deficit to nine. Moses Moody drained a 3-pointer to bring Golden State within 99-90 with 7:11 to play.
Edwards helped Minnesota regain a double-digit advantage moments later. He knocked down a 3-pointer to put the Timberwolves on top 102-90, and Jaden McDaniels increased the lead to 14 points with a steal and a layup with 6:36 remaining.
“The team has come together at the right time and is playing its best basketball,” Finch said.
The Timberwolves led 62-47 at the half.
Golden State trailed 45-42 after Podziemski made a jump shot with 4:11 left in the half.
Minnesota closed the second quarter on a 17-5 run to grab a 15-point lead. Randle finished the first-half scoring with a three-point play after making a layup and drawing a foul.
The Timberwolves shot 62.8 percent (49 of 78) overall and 41.9 percent (13 of 31) from beyond the arc. The Warriors shot 43.3 percent (39 of 90) from the field and 28.2 percent (11 of 39) from 3-point range.
Celtics rebound to win Game 5 without Tatum
In an earlier playoff fixture on Wednesday, Derrick White scored a game-high 34 points and the Boston Celtics extended their season by beating the visiting New York Knicks 127-102 in Game 5 of their Eastern Conference second-round series.
The Knicks lead the best-of-seven series 3-2 heading into Friday’s Game 6 in New York.
White shot 7-for-13 from 3-point territory and made nine of his 11 free-throw attempts. Boston sank 22 of its 49 shots from behind the 3-point arc (44.9 percent) and outscored New York 68-43 in the second half.
The Celtics received 26 points, 12 assists and eight rebounds from Jaylen Brown. Luke Kornet added 10 points, nine rebounds and seven blocked shots and Payton Pritchard came off the bench to make five 3-pointers and score 17 points.
“We made winning plays on both ends of the floor,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said. “They made enough plays to win. Gave us another chance to play.”
It was Boston’s second playoff game without All-Star forward Jayson Tatum, who had surgery on Tuesday to repair a ruptured right Achilles tendon.
Josh Hart scored a team-high 24 points for New York, which shot 29-of-81 from the field (35.8 percent). Jalen Brunson collected 22 points and six assists, but he fouled out with 7:19 to play. Brunson was called for his fifth foul with 2:45 remaining in the third quarter.
“That we didn’t play for 48 minutes,” said Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau when asked what stood out on Wednesday. “We didn’t play tough with the lead. Can’t afford to do that.”
