Chris Finch: Injecting vitality and tactical soul into the Timberwolves

The Eastern Conference is a turbulent action movie, with all kinds of reversals emerging one after another, and you will never know the outcome until the last moment.

The Western Conference Finals is a weird and brain-burning suspense film. Both sides guess each other's trump cards, and once they are at a disadvantage, they will also make a quick shot.

Alexander, Huazi, Halliburton and Bronson, the most interesting ones are the four coaches.

67-year-old Siberdu, 65-year-old Carlisle, and 55-year-old Finch, worked together to encircle the youngest, best record, the most cards in his hand, and the 39-year-old Dagnott.

The remaining four coaches this year are not the "player-type" coaches that have been popular in recent years. Among the four, the highest achievement of the four players was selected by the Celtics in the third round in 1984. In the NBA, Carlisle, who averaged 1.4 points and 1.0 assists per game in his career, Siberdu and Dagenut are both junior brothers who cannot even touch the threshold of the NBA.

They have been working in the NBA for many years, growing up step by step from assistant coaches and development league coaches. Therefore, among these four teams, you rarely hear mentally normal fans questioning their arrangements and tactical arrangements.

Of courses, except for coach Chris Finch, all three of them have won the league's best coach award.

But in the author's view, Coach Finch's ability to train the Timberwolves, who have been weak for many years, into a Western Conference team with a tough and tough style today is still underestimated.

In 2019, when Nick Nurs led the Raptors to defeat the Warriors in the first year of his NBA career, people always used his success in Europe, especially leading the British men's basketball team to participate in the Olympics held in the local area in 2012. They ignored that there was a tall and handsome assistant coach next to him who was also an American, and he was Chris Finch.

Finci and Nass are both members of American basketball's "technical poverty alleviation" to Great Britain. At that time, Finch was in Sheffield and Nass was in Manchester. The two often fought in the BBL (British Basketball League). They won the league championship in 1999 and 2000 respectively, and gradually became friends who could talk about everything.

The two returned to the United States in 2009 and 2010 respectively. Finch became the head coach of the Rio Grande Valley Vipers in the Development League, and won the championship that year. He successfully joined the Rockets coaching staff and officially began his assistant coaching career in the NBA.

Under the leadership of two coaches, Adelman and McHale, he showed his outstanding abilities. Even when the refrigerator was fired in 2016, many people thought that Finch, who was diligent and capable in the team, was the most suitable replacement. However, in the end, D'Antoni's acquisition also made him decide to end the Rockets' cooperation and turn to Denver to assist Mike Malone.

You read that right, coach Finch, who ended the Nuggets' Defender's great cause last season, once trained in Denver to have a teacher.

He was already one of the best assistant coaches in the league at that time, and it would be a matter of time before he became the head coach of an NBA team. But he still patiently assisted coach Gentry in the Pelicans for three years. He was a popular candidate when changing coaches in the league almost every year. He even assisted his old friend Nas in the 20-21 season for several months until he received an invitation from the Timberwolves in the middle of the season.

The Timberwolves at that time, neither the tough Siberian nor the young Sanders (son of the team's legendary Sanders) could revitalize this "iron fish" in the West District.

But coach Finch brought the Timberwolves into the playoffs a year after taking over.

From 2004-2021, after Garnett got the MVP, no matter the coaches are famous coaches like Sanders and Adelman, or All-Stars like Love, Al Jefferson, and Laven cannot get the ball back to the playoffs. Only the master and apprentice of Siberdu and Butler have completed it once in 2018.

And in the four full seasons after Finch took over, the team has not missed the playoffs.

Huazi has become a hot star in the league from the No. 1 pick, and

Downs and Randall have reversed their bad reputation in his hands.

McDaniels and Van Debiao have become famous defensive gates here, Alexander Walker and Nazel Reed have found their place in the league here, and

2007 defender Conley, who is already 37 years old, has also continued his career here.

But this is not the most important thing. Coach Finch's greatest contribution is that

promoted the Timberwolves in soul, making them ridiculed Husky from the West, and truly became beasts that grind their teeth and suck blood.

Since coming to the Timberwolves, one word Finch has always emphasized is "hunger".

The more we win, the more we want to win.

He understood that for this long-time weak Timberwolves, igniting the players' fighting spirit and unyielding spirit are more important than anything else.

He will continue to challenge Edwards, giving this top pick who is always unstoppable but never discounted on the training ground.

"He asked me to improve my left hand, improve my ability to read games, and improve my three-pointers.

He told me that great players are tireless and unsatisfied."

He hopes that this team has a gunpowder smell, because players who cannot devote themselves fully cannot play games that exceed the limit.

Over the years, we have gradually seen subtle progress in this timberwolves. Towns, who was once considered a "gummy", is no longer soft. In 23 years, he and Gobert surrounded Jokic, who was determined to defend his title.

Gober, who was once considered a "monetary sandbag" to play against him, has also slapped and laughed at him again and again. This year, he not only defeated Doncic, his career miserable Doncic, but also improved his career record against Jokic to 19 wins and 9 losses..

Of course, the most important thing is Edwards. In the past four years, the master and apprentice teamed up to beat Jendoku and Jokic in the playoffs, and they can be called "super mourners".

Huazi, who has always been labeled as a rash, made 322 three-pointers in the league this season, and he has been making tirelessly.

Finch made this Timberwolves a little crazy. In the 22-23 season, Gobert and Li Kaile started fighting on the sidelines. In fact, they are very good friends in private. Li Kaile is even the player who assisted him the most that season.

McDaniels angrily hammered the aisle in the player's passage at the end of the 23 season, resulting in a broken hand bone reimbursement. After everyone laughed at him, they had to realize that the bloodiness of the "Wolf King" KG seemed to have returned to them.

Of course, there is also warmth behind the iron blood. In March this year, Coach Finch suddenly announced before the game that the 37-year-old veteran Ingles, who played for only 19 games this season and played for a total of 100 minutes.

Because this is the first time that Jacob, an 8-year-old son of Ingles, has come to the court to watch his father play. Although Ingles only played for 6 minutes and did not score a single point in this game, he said movedly after the game:

"This is a game that I will remember for the rest of my life. I will thank the team for their support for my family."

Downs' big deal this season made DiVicenzo lose the "Villanova brothers' bond", and left Bronson, Hart, and Bridges, a group of college brothers, from the bustling New York to the cold Minneapolis. He expressed his resistance and anger towards this deal on many occasions.

But here in Finch, he did not treat this "ronin" with a purely professional attitude. While he emphasized to the media in public, "Dante (Divicenzo) is a professional player, and we should not doubt his professional spirit."

While caring for him privately, he also made frank statements

"I can't promise you to start, but you are definitely an indispensable member of the team."

This season, he averaged 11.7 points, 3.6 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game, making his second best performance in his career second only to last season. Become the Timberwolves' bench gangster with Nazel Reed.

As Gobert said, the coach's impact on the entire team is everywhere. He convinced us that as long as we give our all, we can do something amazing and we should not set limits on ourselves.

Okay, now they have reached the Western Conference Finals for the second consecutive year, and everyone is not optimistic about them after the big deal. As for what the future will be, none of us knows, but what we can be sure of now is that

Chris Finch, who has made the Timberwolves a charming team.