{"id":39835,"date":"2026-01-01T02:33:39","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T02:33:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=39835"},"modified":"2026-01-01T02:33:39","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T02:33:39","slug":"anthony-edwards-leaves-bench-after-timberwolves-pull-starters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=39835","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Edwards leaves bench after Timberwolves pull starters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<br \/><span class=\"timestamp \">Dec 31, 2025, 06:57 PM ET<\/span><\/p>\n<p>ATLANTA &#8212; Anthony Edwards left the Minnesota bench and the court during a timeout late in the Timberwolves&#8217; 126-102 loss at the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>The unplanned and unapproved exit of the Minnesota star came during a timeout with 7 minutes, 52 seconds remaining. Edwards apparently disagreed with coach Chris Finch pulling his starters with the Hawks leading 109-80. Edwards tossed his towel and left the bench.<\/p>\n<p>Edwards did not speak with reporters after the game. Finch told reporters that he should have remained on the bench.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"editorial-title\">Editor&#8217;s Picks<\/h2>\n<p>2 Related<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Obviously frustrated with the performance and rightfully so, but he needs to stay out on the floor and root for his team,&#8221; Finch said.<\/p>\n<p>Edwards led the team with 30 points while making 10 of 18 shots, including three 3-pointers, in 33 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>The high-scoring guard began the night eighth in the NBA with his average of 29.1 points.<\/p>\n<p>He also was ejected in overtime of the Timberwolves&#8217; 142-138 loss at Denver on Thursday. He scored 44 points before an ejection for arguing foul calls.<\/p>\n<p>Edwards, an Atlanta native and former University of Georgia star, had friends and family, including his grandfather, at Wednesday&#8217;s game.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dec 31, 2025, 06:57 PM ET ATLANTA &#8212; Anthony Edwards left the Minnesota bench and the court during a timeout late in the Timberwolves&#8217; 126-102 loss at the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday. The unplanned and unapproved exit of the Minnesota star came during a timeout with 7 minutes, 52 seconds remaining. Edwards apparently disagreed with<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[8252,5567,8212,2013,2838,21531,21284],"class_list":{"0":"post-39835","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-anthony","9":"tag-bench","10":"tag-edwards","11":"tag-leaves","12":"tag-pull","13":"tag-starters","14":"tag-timberwolves"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}