Anthony Edwards, the Minnesota Timberwolves’ best player (and indeed one of the finest players in the NBA), recently missed six games due to an inflamed knee, a potentially crippling blow for a team grappling for playoff seeding in the rugged Western Conference.
The T-wolves won four of those games, however, and had been similarly successful when Edwards missed 10 games at various points earlier in the season. In all they are 10-6 without him, and carry a 46-29 record into the season’s final seven games, good enough for fifth in the West.
To hear Minnesota coach Chris Finch tell it, some tweaks were required when Edwards was out, though not as many as might be expected. Finch inserted Ayo Dosunmu, acquired in February from Chicago, into the starting lineup. He adjusted his rotation, reconsidered who was playing with whom, and when. And his players had to work harder to score, since Edwards wasn’t there to create the gravity he always creates, drawing defenders in his direction.
But philosophically, little changed. In fact, Finch said Edwards’ absence took him back to the earlier stages of his coaching career. To his days in the G-League (2009-11), when NBA teams regularly poached the best players off his roster. To his time in Europe (1997-2009). (“It’s just wild over there,” he said. “It’s just like, anything goes.”)
Suffice it to say that the former Franklin & Marshall star, now 56 and nearing his 30th year in coaching, is comfortable being uncomfortable. That he is always willing to “embrace the chaos,” as he put it.
He has been coaching the T-wolves for five and a half seasons, a stretch that has seen the roster undergo near-constant upheaval. Major trades in July 2022, February 2023 and October 2024 netted Rudy Gobert, Mike Conley, Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo, and have made Minnesota a Western contender; they have reached the conference finals each of the last two seasons, falling to Dallas and Oklahoma City.
Change, Finch said, “never spooks me, because the G-League was such a crucible for it.”
As before, it has forced him to be adaptable and resourceful.
“You’re not changing your philosophy, and you’re not changing where you’re trying to go,” he said. “But you might have to change how you decide to get there.”
This year’s changes have been more subtle. The Timberwolves dealt Nickeil Alexander-Walker, a valuable backup guard, to Atlanta last July, and at the trade deadline in February sent second-year point guard Rob Dillingham, their first-round pick in 2024, to the Bulls as part of the deal for Dosunmu. They also shipped the 38-year-old Conley to Chicago in a separate deal. He was subsequently dealt to the Hornets, who promptly waived him, opening the door for him to re-sign with Minnesota.
In the meantime Edwards, still just 24, has made his sixth season the best one yet, averaging over 29 points a game while shooting over 49 percent from the floor and over 40 percent from the 3-point line. All are career highs for the four-time All-Star, who returned from his injury Monday against Dallas and is expected to play not only Thursday in Detroit, but Friday, when the T-wolves visit the Sixers.
When he went out, replacing his scoring was the least of Finch’s concerns – “because,” he said, “everybody wants to shoot more shots.” Clutch scoring might be another matter, but other players – Dosunmu, Randle, DiVincenzo, the since-injured Jaden McDaniels and backup big Naz Reid – were indeed given more opportunities, and they delivered.
“Just replacing scoring throughout the game, generally, shots will be dispersed and people will benefit from that,” Finch said. “And everybody kinda likes that. Our system’s always been highly flexible, so it’s not like you’re just missing such a vital cog to the system that it kind of fundamentally changes the way you play. That’s never how we’ve been built.”
Backup guard Bones Hyland has also emerged as a contributor, after it appeared his career was at a standstill. A rotational player in Denver as a rookie in 2021-22, he subsequently bounced to the Clippers, then the Hawks. Atlanta cut him in February 2025, and Minnesota signed him to a two-way contract shortly thereafter.
“We got him at a point where he was staring at the void,” Finch said. “And we’ve had nothing but a great experience with him.”
Hyland played just four games for the T-wolves last season, and began this year out of the rotation. But when Dillingham struggled he stepped forward, and has averaged eight points in 16 minutes a night, while shooting a career high 45.7 percent from the floor.
“I personally pride myself on opportunities like this – giving people the chance, I think, that can (enable them to) come into our system and reclaim their value in the league,” Finch said.
He had seen something similar happen with Alexander-Walker, who had been a throw-in in the trade that brought Conley from Utah to Minnesota in February 2023. Alexander-Walker played well for the T-wolves and has been even better in Atlanta, averaging over 20 points a game.
“I think a lot of it,” Finch said, “is coming to peace with who they are and who they need to be in the league. I think a lot of guys fight that, particularly early, because they’re trying to prove themselves. It’s a hard, hard league, and it’s hard to be a really good player in this league, and it’s hard to be a really good player in this league right away.”
It is, he added, the first time they’ve had to grapple with failure. They have breezed through high school and AAU ball, then crushed it in college, only to find that the NBA is a completely different animal.
And, Finch said, “They lose confidence. They get frustrated. It’s the first time they’ve faced these types of challenges, so you’ve gotta fight through it or sometimes you’ve gotta find the opportunity.”
Finch was first afforded the opportunity to coach in 1997, in England. He took it and ran with it, through Germany, Belgium and then the G-League. Learned some lessons along the way. Learned some more as an NBA assistant for a decade. And now he is ever mindful of the fact that change is a constant, that it always pays to embrace the chaos, to be light on one’s feet.