Timberwolves’ late rally falls one shot short in Boston

After trailing for much of the day — and facing a 10-point deficit with eight minutes to play — the Timberwolves nearly rallied to pull out another thriller Sunday in Boston.

But Naz Reid’s open 3-pointer — which may or may not have left his hand prior to the buzzer sounding — hit off the iron, making the timing aspect moot as Minnesota fell 107-105.

The Wolves have now lost 18 straight games in Boston. They haven’t won game in Massachusetts since 2005. On the final play, Edwards — who had eight of his 28 points over the game’s final six and a half minutes — drove left and got in the vicinity of the rim. But he drew multiple defenders and kicked to the corner. One more swing pass got the ball into the hands of Reid, who had a clean look at the horn.

“Ant got downhill. I thought he had, maybe, the rim. But he trusts his teammates, kicked it out, made a swing, swing,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch told reporters. “I don’t know if it got off in time, but nonetheless, it led to a pretty good look.”

But, nonetheless, it was another loss for the Wolves (8-8), who are now back to .500 this season after consecutive road defeats. Sunday’s certainly had a different tone than Thursday’s disappointment in Toronto. Minnesota demonstrated plenty of fight against the defending champs.

Boston raced out to a 15-6 lead in the first quarter on Sunday afternoon thanks to a barrage of triples from star wing Jaylen Brown, who buried five 3-pointers in the first quarter, only to have the Wolves respond with a 21-6 run.

That was the trend of the day. The Celtics would go on big runs, and Minnesota would have to play catch-up to get back into the conversation.

The biggest Celtics’ surge came at the start of the third. It was a one-point Boston lead two minutes into the frame before the Celtics went on a 14-0 run that required multiple Finch timeouts to quell.

“The start of the first, second and third quarters kind of did us in,” Finch said. “Weren’t able to control the game after we were able to kind of get into the game.”

The Wolves were always chasing. That’s been the case for much of this season. Minnesota is chasing something — and to this point, it’s not quite clear what it is.

But the Wolves have kept their heads above water to this point by pulling out a number of tight bouts in dramatic fashion. It looked like, just maybe, Sunday’s affair may be added to the list. A Jaden McDaniels’ dunk with just more than two minutes to play brought the Wolves to within two. It was nip and tuck from there.

Minnesota — who limited Boston to 43% shooting — surrendered just one made bucket over the game’s final 3:20. But the Wolves needed just one more make down the stretch of their own and came up short. Still, Finch noted on multiple occasions after the game that he was proud of the team’s fight.

“You’re coming in and playing a great team that’s really hard (to play against). They give you a lot of problems to solve out there. I thought we kept having to make adjustments and did a pretty good job of that,” Finch said. “Gave ourselves a chance to win the game. Very proud of our guys and our effort tonight.”

All five Wolves starters scored in double figures, including Rudy Gobert, who tallied 10 points and 20 boards. Brown scored 29 points, while Jayson Tatum had 26.

Sunday’s loss was a far cry from many of Minnesota’s subpar performances of late. That wasn’t a surprise to Finch.

“I thought we’d come out and have a response, no doubt about it,” Finch said. “I know the chemistry and the makeup of our team. We’re just kind of going through a tough patch. We’ve got to figure it out, but I thought we took a step forward tonight.”