Timberwolves

Timberwolves Hold Off Late Ricky Rubio Run, Beat Jazz 100-97

A night that was supposed to feature, remember and welcome Ricky Rubio quickly became the opposite.

The turn in fan mood happened almost on a dime; Rubio’s Utah Jazz took a Timberwolves fourth quarter double-digit lead and made Friday’s game interesting late. The Wolves held a 92-82 lead with 4:58 to go in the fourth, as the starting lineup started to make its full form back on the floor.

A leg injury to Rodney Hood – who was cooking from the field in the second half – led to a more free-flowing offense, which led to Rubio taking over, both passing and scoring. The former Wolf started the game by missing myriad familiar shots: layups, runners and catch-and-shoot jumpers. But by the time the pressure was on and their go-to guy was in the trainer’s room, Rubio turned it on.

He made 6 straight points at the free throw line, caused a key turnover and eventually gave the Jazz a 96-95 lead with less than a minute to go. But when things started to look familiar for the Wolves, something unfamiliar saved them.

A bench piece, kept in during crunch time because of major impact, has been missing from Timberwolves rosters for years. Crawford, a three-time Sixth Man of the Year award winner, isn’t what he used to be, but was in his team’s home opener.

“Basketball is all about rhythm,” Crawford, who scored all 17 of his points in the fourth quarter, said after the game. “But it was my teammates. They stayed in my ear to be confident and just go.”

That bucket, followed by a strong defensive stand by Minnesota, eventually gave the Wolves their first win of the season, and a statement of what this team could look like in a best-case scenario.

They didn’t look like any team’s best-case scenario in the first half, especially the starters. Andrew Wiggins was strong in the first half throughout, while the rest of the starting lineup failed to meet the high expectations set for them over the summer. Still, stagnant Utah offense kept the Wolves in the game, and the bench – namely Nemanja Bjelica, who led in plus/minus for the second of two games this season – helped keep the game from falling out of reach.

It was the second half when the Timberwolves started playing into Tom Thibodeau’s vision. Jimmy Butler and Taj Gibson brought a toughness to the defensive end that looked flat-out foreign to new Wolves fans, making smart gambles at the ball, clogging the lane, and avoiding silly fouls.

It started to rub off on the rest of the team, too. Suddenly, you saw Karl-Anthony Towns buckling down on that end, making fewer poor reads and staying down instead of biting on the fake. The bad reads were still there, but at a lesser frequency.

Baby steps.

But again, the fireworks didn’t really begin until the fourth quarter. That was the point when the Wolves continued the solid two-way play, built the lead and almost lost it. It was also when some fans turned on Rubio.

It happened within a matter of (basketball) minutes. An iffy technical foul on Tyus Jones, after an apparent Rubio flop, is how it started. It finished when Butler, the franchise’s new face, defended his teammate and won the crowd over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLlvrz-0nv0

Rubio still nearly got his revenge. Six free throws and a good defensive stand later, the Wolves nearly blew this game. This happened on Wednesday against in San Antonio, but that time the never got their lead back.

The blown leads are the top priority of the Wolves’ head coach. So far, Thibodeau feels good about both the starters and the bench units as a whole, but did allude to the staggered lineups as part of the problem early on.

“Sometimes we’ve got combos out there that haven’t played a lot together, but they’ll get better as we go.”

As time goes on, this team won’t have the luxury of facing a team with equal challenges of a new roster and playing style. When they played the Spurs, they lost largely because the Spurs already knew how to play as a cohesive unit. The Jazz lost two of their starters, and with Rubio now on the roster, are forced to tweak their offensive approach.

In the case of the Timberwolves, fresh with three new starters and several other new pieces of their own, this can be a good problem to have. Gibson played “glue guy” quality basketball and helped lead the defense from the interior. Crawford was the scoring hero in the final quarter. Butler made major impacts on both sides of the ball, despite just scoring 13 points. In a way, this has even been an entirely new Bjelica.

This is all happening while guys like Towns and Wiggins put up their usual high-caliber numbers. Adding a star like Butler, who has yet to even come close to his usual 20-plus points, should add to that. If they earn it.

“We can be better, definitely. But wins are hard to come by,” Butler said.

In order to win more games like this, matching that third-quarter effort, and spreading it over a full 48-minute game, will need to happen. The good news is that both the team’s head coach and his star pupil seem to be on the same page in that regard.

The next step will be to get their team on the same page. Based on how the game ended, they’re on the right track to make that a success. The game started as Rubio’s return. It quickly became the first time this new Wolves team started to find themselves collectively.

That’s a step in the right direction.


Listen to Tim on Wolves Wired!

Timberwolves
Jordan McLaughlin’s Adaptability Remains Invaluable For the Wolves
By Jonah Maves - Mar 28, 2024
Timberwolves
Draymond Green’s Antics Are Beneath the Wolves
By Andrew Dukowitz - Mar 27, 2024
Timberwolves

The Wolves Unlocked Something By Starting Naz Reid

Naz Reid. Those two words were the only thing you could see or hear inside Target Center on Friday after in-arena host Jon Berry instructed the sold-out […]

Continue Reading