“We walked into the game, a back-to-back, we’ve done that before,” Conley said. “We have to be prepared for games like this. These [Indiana] guys are really good players. They don’t always get the opportunity they did tonight, but they all can play and you have to respect that.
“When you don’t respect the game, that’s when guys like that get confident. They get good looks and they play regardless [of] who they’re playing against. They beat us and did all the things they needed to do.”
Wolves coach Chris Finch lamented what he called his team’s lack of purpose to start the game and a team, including Edwards, that played without control with the game on the line.
“At the time we had the chance to take control of the game, it was wild,” Finch said. “A series of contested threes, deep-bomb threes. Just playing too fast, almost out of control. There’s just no need for that. There’s a lot of ways to close out a game. It’s not just making game-winning shots. That’s what we’ve not been able to do all season long. In that moment, we have to have composure and the ability to take control of the game, and we didn’t.”
