As the Timberwolves attempt to continue their – when healthy – successful start to the season, several of the same questions have persisted over the team’s first seven games.

Early on, the offense has looked as good as advertised, moving its way up to fourth in the league in offensive rating. Defensively, it’s been worse than hoped for, sitting in dead last and not moving.

Individually, Jeff Teague is still finding his place in the starting five, Gorgui Dieng is trying to find his niche off the bench and Andrew Wiggins is still settling into being a third option. Like any team, especially one with a new star like Jimmy Butler, there will be growing pains.

But maybe what’s most noticeable and widely-discussed so far this year, for better and for worse, is Karl-Anthony Towns. In his third year, Towns has continued his quick and inspiring ascension to stardom, all while still struggling to find his footing – literally, most of the time – on the defensive end. All the tools needed to be a defender are there – his quick feet, high vertical and high motor are all components of a good defender – it’s how he uses those tools that haven’t been figured out yet. Still, the team’s defensive rating improves by nearly 7 points when he comes off the floor, going from 114.1 when he’s on to 107.3 when he’s sitting.

With his team in New Orleans on Wednesday, and the pair of Pelicans bigs – DeMarcus Cousins and Anthony Davis – looking like their best selves of late, this will be both a must-see matchup and a scary one for the Wolves interior defense.

As Andy Grimsrud of A Wolf Among Wolves mentioned on Twitter Tuesday, Davis feasted on the Wolves last year, averaging 38.3 points in three games, two without Cousins on the roster. It’s unclear whether Tom Thibodeau will keep Towns on The Brow like he did last year, or try Taj Gibson on him. Either way, the loser of that coin flip has to guard DeMarcus Cousins.

In fairness, the last two games have been Towns’ best defensively, and the Wolves being in last in defensive rating is due to the team’s struggles overall. Either way, the individual matchups for Towns are what makes this especially scary for Wolves fans.

KAT will have to bring it whether he’s guarding Brow or Boogie. This game will feature the best individuals he matches up with all year, but it’s still important to get some perspective on how he’s looked against other competition. Here’s how they’ve fared thus far, in order:

*Note: This doesn’t account for every second Towns is on the floor with these guys, but rather their overall stats in those games.

There have been two sides to Towns this season on the defensive end. The primary one has struggled on defense, to the point where some are concerned with his awareness of the struggles he and his team have displayed. When asked about the team giving up 130 points and only 11 free throws to the Myles Turner-less Indiana Pacers, Towns’ response was not reassuring.

“That’s just another stat that shows you it was their night shooting the ball… We had a lot of contested shots; they just found their way of getting in the hole. It happens like that.”

But of course, there’s hope, which leads into the other – rarer, thus far – side of Towns. The best the Wolves have seen out of his defense was in the first half of the most recent matchup with the Thunder. So far this year, his problems have mostly surrounded the idea of his inability to decide how to handle motion of any sort by the offense. With Russell Westbrook running pick-and-roll with the always-moving Steven Adams, this can be especially difficult to contain. In this particular game, Towns was able to mostly keep his composure.

On this play, for example, Towns actually bails out Teague, who gets stuck in an Adams screen. He plays this play perfectly, as Teague – bravely –  avoids the possibility of a follow-up by Adams.

Towns had four blocks in this game. It seemed as though, perhaps partially resulting from success in the game featured above, this effort got Towns into the idea of blocking shots. It’s a positive defensive trait, gets his team going, and it undoubtedly helped his team win.

The following game at Miami, he had three more blocks, and his team won. But this time, his blocked shot attempts often came at the cost of easy looks for Heat center Bam Adebayo, who piled up 10 offensive rebounds against the Wolves.

In addition to some poor form boxing out, two of those offensive boards came from Towns going for the block, missing, and leaving Adebayo wide open for the putback dunk.

First one:

Second one:

As the Wolves gear up to play the Pelicans, Towns will have to figure out how to correct this mistake. While Dieng did most of the defending on Davis a year ago, Towns will have to deal with both of him and Cousins at different points throughout the year. Last year, Davis took advantage of Towns’ overzealous tendencies when matched up, similar to the play above.

The trick to beating this team is making sure nobody on the supporting cast gets going. After Davis, Cousins and point guard Jrue Holiday, injuries and iffy offseason moves have really thinned out the Pelicans roster. Still, Davis and Cousins have the ability to get going and beat teams by themselves, a win against the Cavaliers — a team with losses to several iffy teams already this year, to be fair — as the most recent example.

The influx of bigs won’t stop after this game, either. They play the Charlotte Hornets at home on Sunday, featuring a seemingly rejuvenated Dwight Howard. Removing his one dud, a recent 1-for-9 shooting night against Marc Gasol and the Grizzlies, Howard has shot at least 54 percent in every game, finished with a double-double and just looked generally happier playing basketball. He’s also historically a pro at sneaking in for offensive rebounds and subsequent putbacks. Evidence suggests that, unless things change for Towns and the Wolves, that will be a problem.

It won’t end there, either. The Wolves still haven’t faced Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic or Marc Gasol. It’s a never-ending cycle of tough centers, with totally different arsenals on the offensive end. At some point, Towns will have to guard all of them.

Defense may be a problem for him for a while. And for now, that’s okay. Towns is 23 years old and still learning a system that he clearly wasn’t ready for when he entered the league. At some point, it might not be okay, but Towns likely too good and too committed to his craft to let a weakness this glaring sit with him. And of course, his team sitting dead last in defensive rating suggests far more than an individual problem.

All questionable block attempts, screen reads and post-game quotes aside, he’s still one of the harder-working players in the NBA, to a near-obsessive extent. If he’s able to use that obsession to continue to improve offensively, and defensively, he’ll be as good as everyone says he is, on both ends of the floor.

That’s the goal, and it’s attainable, because it’s still Karl-Anthony Towns.

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Tim Faklis

Tim Faklis is a senior editor and the Timberwolves beat writer for Zone Coverage, as well as an NBA contributor for Sporting News. He's written about basketball and music for A Wolf Among Wolves, VICE, City Pages, Fansided, Growler Mag, Hardwood Paroxysm, The Classical, and others. As it stands right now, he remains the world's biggest Trenton Hassell fan.

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