For the second day in a row and the third game in their last four, Monday night the OKC Thunder squared off against the Minnesota Timberwolves in a highly competitive, inter-conference showdown.
Though their previous outing saw some serious heroics from superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, in this final matchup of their season series it was Anthony Edwards and company who made a serious statement.
In a surprising turn of events, the T-Wolves stormed back from a 25-point second-half deficit to force overtime and, ultimately, pulled out a 131-128 upset win in front of a packed Paycom Center.
While several factors led to Oklahoma City's ultimate collapse, with late-game shooting woes and lackluster defensive efforts down the stretch both standing out, ironically, it was Minnesota coach Chris Finch's primary post-game complaint that spearheaded the charge for the club's comeback.
Wolves coach ironically complains about what led to demise of Thunder
Following the contest, the victorious headman voiced his grievances about playing the Thunder this season, boldly claiming: "They foul a ton. They really do. They foul all the time."
Now, while Finch described this as being "frustrating," frankly, without Oklahoma City's supposed slap-happy style of play there's a strong case to be made that the outcome of Monday's exhibition would have been completely different.
By the time the fourth period came about, Minnesota found themselves down by a whopping 22 points (102-80) and were being outpaced in free throw attempts 20 to 17.
In the fourth period and overtime, however, the Wolves kept their foot on the gas and remained aggressive in their driving frequency (drove 59 times on the night compared to OKC's 44), which, in turn, resulted in a ridiculous 22 points coming from the charity stripe alone during this time frame.
As Shai Gilgeous-Alexander put it during his post-game presser: "They were down, they were very aggressive, and because of that they were awarded free throws."
What's interesting to note is that this is by no means a one-off situation regarding Minnesota's high activity at the free throw line.
In fact, on the season, the Timberwolves rank a middling 15 in the league in free throw attempts per game with 21.8. However, when playing the Thunder, they see their frequency rise to 25.3 and, over their last three bouts, have attempted 29.7 shots from the line per game, which is over 5.0 more attempts than the top-ranked Memphis Grizzlies (24.5).
Simply put, it's a tad odd to see the Timberwolves coach complain about something that, quite frankly, played the biggest role in his team pulling out a huge comeback victory and, in turn, tying their regular season series against the top-seeded Thunder at 2-2.