He ripped off his jersey and threw it into the crowd. He jumped up on a table and screamed. He grabbed a teammate and jumped for joy. He hugged his mom. He cried tears of jubilation.
Patrick Beverley’s celebration in the wake of the Timberwolves’ 109-104 play-in victory over the Los Angeles Clippers at Target Center likely mimicked that of many fans in their respective living rooms Tuesday night.
For just the second time since 2004, the Timberwolves are playoff-bound.
“I … told y’all,” Beverley said afterwards, tossing out an additional expletive with his hand firmly gripped to a 16-ounce Bud Light.
Beverley did so at his introductory press conference after he was acquired by Minnesota via trade from Memphis. He sat on a stage in the Target Center lobby, noted that he never had missed the playoffs before (not in any season in which he played 12-plus games, anyway) and wasn’t going to start now.
“Y’all looked at me like I was crazy when I first said that,” Beverley said.
Yet there he was on Tuesday, helping seal the deal — against his former team, no less.
The Clippers dealt the veteran guard to Memphis after the two sides couldn’t agree on terms to a contract extension. Months later, Beverley dispatched the Clippers to set up the Wolves’ date with second-seeded Memphis in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs. Game 1 is Saturday at 2:30 p.m. in Memphis.
“Man, I wanted this so bad. I wanted this one so bad,” Beverley said. “This is just the icing on the cake, the cherry on top, the play-in to be able to beat them.”
As the final seconds ticked off, Beverley exchanged hugs and words with his former teammates. He said he told them to take their butts home on the long flight to L.A.
“I gave my blood and sweat and tears to that organization. Blood, sweat and tears to just be written off like that,” Beverley said. “(They said) ‘He’s injury prone. He’s old.’ This and that. To be able to come here, play them in a play-in, beat they (butts). No other feeling, man. No other feeling.”
It was fitting the Timberwolves beat the Clippers in the most Patrick Beverley way possible.
On Monday, with the team gathered at the practice facility and ready to depart for the day, Beverley asked coach Chris Finch, in front of the group, “What’s the one thing we need to take to bed tonight?”
“I said, ‘It’s the attention to detail. It has to go to another level right now,’ ” Finch recalled. “Competitiveness has to be there, or we won’t even be on the floor (with them).”
The Timberwolves had lost some of that in recent weeks. The defensive intensity dipped in and out. There were frankly nights when the Wolves didn’t look like a playoff team. That couldn’t be the case if the Wolves wanted to beat the Clippers — last year’s Western Conference runner-up — on such a big stage.
It was not.
“The attention to detail was outstanding,” Finch said.
The defensive performance was, too. Minnesota held Los Angeles to 7-for-20 shooting in the fourth quarter. It did so without the services of all-star center Karl-Anthony Towns. The Wolves’ big man delivered perhaps his worst performance as a professional, scoring just 11 points on 3-for-11 shooting while committing four turnovers before fouling out after just 24 minutes on the court.
He went to the bench after picking up foul No. 6 with 7 minutes, 30 seconds to play, and Minnesota trailing by seven points.
And the Wolves won anyway.
That doesn’t happen at this level. Teams rarely can out-intensity and execute when their alpha is nowhere to be found. But the Timberwolves reminded the nation Tuesday that they are so much more than just Towns.
“This night is about his teammates,” Finch said. “That’s why you have a team, because a lot of other people step up.”
Like Anthony Edwards, the 20-year-old, second-year star guard, who proved unstoppable Tuesday. The Clippers had no matchup for Edwards, and he made it known, sizing up defenders before launching dagger three-point shots or going to the rack for rim-rattling slams.
Leading by one with 2:30 to play, Edwards connected on a step-back triple over Paul George to build Minnesota’s advantage back up to four. He was showered with “MVP” chants from the adoring crowd as he hit free-throws to help ice the game in the closing minute.
Edwards finished with 30 points, including a team-high 10 in the final quarter.
“That’s what they gave me,” Edwards said. “They were scared to guard me, and I took advantage of that.”
Like D’Angelo Russell, who’d struggled some down the stretch of the regular season, but showed up when he was needed most. Minnesota got off to a slow offensive start Tuesday, with the Clippers frustrating Towns and taking away Minnesota’s space. But it was Russell who loosened Los Angeles’ grip with some timely shot making and a more aggressive approach than he’d displayed in recent weeks.
“I was coming into the game with the mentality of being aggressive,” Russell said. “I was going to run out of bullets before I felt like I didn’t play a part in it.”
The biggest shot from his holster came with fewer than five minutes to play. Minnesota had just gotten the ball off a Clippers miss, and Russell dribbled up the court with the Wolves down one. The pull-up three ball has been a staple of the guard’s game since, well, just about forever, but it’s so rarely fallen this season.
For that reason, Finch was surprised Russell even took the shot.
“But he loves the big moment,” Finch said.
And he buried it to give Minnesota the lead for good. Russell finished with 29 points on an efficient 10 for 18 shooting performance.
But perhaps more impressive was the way he sat down and guarded. The Wolves couldn’t hide Russell, often viewed as a defensive liability. They couldn’t hide anyone. The Clippers have too many offensive weapons for that. Everyone had to defend.
And everyone did, from Jaden McDaniels to Jarred Vanderbilt, to Edwards, to Russell to, of course, Beverley.
“Obviously everyone wasn’t perfect, but you can tell it was just will tonight. We just wanted it more,” Beverley said. “We went out there. We competed. Didn’t care who shot the ball. Didn’t care what the stats were. The better team won today.”
That’s what the Wolves were — a team. They’ve been an impressive sum of their collective parts for months now. As much was true Tuesday. Nothing rattled Minnesota — not the officials, not any size of deficit, not an ill-timed poor showing from its best player.
The Wolves absorbed every blow. Target Center roared for much of Tuesday’s nearly three-hour affair. That’s been the case for the last few months. The state has fallen in love with this team. One of the reasons is likely its ability to consistently get back up off the mat to threw a few more punches.
Finch previously noted the importance and value of putting his young team in big-game situations and seeing what it could do. There’s something to be said about performing in the postseason, with everything on the line. That was Target Center on Tuesday, a packed house against a really good team with massive implications on the line.
How would the Wolves respond? On Tuesday: Like champions.
“Couldn’t be more proud of the guys. It’s an emotional win for us, we laid it all out there,” Finch said. “We fought through a lot of adversity, but we kept fighting.”
And so, the fight continues — for at least one more round.
