Somewhere in the aftermath of Golden State's 119-114 win over Minnesota, a chunk of Timberwolves fans decided the real story was the officiating. That the referees had a number to hit for the sportsbooks and Minnesota was the number. It's a tidy theory. It's also nonsense, and it lets everyone involved off the hook for what actually happened.
The NBA has exactly one confirmed referee-fixing scandal in its history, and it's Tim Donaghy, a case from the mid-2000s with nothing to do with 2026. The gambling scandal actually unfolding right now, the one with arrests and a guilty plea reportedly in the works, involves players and people around players: Terry Rozier accused of leaking injury information, Chauncey Billups and Damon Jones tangled up in a separate case, Malik Beasley reportedly set to plead guilty in a prop-bet scheme. Every one of those cases is about insiders feeding bettors information. None of them involve officials steering a final score. Conflating the two because both involve the word "gambling" is lazy. The refs did not do this to Minnesota.
What actually happened is a lot less interesting, and a lot more damning for the people who deserve it. Minnesota played its first game without Anthony Edwards, who's out with a knee injury, and still nearly climbed back from a deficit that reached 24 points. Stephen Curry had a season-high 44, rookie Yaxel Lendeborg added 26, and Golden State built a cushion big enough that Minnesota's fourth-quarter rally, fueled by Jaden McDaniels and Jonathan Kuminga against his former team, still fell short. McDaniels missed two threes in the final minute that would have made it a one-possession game. That's a shot that didn't go in.
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RatingThe actual indefensible thing from Minnesota's night is sitting at center. Rudy Gobert finished with one point and four rebounds, no blocks, against a Warriors team that barely bothered to play traditional size. It's part of a pattern, too: two nights earlier against Cleveland he grabbed 20 rebounds and missed virtually everything he put up, including looks at the rim, enough to go viral for the wrong reasons. A center who isn't scoring or protecting the rim, and isn't helping the offense either, shouldn't still be playing the minutes he's getting. That's a coaching decision, and it's one the Timberwolves keep making.
This is the fifth game of the season, Minnesota is missing its best player, and a young team figuring out rotations without Edwards is going to lose some close ones. That's understandable. But patience with a slow start and blind faith in a non-functional center are different things, and Minnesota fans conflating the two, then outsourcing the blame to referees, is how a real problem gets ignored for another month.
RTGThere's no evidence anywhere that officials tilted this game, and there's a very real gambling scandal happening in this league right now that has nothing to do with them. Pointing at the referees is just the easiest way to avoid pointing at the decision to keep running him out there.
