MINNEAPOLIS — In a trainer’s room adjacent to the Minnesota Timberwolves locker room at Target Center, Anthony Edwards looked his best friend in the eye and told him he was done.
It was Game 4 of the first-round series against Denver, and Edwards’ left knee had just buckled in a way knees aren’t supposed to buckle. Tendons and ligaments rippled in a way that tendons and ligaments aren’t supposed to ripple.
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During his six seasons, he had crashed to the court countless times. He would writhe on the floor, pull himself up, hobble to the back and emerge minutes later looking no worse for wear after vice president of medical operations David Hines worked his magic.
Not this time.
For the first time in his NBA career, Edwards’ seemingly impermeable confidence was punctured. The body that has seemed almost indestructible suddenly felt compromised. A look of worry washed over Edwards’ face unlike anything Nick Maddox, Edwards’ best friend, had ever seen before.
“It’s over, bruh,” Edwards told him.
Maddox wasn’t having it. He had watched Edwards get up off the court and walk off under his own power. This wasn’t “the big one,” as Maddox calls it. He never said the words “torn ACL” because why would anyone even whisper about such devastation? The thought of a major injury is always out there in the distance. But Edwards had shown a special kind of resilience dating to their high school days in Atlanta, so Maddox wasn’t ready to give in just yet.
“It ain’t over with,” Maddox said to him. “God says when it’s over with.”
The MRI exam was on Maddox’s side. Somehow, Edwards’ ligaments were unscathed. But Edwards was hurting in a way that he had never experienced before. His left knee was hyperextended and had a bone bruise. Still, the damage came on top of the “runner’s knee” inflammation he had been dealing with in his right leg for more than a month. Doctors estimated he would need two weeks of rest to let the pain and swelling calm down, but everyone was hopeful that he would be able to return to the playoffs at some point if the Timberwolves could just stay alive.
What followed may be the single biggest reason the team should have hope going into next season that they are not as far behind Oklahoma City and San Antonio in the Western Conference as it appears on the surface.
Edwards dedicated himself to recovery with a previously unseen vigor, returning to play in just nine days and displaying a level of toughness and leadership on the court that is required to carry the burden that the face of a franchise has to carry.
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He made huge strides this season as a clutch performer. He improved his finishing at the rim and midrange game by significant margins. But nothing will win a locker room over like playing through pain. The ultimate test for a player is not how well he plays, but what he can play through. No one expected him to play until Game 3 at the earliest, let alone put up 18 points in 25 minutes to lead the Wolves to a road victory over the Spurs in Game 1.
“Ant’s a warrior, man,” Timberwolves guard Bones Hyland said after the season. “It’s a tribute to how much he loves the game, just battling so many injuries and coming back. A lot of stars would have just sat out the whole year, dealing with what he was dealing with. He was getting shots in his knees. He hyperextended his knee and could’ve sat out the whole playoffs after that. … that’s somebody we love and cherish, man.”
Hours in a hyperbaric chamber, laps in the pool and every recovery method available pushed Edwards past the limits he once believed possible. In doing so, he found a stronger voice in team huddles and film sessions, and an even firmer grip on the direction of this franchise.
From the moment he arrived in Minnesota, no one has ever questioned Edwards’ work ethic or desire to be great. He pours himself into the game and has taken enormous developmental strides from his rookie season to now. One area that had been lacking, like many a young player, was his commitment to taking care of his body.
Teammates, coaches and trainers would urge Edwards to use preemptive treatment to reduce the wear and tear on his muscles and joints. Rudy Gobert and Mike Conley each showed him all of the modalities they used to make sure they could get through the 82-game grind. Edwards would smile and go on with his day. Hyperbaric chambers, the compression therapy, the ice baths, those were for the old folks, not 24-year-olds like him.
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He endured plenty of bumps and bruises early in his career — from knee strains to pulled hamstrings, bruised tailbones and sprained ankles — but he had an uncanny knack for healing faster than most. That Wolverine-like quality may have led to a more laissez-faire approach to body maintenance.
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When pain in his right knee first started to surface in mid-March and then stubbornly lingered into the first round of the playoffs, those around Edwards started to notice a shift. For the first time, he was facing an injury that did not magically dissipate within a day or two. Worse, it was happening at his favorite time of year, when the games really matter.
“I think him dealing with something that didn’t get better right away was a unique thing,” said Robby Sikka, a high-level executive with the Timberwolves when Edwards was drafted in 2020 who has remained a close confidante in matters of health and wellness over the years. “He’s used to something just going away and not being an issue. This is the first time he thought, ‘Hey, is this going to impact me for the rest of the season, or longer?’ And that question led him to say, ‘What do I have to do?’”
The Timberwolves have a highly-respected medical and training staff, one that was honored this season with the NBA’s training staff of the year award. The staff includes Hines, head athletic trainer Erin Sierer and assistant trainers Jesse Geffon and Michael Austin. They put together a plan to help mitigate the inflammation in his knee.
Edwards missed 11 of the final 14 regular-season games to try to get the knee right, but that time didn’t go to waste. He went through endless amounts of rehab and physical therapy, including using INDIBA treatments that uses radio frequency to help repair tissue and reduce inflammation. He wore compression therapy sleeves on his legs more often than he wore his trademark sweatpants.
“I would say some of the biggest things he’s taken a leap in has been his leadership and his recovery,” Maddox said. “He’s learning, if I want to perform at this peak level for 82 games a year, these are things I’ve got to put my body through.”
On a normal night, Edwards will overwhelm his opponent with a combination of power and athleticism that is unique even by NBA standards.
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When the Timberwolves had the No. 1 pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, they hosted Edwards for a grueling, hour-long workout designed to test his will and competitiveness. By design, the Wolves had Edwards believe that he was done before asking him to do one more timed sprint from the baseline to the opposite free-throw line to see what he was really made of. The fastest time an NBA player had ever completed the sprint, according to Sikka, was 2.87 seconds. The time on Sikka’s stopwatch read 2.75.
“I didn’t believe it,” Sikka said. “I was like, ‘there’s just no way.’”
So they asked Edwards to run it again. He posted the same time. On the third try, he ran 2.8 flat, all after a 50-minute, one-on-zero workout. In a league filled with some of the best athletes in the world, Edwards separates himself from the pack.
A good portion of that speed, power and quickness was unavailable to Edwards as he started the playoffs. By the time Game 1 rolled around, his right knee was feeling better thanks to the rest he got at the end of the regular season, but he still did not have his normal burst and elevation that helped him dominate the less-athletic Nuggets in the past.
His teammates knew he was hurting, but he still went for it. He had 22 points, nine rebounds and seven assists in the Game 1 loss, then backed that up with 30 points and 10 boards in a Game 2 victory that flipped the series on its head. A player who had always endeared himself in the locker room with the way he shared the spotlight inspired a new kind of devotion.
“It definitely uplifts me,” Julius Randle said then. “I feel like I can’t let him down. He’s out there battling, and there’s no excuse why I can’t give my best and make the extra-effort plays and just go out there and compete at the highest level.”
The Wolves came home to take Game 3 and then disaster struck in Game 4. Donte DiVincenzo tore his Achilles tendon two minutes into the game and Edwards went down with his left knee injury in the second quarter. After watching his teammates put together a stirring victory to go up 3-1 in the series, and getting good news that his knee was intact, Edwards started to envision a return in the next round. He started thinking about Victor Wembanyama.
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“I remember when the diagnosis first came down. He didn’t care,” Maddox said. “He said, ‘I may not be able to jump around and do what I want to do right now, but I gotta keep this thing sharp.’”
After meeting with the doctors, consulting with Wolves staffers and with his close inner circle — including business manager Justin Holland, Maddox and Sikka — Edwards was out on the driveway at his home shooting form shots, just to try to keep his feel.
“I think that his ability to translate all of that into his own language is what makes him special,” Sikka said. “He can take a lot of information from people and he can synthesize it and figure out what to do.”
His playful nature returned quickly. Hines would FaceTime to check in with him while he was on the road and Edwards would tell him that he was too sore to do the exercises and treatment prescribed. Just when Hines was at his most upset, Edwards turned the phone to his knee and started doing the flexion to show that he was making progress.
“I was ready to come back and compete at a high level,” Edwards said at the end of the season. “We knew that team was really good, well-coached, sound on the defensive end. We knew what they was going to do, but yeah, I was just ready to come back, man. I was eager to get out there and play with my brothers.”
Even internally, the Wolves did not think Edwards could make it back to play in the second round until Game 3 at the earliest, 14 days after he went down. But Edwards had other ideas.
He started working in a pool not long after the injury to keep the knee from getting too stiff, and the Wolves staff threw every manner of recovery technique at him that he could handle. They utilized blood flow restriction therapy, applying a tourniquet in a technique that has shown to decrease stress on joints while also preventing muscle atrophy. The bone bruise was treated with focused shockwaves for deep tissue repair.
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Javair Gillett, Wolves vice president of sport science and performance, started him on a regimen of weight lifting and cardio work to keep his strength and conditioning from falling off.
Edwards had to be pushed in the initial days, but about four days after he was injured, his range of motion really started to show signs of improvement. He wore the stimulation pants while he played video games. He used the sauna to keep his joints warm and, finally, overcame his claustrophobia to spend hours in a hyperbaric chamber to reduce the inflammation in both knees. Gobert had been trying for years to get Edwards to come to his home and use his, but the Wolves found an extra large version that he could sit in and watch movies to help ease his nerves.
“He asks questions. And by asking questions, we were able to find out, what are you willing to do to play?” Sikka said. “So we asked a question. What are you going to do? He said, I’ll do anything. I’ll do everything. When you’ve got a guy who’s willing to do anything and everything, then you can really play with house money.”
Edwards was following a blueprint. For years, he had been told about the extra effort that LeBron James puts in to care for his body, a level of dedication that goes above and beyond the normal and has led to an unprecedented sustainability. The desperation of the moment clicked everything into place for him.
“Everybody ain’t going to be 6-8, 270. But the man hours and the dedication, that’s what we took from him,” Maddox said. “From there, I think we’re in a good place.”
With each day that went by, Edwards felt stronger. Before long, he started telling teammates that he was gunning for Game 1 in San Antonio, not Game 3 in Minneapolis. As he steamrolled ahead, the disbelief in the building was palpable. The Wolves closed the Nuggets out in Game 6 on a Thursday. By Saturday, seven days after the injury, Edwards was going one-on-one against his teammates to put his knee to the test.
Assistant coach Chris Hines, one of the voices Edwards trusts most, told him to be careful and make sure he was thinking about the bigger picture. Maddox sometimes wondered if he wasn’t pushing himself too hard.
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“Honestly, there were some dark days where I was like, ‘I don’t know about today. You might just want to take it easy and rest it up and let the body naturally heal,’” Maddox said.
One of the last tests in the days leading up to the series opener was going head to head against Gobert, trying to finish over him at the rim, as close as the Wolves could do to mimic what Edwards would see in Wembanyama. When he got through it, the determination was made. He would play in Game 1 in San Antonio, nine days after he thought his season was over.
“I got the best physical therapist in the world when it comes to my body, David Hines,” Edwards said. “So big shout out to him. He’s on a whole ‘nother level when it comes to that stuff. He’s the best. I appreciate him. I hope he never leaves me.”
The Timberwolves determined that Edwards would have to come off the bench early in the series to make it easier for coach Chris Finch to adhere to his minutes limit. His impact was anything but limited.
He scored 18 points in 25 minutes, hitting two 3s and helping to will the Wolves to a stunning win in the opener. As Edwards hobbled out of the locker room and to the bus, veteran Mike Conley could not help but shake his head.
“I mean, nobody expected him to play,” he said.
In Game 3, Edwards put up 32 points, 14 rebounds and six assists back in the starting lineup. In Game 4, he scored 36 points to even the series at 2-2. The Wolves faded after that, but Edwards left an indelible mark. He averaged 23.7 points, 5.0 rebounds and made 37.5 percent of his 3-pointers in the six-game loss.
“Anthony certainly wasn’t 100 percent, and it was a credit to him just to be out there, playing the way that he did,” Finch said after the series ended. “So, I’ve got nothing but great things to say about Ant’s performance in this series. He wasn’t supposed to be there until the middle of this series.”
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As he pushed his body to the limit, he asserted himself more than ever. It wasn’t enough for him to lead by example. In huddles and on the court, Edwards found his voice with a group that wants to be led by him. In their Game 4 victory, Edwards didn’t just lead the team in scoring, he was barking out orders during timeouts, encouraging teammates not to let the Spurs off the hook after Wembanyama was ejected, and even calling for subs when he needed another ballhandler on the court to help him.
“It’s fun, man,” Edwards said. “Because you get to know guys on different levels. So just getting to know everybody individually, I think that’s the main thing. That’s part of leadership, like learning how to talk to people.”
Conley has been trying get Edwards to think the game like he did in that series for three years. As he recounted the experience of watching the youngster emerge, Conley wore the prideful smile of a big brother whose lessons were finally taking root.
“Normally he would’ve just been quiet and not had anything to say,” Conley said. “It’s one thing to be out there and just let everybody else dictate what’s going on. But if you can take control of it, if you see something out there, coach will listen to you. We’ll try to reiterate it to everybody else and go from there. You’re our leader and we’ll follow. He did a really good job.”
The Timberwolves are embarking on a crucial summer that could include some significant roster changes as they try to keep up with the Thunder and Spurs in the West. They made back-to-back conference finals appearances in 2024 and 2025, but their championship quest ended a round earlier this season. President of basketball operations Tim Connelly will look to reconfigure the team around Edwards, with needs for more shooting and ballhandling to combat two physical defenses with superior rim protection.
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There is one other step they can take. Each summer, Edwards has made big strides in a specific area of his game to keep ascending in the league’s hierarchy. He is right on the doorstep of MVP contention, just behind Wembanyama, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luka Dončić. If Edwards can improve as a playmaker, he will be right there with them.
But he already made a huge stride this spring. He started to understand the importance of taking care of his body after a season filled with injuries both minor and more serious. And he showed an ability to put his stamp on games even when his body would not allow him to physically overwhelm the man in front of him.
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“We’re going to look back at this and say no matter what happened this playoff series, no matter what happened this season, that he is a much better player for learning how to do things with less resources and being more resourceful with his game,” Sikka said. “It’s going to help him unlock certain things that help him facilitate and be a better quarterback out there for his teammates.”
What he discovered during this playoff run was that there is even more he can get out of his body when he devotes the time and effort to it after the lights go out on game night.
“When I started realizing it was good for me, then I’m going to go all the time,” Edwards said in a video posted on his YouTube channel. “I’ve got to really focus on like my knees, my ankles, my hips. So I’ve got to get with Javair and D-Hines and work on that.”
Edwards may have not gone as far in the playoffs this season, but he did cross a new threshold.
“For him, it’s been a ride, this whole journey of him being injured,” Maddox said. “This is the worst injury I’ve seen him deal with in his career and I’ve been knowing him for almost 10 years. To see him bounce back and have that motivation, it speaks volumes to his faith, what he believes in, and he cares about the fans. It’s like man if I can go out there, I’m going out there. I really appreciate him for that.”