SAN FRANCISCO – Anthony Edwards declined to speak to reporters after the team's 114-106 loss to the Warriors on Sunday night, citing fines he has recently received for cursing during his postgame interviews.

He doesn't want to get fined again, and he likely was going to curse after the way he played in the fourth quarter. (It should be noted players are also susceptible to fines for declining to do postgame interviews when requested, per their contracts.)

Edwards forced a number of shots in the fourth quarter and was 1-for-7 with two turnovers, or as coach Chris Finch said, "just hero shot after hero shot."

But when Julius Randle was speaking and fielded a question about the team's late-game offense, Edwards offered a few words for the recorders and cameras to hear.

"I just got to … play better," Edwards said. "I gotta find my teammates when they put three or four on me. Terrible by me."

Edwards (27 points, six assists, six turnovers) wasn't alone in needing to own up to mistakes Sunday night, especially when the Wolves allowed 44 points in the third quarter. The defense that had propelled them to a four-game win streak vanished as Golden State pushed the tempo, even after makes and dead-ball turnovers. Stephen Curry torched them for 30 points while Buddy Hield took advantage of that lackluster transition defense for 27 points on seven threes.

"Normally there's like one point in the game I like to point to where you lose the game," Finch said. "But this game had two. First was the start of the third quarter. They had 10 transition baskets, I think, to start in the first five or six minutes, and a lot of them came after we had scored, which is inexcusable. We did a really good job with our halfcourt defense. They decided they needed to push the tempo, and we didn't answer the bell."

The Wolves lost a 58-49 halftime lead thanks to a 44-32 third quarter, and then they fell behind by 11 in the fourth before storming back for a 106-105 lead. Nickeil Alexander-Walker (19 points, 7-for-9 shooting) had 10 points during a 15-3 Wolves run, and Edwards put the Wolves ahead with a three-pointer with 4:47 to play. The Wolves didn't score from there as Edwards forced shot after shot. Finch opted to not reinsert point guard Mike Conley because Alexander-Walker had been playing so well, but the Wolves offense disintegrated.

Finch said he was communicating to Edwards to get off the ball.

"I told him there were guys open all over the floor," Finch said.

But Edwards was full steam ahead on trying to shoot the Wolves to a win. Center Rudy Gobert was the beneficiary of a more generous Edwards in Friday's win and joked that he "thought it was Christmas" when he got lobs from Edwards on consecutive possessions.

On Sunday, Gobert quipped, "It wasn't Christmas today. It was Halloween today."

That extended not just to Edwards' late-game offense. The Wolves relinquished 19 second-chance points and 19 fast-break points. These are the areas of the Wolves' defense most vulnerable to attack when they aren't dialed in the way they were the past few games. They give up the glass, and they are a step slow getting back. That was the issue of the first three quarters before sloppy offense doomed them in the fourth.

"Change of possessions, moving on to the next thing," Alexander-Walker said of the team's issues in the third quarter. "There were a few whistles we didn't agree with, possessions and plays that we saw differently than the refs. I personally just felt like in that third, we struggled to move from one play to another."

The Wolves will have four days to move on from this loss and are 12-11 as they enter that break in the schedule. As they left San Francisco, the players who did speak said they felt the team was in a good place, despite Sunday's result. That the Wolves had turned the corner on their season after a tough few weeks — they just forgot what got them to that point Sunday.

"I like where we're at, not in terms of the standings, but more in terms of the things we've been through as a team and our awareness right now," Gobert said. "A game like tonight, we can exactly feel what happened. With that mindset, I think good things will happen. Now we just gotta keep each other accountable."