On a night when the Minnesota Timberwolves could have blamed injuries to Jeff Teague and Nemanja Bjelica — their starting point guard and a key reserve — for their 109-97 loss to the Miami Heat, they offered no excuses, choosing instead to blame their own defensive shortcomings for the loss.
“We’re doing everything that we talk about we’re not going to do when we’re going through the scouting report,” Jimmy Butler said. “That’s just the preparation and the will to want to do it.”
“It’s tough to win when they hit 19 threes,” added Jamal Crawford.
“Our team didn’t play well,” head coach and president of basketball operations Tom Thibodeau said, bluntly.
In the first half, the Heat regularly found an open man in the right corner for three — an efficient, high-percentage shot for most NBA players. Once Minnesota took that away, they then used drive-and-kicks and swing passes to find a man open in the left corner.
“The dribble penetration was a problem. When the ball gets around the second help defender, now you’re in trouble,” said Thibodeau.
“And so, now you’re rotating another guy over, and then next you need another guy to rotate over. But the ball getting around the secondary help guy was a major problem, so that’s something that we have to take a look at and see.
“Our bigs [have] gotta play out of a stance more. I knew it from the beginning of the season, our bigs have to play with the back foot up. The gate is open, we’re getting beat.”
Asked why the Wolves haven’t made this adjustment 19 games into the season, Thibodeau said: “Well, it’s a habit you have to build. If you want to get it done, there’s a lot of pick-and-rolls in the course of the game. In many cases, you could be looking at 60 to 70 of them.
“And so, you have to be able to do it time after time after time. You have to be disciplined. It requires a lot of energy, and a big commitment.”
The Heat were 19 of 39 from 3 (48.7 percent). The Wolves attempted only 17 shots total and made seven of them.
“It’s disheartening, because you could start making a run, and then boom, here comes two more 3s,” said Crawford. “And then it goes from seven to 13 that fast,” he added, snapping his fingers.
“We haven’t guarded anybody all year long,” said Butler. “Different mistakes, same mistakes, we have to eventually figure it out and want to play defense. That starts with me and goes all the way down the line.”
Towns finished with 18 points and 11 rebounds, good enough for his league-leading 15th double-double. But he was held scoreless in the first half despite being guarded by 6’6″ Justice Winslow most of the time, and 16 of those 18 points came in the fourth quarter.
“He’s gotta keep moving. That’s a big part of the problem,” said Thibodeau. “They’re looking for him — if he stands stationary, he isn’t gonna get the ball. You gotta keep moving, and you have to execute.
“He scored some at the end, but it was meaningless.”
Towns, for his part, was accountable after the game, saying many of the defensive lapses — which he’s gotten criticism for, much of it warranted, from both the local and national media — were on him and pledged to improve as the season goes on.
“We just didn’t do a good job as a team,” he said when asked about making defensive adjustments to take away Miami’s corner threes. “At the end of the day it’s the players that are on the court that have to make the decisions. I was one of them that didn’t do what we needed to do today.”
The silver lining was Tyus Jones, who did not start, but played 32:35 minutes in Teague’s absence. He finished with eight points, six assists and four steals — the latter two season highs — and was plus-7.
It was an ugly game that dragged on once it became clear that the Wolves were not going to mount a comeback. But the fact that both the players and coach Thibodeau didn’t use injuries as an excuse is a positive sign.
They are searching for answers, especially defensively, and fortunately still have 63 games to find them.
