The Minnesota Timberwolves were on the wrong end of a game against the Los Angeles Clippers that ended in a 153-128 score on Wednesday night. 

The Timberwolves were able to score at a high clip, but it did not matter as Kawhi Leonard notched 45 points to power his team to victory. The Clippers made history as the first team to ever move above .500 after falling at least 15 games below that mark to start the season. Meanwhile, Minnesota suffered its third loss in a row by double digits. 

After the game, Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch talked about what went wrong for his team. To begin, he pointed toward a lack of ball security.  

“It was turnovers,” he said. “You know, I think we had seven turnovers in like the first ten possessions or something like that careless stuff. You know, most of them unforced so kind of set the tone for the game was uphill all the way after that. I think they were ready to play.” 

The Timberwolves finished the game with 21 turnovers, which ended up hurting the good offensive production they had otherwise. Anthony Edwards led the team with 36 points on 64.7% shooting from the field, and five other players had double figure scoring nights: Julius Randle, Jaylen Clark and Jaden McDaniels each had 11 points, Naz Reid had 18 points and Bones Hyland had 10 points. 

Finch described the effort as “not acceptable” and pointed to his team’s defensive lapses in which the Clippers were able to score 35-plus points in each of the quarters, shot 63.4% from the field and 51.4% from 3-point range while attempting 36 free throws. In the fourth quarter alone, Los Angeles scored 44 points. 

“We got to regroup,” Finch said. “We got to play both sides of the floor. “It was our offense and it was our defense.” 

Finch also said that it feels like the team is “a million miles away” from where they were a week ago. Before the current three-game losing streak, Minnesota was winners of five-straight that included a win over the Clippers in which it held them to 88 points on Feb. 26. 

The difference between the last meeting between these teams and this one is that neither Leonard nor Darius Garland played in the Feb. 26 matchup, and they imposed their presence on Wednesday. 

After Leonard dismantled his group, all Finch could do was praise him.  

“I mean, Kawhi is a great is a phenomenal player,” Finch said. “He's playing at the level that he was, you know, Toronto MVP finals Kawhi. I mean, we haven't seen this run of performance from him for a long time, and you know, there's not much you can do.” 

The Timberwolves will resume their four-game road trip against the Golden State Warriors on Friday.