Nickeil Alexander-Walker could not put any pressure on his left foot as teammate Josh Minott helped him off of the floor in the fourth quarter of an uninspiring win over the Atlanta Hawks on Monday.
The imagery was deeply concerning for a Minnesota Timberwolves team that has not been able to find a groove for most of the season. Alexander-Walker has been one of their most consistent and important players. With Donte DiVincenzo already out with a toe injury, the Wolves could not afford to lose their do-it-all guard.
The next two days were filled with treatment for what the team called a lower leg contusion. He was walking around the locker room after the Hawks win with a smile on his face, but teammates and coaches were holding their breath as they waited to see how his body responded.
When the injury report for Wednesday night’s game against the Phoenix Suns was released a day ahead of the game, Alexander-Walker’s name was not included, not even with the vague “questionable” designation often given to minor injuries. Spirits were immediately lifted.
“Certainly he’s been so important for us this year,” Wolves coach Chris Finch told the media in Phoenix before the game. “Just thankfully kind of a stinger injury.”
Not only did he play against the Suns, he was a catalyst for one of the Timberwolves’ best wins of the season. Alexander-Walker scored 23 points, went 5 of 10 from 3-point range and was a team-high plus-14 in 35 minutes of a 121-113 victory.
The Wolves struggled to find a rhythm offensively in the first quarter, missing nine of their first 11 3s. But Alexander-Walker banked in a 3 to get himself going, and the rest of the team started to respond to his good fortune.
All season long the Timberwolves have been searching for the toughness that pushed them to the Western Conference finals last season. They seemed to find it as they watched Alexander-Walker put himself out there without even a limp. With his team already short-handed because of DiVincenzo’s injury and Naz Reid missing the game with an illness, Alexander-Walker knew he needed to be out there.
But as it usually does with the introspective Alexander-Walker, it goes so much deeper than that. This is a player who bounced around the league his first four seasons before finding a home in Minnesota, almost by accident.
He was an add-in on the deal that sent D’Angelo Russell to the Los Angeles Lakers and brought Mike Conley to Minnesota but suddenly emerged as a crucial piece to their puzzle. He can be a free agent this summer and will have plenty of suitors interested in a 6-foot-5 combo guard who guards the perimeter like a demon and shoots 3s at a 40 percent clip.
But there is a long way to go before this summer, and Alexander-Walker is determined to make up for the lost time, and minutes, from his earlier days in the league. There were times he wondered if he would even be able to play at all in the league.
But he has been revived with the Timberwolves and is doing everything that is asked of him. He spent the early stages of his career primarily as a spectator in his New Orleans and Utah days. He knows how difficult it can be to earn minutes and knows how close he was to going overseas if he had not made the most of his opportunity in Minnesota.
That’s why Alexander-Walker plays with so much intensity in every shift. He is making up for lost time.
“Everything I’ve been through in my career, playing, not playing, every time I can play I don’t want to miss that,” he told FanDuel Sports Network.
Recently, Alexander-Walker had been in a bit of a shooting slump, going just 5 of 21 from beyond the 3-point arc in his previous five games. But with DiVincenzo and Reid, who is hitting an NBA-best 52 percent of his 3s in January, sidelined, NAW had to fill the shooting vacuum.
He made 8 of 14 shots overall and also guarded Suns star Devin Booker well in the second half. His contributions also helped slow down the Suns offense after halftime. Phoenix scored 59 points in the first half but managed just 18 in the third quarter as Minnesota took control of a chaotic game.
Finch was ejected for the first time in his career, getting into a verbal back-and-forth with referee C.J. Washington before picking up his second technical of the game.
“He showed that he was standing up and fighting for our guys,” said assistant coach Micah Nori, who served as acting head coach after Finch’s ejection. “They picked it up and brought it home.”
Jaden McDaniels, who played another good game in a long run of them with 14 points, six rebounds, three assists and two steals, was ejected in the closing minutes after tussling with Booker. Anthony Edwards was barking at the Suns fans and the whistle-shy referees while dunking all over Phoenix. It felt a lot like last spring’s playoff series when the Suns could not match the Timberwolves’ toughness and intensity.
ANTHONY. EDWARDS. pic.twitter.com/rcUqqkxaoZ
— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) January 30, 2025
Edwards was terrific against the Suns once again, feasting on the Suns’ woeful interior defense. He scored 33 points in 40 minutes and put up seven rebounds, five assists and four blocks to help offset seven turnovers. He threw down two rim-rattling dunks and keyed a Wolves defense that looked a lot closer to the one that dominated the league during the 2023-2024 regular season.
YOOOOOOOOO 🫣 pic.twitter.com/bVmkcFBYhU
— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) January 30, 2025
Julius Randle had one of his stronger games with the Wolves, scoring 28 points, grabbing seven rebounds and six assists and rookie Jaylen Clark saw his first meaningful minutes as a pro, providing dogged perimeter defense against Booker and Bradley Beal. The Wolves won his 10 minutes by nine points.
Anthony Edwards
Nickeil Alexander-Walker
Jaylen Clark
Jaden McDaniels
Rudy GobertAbsurd defensive possession from an awesome defensive unit pic.twitter.com/yHXCP7Iluk
— Timberwolves Clips (@WolvesClips) January 30, 2025
The Wolves responded to Finch’s ejection with their fourth consecutive win, improving them to a season-best five games over .500 (26-21) and putting them just two games behind Denver for No. 4 in the Western Conference. They also are just two games ahead of the Warriors for 11th in a ridiculously crowded playoff race.
Those around the team could see Finch’s ejection coming. He tore into the Wolves after a lackluster effort in a win over short-handed Atlanta on Monday and then continued his tirade with a salty film session on Wednesday morning.
When Minott was beaten backdoor by Beal in the first 12 seconds of his shift against the Suns, Finch immediately pulled him from the game, opening the door for Clark’s contribution. And when the coach was ejected, he let loose with a profane beratement of Washington and needed to be restrained by Edwards — quite a sight to behold given the star player’s history with referees — before storming to the back.
It was 72-72 when Finch was ejected. The Wolves outscored the Suns 32-16 over the next 11 minutes to pull away.
“Everybody had to have some fight,” Alexander-Walker said. “That’s all it took.”
It was no surprise that Alexander-Walker’s grit was the stitching that held together a resourceful, resilient win. It didn’t start the way they wanted it to, but the Wolves dug deep and found a reservoir of determination that had not been there earlier in the season.
Two days after he could barely walk, Alexander-Walker was all over the place in Phoenix, and it meant everything to a team that was trying to find an identity.
“It just took toughness,” Alexander-Walker said. “When we got to the end of the first half we built some momentum, we fought and we chipped our way back in.”
(Photo of Nickeil Alexander-Walker: Mark J. Rebilas / Imagn Images)
