This is the way that Tom Thibodeau wants to win games. It’s the mentality the head coach and president of basketball operations wants the Minnesota Timberwolves to have. When the Los Angeles Clippers attacked, Minnesota countered. When things got heated, they were cooler than condensation. In the end, they matched the Clippers physicality, suffocated them with their defense and buried them deep beneath the cold Target Center floor.
Thibodeau is a football coach on the hardwood, and he’s beginning to shape his players into a team that reflects his image.
“You want to have competitive guys. Competition is a good thing, and we should embrace that. It’s great. They come at us, we gotta go at them. We gotta get them reacting to us,” he said after the game.
“We target everyone, and I don’t have a problem telling our guys to attack offensively — it’s in them, that’s what they do. But we gotta have the mentality, we have to attack defensively too. The guy who is attacking always has the advantage.”
The Wolves drew first blood, outscoring the Clippers 31-19 in the first quarter. Los Angeles dominated the second 36-27, finishing on an 11-2 run. Minnesota responded with a 24-13 tally in the third and L.A. had their reserves in the game with three minutes to go in the contest.
“I think the defense is coming [along]. We still got a lot of work to do. We’re moving in the right direction,” Thibodeau said.
“You get tested every game, and we started off strong, they had a run, they closed it at the end of the second quarter, we responded. We fought hard in the second half, and the rebounding was good from start to finish, sharing the ball and I thought we got some great play from our bench guys, and that was a big plus.”
Chris Paul was held to seven points; Ricky Rubio finished with 15 points and 12 assists. DeAndre Jordan finished with 20 and 13; Karl-Anthony Towns 29 and 14 — his 100th career double-double, making him the second-youngest player (Dwight Howard) to reach that mark. Blake Griffin finished with 16 points; Shabazz Muhammad, starting in lieu of Brandon Rush (illness), had 17.
“I thought Tyus [Jones] played terrific. I thought Lance [Stephenson] in the first half was very good; I thought conditioning may have gotten him a little bit in the second half,” said Thibodeau of Jones, who had eight points off the bench, and Stephenson, who had four. “But to be thrown in there without really practicing, which it was a good sign. We got a good lift in the first half from him.
“I thought Bazz was great starting [with] Brandon being out with illness. I thought it was one of his best games. Karl was Karl. Wig didn’t shoot it great, but he got to the line and did a lot of good things for us.”
When asked about Rubio, he said, “I liked the way our whole team played. It’s not an individual sport; it’s a team sport.”
The offense has always been there. But the defense, a hallmark of a Thibodeau team, is coming together.
“We have to be able to get through things,” he said. “There’s gonna be adversity in every game, and you have to have the mental toughness to persevere and still be able to get things done. It’s a long game, it’s a 48-minute game, so there will be times where it’s going your way, there will be other times where it’s not, and you’ve gotta to stay the same.
“That’s how you win. That’s how you win. It’s a mentality.”
Here is the Fox Sports North feed of the Thibodeau press conference:
Muhammad played well in lieu of Rush, who called in sick and saw Dr. Sheldon Burns, M.D. before the game. “We found out at shootaround that he (Brandon Rush) wasn’t there, and there was a 50-50 chance of him playing,” said Muhammad. “He wasn’t here so I just had to step up and take that role…tonight.”
Towns spoke at length about team defense and things turning around for the Wolves after a key win over the Utah Jazz and taking the San Antonio Spurs to overtime recently. “We had a lead and instead of giving it up, we held it strong,” he said. “It just shows the maturity and discipline that we need to be a playoff team.”
