Down by 33 points to the San Antonio Spurs, Anthony Edwards checked out of Friday night’s Game 6 early.
The Minnesota Timberwolves All-Star walked to the Spurs’ bench during a timeout with 8:01 remaining in the fourth quarter and shook hands with the coaching staff and players, one by one. There weren’t seconds remaining — or even a couple of minutes — as when a player might traditionally make this move.
Edwards’ exchange caught the attention of the analysts, all former NBA players, on the “NBA on Prime” postgame show. The Amazon show, hosted by Taylor Rooks, includes Dirk Nowitzki, Blake Griffin, Udonis Haslem and Steve Nash as analysts. After the Spurs beat the Wolves 139-109 to advance to the Western Conference finals, the analysts took exception to Edwards’ decision to dap the competition.
Nowitzki, Griffin and Haslem spoke publicly and agreed the move wasn’t popular with them. Haslem, a 20-year pro with the Miami Heat, was the most demonstrative of the analysts in expressing his thoughts.
“As a leader, I would not have walked down there and shook their hands,” Haslem said. “As a leader of my troops and my guys, I would not have shown that weakness. The game is not over. I’ve got eight minutes left. I still got smoke coming out my ears. … Let me calm down for those eight minutes since I’m not in, and then after those eight minutes, I’ll go down there, and I’ll congratulate them and their coaching staff.
“In the middle of the game, when I got guys that have sat on the bench and cheered me on (going into the game for garbage time)? No, I’m gonna sit there and cheer those guys on. I’m gonna put that energy back into those guys, and then when the game is over, I’ll go over there and shake their hand. That’s just the way I handle things. I’m a little bit different. I’m a little bit old-school. I understand there’s a different generation, but I don’t think if they were beating San Antonio, Wemby would have shook his hand with eight minutes left.”
During the Wolves’ postgame news conference, Edwards said he knew he was done for the night, so he figured he would pay his respects early.
“At that point, you know you ain’t going back in, so you’re just trying to get them respect they deserve,” he said.
Nowitzki, a Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer, had a different opinion.
“I’ve watched the NBA and been a part of it for a long, long time. I’ve never seen this,” Nowitzki said. “A guy walking into the huddle with eight minutes to go in the fourth quarter and dapping up the entire team? Too much for me. Obviously, you can do that after the game and show plenty of respect.”
Griffin cosigned simply by saying, “I’ve never seen that before.”
Edwards scored 24 points Friday night. The 24-year-old struggled through injuries to both knees in the early part of the series, but he helped the Wolves to even the series before San Antonio found its groove in the final two games.
