Early on Wednesday morning — nine hours before the Minnesota Timberwolves and Denver Nuggets would tip off for a Western Conference play-in game — Wolves rookie Justin Patton walked down the hallway of Target Center wiping the sleep from his eyes. He was flanked by Jeff Teague — who has made the playoffs every year since Patton was 12 years old. As the Wolves rookie removed his hands from his eyes, he looked at the veteran point guard and said, “if we don’t win tonight, people are going to lose their shit.”
The quiet and always serious point guard dead-panned in Patton’s direction. The stare lasted numerous paces before Teague sternly spoke.
“Oh, we are going to win,” he said without flinching.
Teague’s neck turned and his eyes shifted forward as he slowly increased his pace. He took one hop and then another before doing the shoulder roll and arm flapping thing boxers do before a fight. His pace continued to increase as he ran down the tunnel. Justin Patton followed.
Veterans Lead The Way
Teague was right. While it would take the full 48 minutes (and five extra for good measure), the Wolves sent the Nuggets home 112-106 as they punched their tickets for the playoffs.
A quick gander at the box score would suggest that this is how the Wolves need to play to be a real force in the league. An event with Jimmy Butler leading the way in scoring; Karl-Anthony Towns dropping a highly efficient 25 and 10 double-double; Teague (17) and Andrew Wiggins (18) filling in any scoring gap.
But that wasn’t what locked down the Wolves 47th win of the season and first playoff birth since ’04. No, the game was won on the margins.
The strongest anecdote here was Taj Gibson. While Gibson underperformed season averages in points (8), rebounds (6), assists (1), and field goal percentage (50 percent), it’s hard to say the 32-year-old did not have his best — or, at least, most important — game of the season.
Taj’s game, and particularly his defense, was the physical manifestation of “glue” in glue guy. No play was bigger than his defensive stop with 4.4 seconds left in regulation.
At that point of the game, simply a hard contest of a Nikola Jokic attempt would have received an “A” grade. The Nuggets big man had been dominant throughout. Even when the Wolves defense was on point, Jokic was finding unconventional ways to score or simply just shooting over hands in his face. He had 31 points 28 minutes into the game and finished the night with 35.
While his 35 and 10 line is fat, the Wolves defense as a team deserves credit for another column in Jokic’s stat sheet: assists. The modern-day Arvydas Sabonis was held to a mere 3 assists — a feat that has only happened seven times this season, making it rarer than a triple-double for the big man.
This was achieved through a keen awareness off of the ball. The Wolves defense was certainly not perfect on Wednesday, but there was a sustained level of defensive engagement that typically only shows up in Minnesota for spurts. Defensively, the team played with a bounce; a confidence that allows gambling in passing lanes and on-ball poke aways.
This savvy was instigated by the veterans.
[videopress QIDAIBRd]Defending Ball-Screens
Again, the defense wasn’t perfect. Particularly in the first half, defending any sort of ball-screen action was messy; a prevailing issue that reared its head early on Wednesday night.
On the Nuggets very first possession, Jokic set a high screen for Jamal Murray. These actions are always defended in Minnesota by dropping Towns into the hole. Through this, it is Towns’ job to react to the action of the ball-handler. If the read is a penetration, Towns needs to stay engaged with the ball — so as to contest the shot. If he reads a kick out after penetration, Towns needs to be able to recover to his man.
On that first possession, the read was a kick out yet Towns allowed himself to sink a step too deep. That one stride makes all the difference when the big pops; the shot becomes — at best — lightly contested. While Jokic missed that first look, Denver did not go away from pounding this action. They didn’t just use Jokic, either — Paul Millsap is as savvy a midrange shooter as anyone in the league.
[videopress nZl15pX0]It’s plays like this that show how difficult defending a pick-and-roll with a ball-handler who is a threat to shoot off the bounce — like Murray — can be. The slight bump Teague catches on the Millsap screen triggers another step for Towns, and at that point, the last line of defense is Derrick Rose — who is in a precarious spot.
Stunting all the way to Millsap seems like a good idea for Rose because this look is too easy, but through stunting, he would be leaving 40 percent 3-point shooter, Gary Harris, open in the corner.
In the same action, Butler opted to get more aggressive. His efforts were also to no avail.
[videopress t5JbmF9n]In the aftermath of the post-game euphoria, once the playoff reality sets in, these actions feel particularly relevant.
Why? Because the Wolves have officially drawn the Houston Rockets in the first round. These slips play into nearly every strength of Houston’s.
With Chris Paul or James Harden and flanking gunners, it is these exact actions that will make or break the Wolves defense in the next round. Each step lost, or each second hesitated will lead to fractions of points over hundreds of possessions that tilt in Houston’s favor.
Towns An Offensive Windfall
Speaking of offensive efficiencies, there is almost no greater proficiency than a Towns post touch. While his 3-point numbers are startling, it is his effectiveness around the rim that leaves opponents hapless.
Towns only missed 7 of 19 shots for the night. Encouraging was the fact that he was peppered early and often. Involving Towns was a clear point of emphasis. The big man took six shots in the first quarter, nearly doubling his average first-quarter output for the season.
The unfortunate turn was that his usage precipitously fell as the night wore on. The drop was never more frustrating than in the final two minutes where Towns was simply not involved.
All season long, Tom Thibodeau and the Wolves assistant coaches have been preaching that “the game dictates the shots.” In theory, this means taking the best shot the defense gives. If a double on Towns comes, someone should be open and it is his job to find them.
That all sounds fine, but this is definitively not how the Wolves operate at the end of games. Quite the opposite, actually.
The offense loses any sort of creativity as the shot attempts feel eerily predictable even watching from the stands. No time is this truer than when the ball is in Butler’s hands. The game doesn’t dictate the shot; Jimmy does.
While this also sounds fine (Butler is an elite isolation player), it does all but eliminate Towns’ presence and thus his value. If the fans know where the shot is coming from, the defense damn sure does too. This was the case when the Wolves had the ball with less than 30 seconds to go.
[videopress P1mcdHQ2]Towns may as well be Cole Aldrich here — a gun with no ammo. The Wolves need to weaponize Towns at the end of games even if that shot is still Butler’s.
The possession prior was just as deflating; a drive and kick that led to a mid-range jumper from Gibson. Of Gibson’s many skills, jump shooting is not one of them, yet it was one of the highest leverage shots of the Wolves season.
After the missed Butler attempt, the final look of regulation was the most disheartening. One-and-a-half seconds isn’t much, but it is plenty of time to draw up a play to get a look. While Jamal Crawford’s heave was technically a look, it has one-tenth of the expected value of a play Boston Celtics coach, Brad Stevens, would draw up.
The play that was diagrammed rendered a shot for Crawford that left Timberwolves color commentator, Jim Petersen, dumbfounded muttering, what in the world?
Petersen was right, a 30-foot heave is not okay.
[videopress CWZDniSc]Soaking Up The Achievement
The game did leave some details to be desired, but the result is what is important. Minnesota is headed to the playoffs for the first time in 13 years. While I was one who pointed out the value of missing the playoffs if the opponent was going to be a Houston juggernaut, I too want to point out the accomplishment’s value.
I live in Minnesota and know how much apathy has surrounded this team for the entirety of my adult life. People stopped liking not only the team but a bitterness surrounding the NBA at large became present as a result of the Wolves’ futility. Making the playoffs will change that as it puts the Wolves on a new path. A path that runs away from the numbness that cocooned the Minnesota Timberwolves.
A new generation of basketball fans are going to experience high-level hoops for the next two weeks in Houston and Minneapolis and that is going to invigorate a fanbase for years to come. That’s exciting.
Jimmy, Andrew, KAT, Taj, Teague, Tyus, Jamal, Bjelly, Gorgui and — yes — even Thibs deserve lots of credit for that. They have all instigated what could be a revolution in the greater Twin Cities area. Recognition is requisite.
I’ll leave off with a few funny/great/sad things that have happened since the last time the Wolves were in the playoffs:
- Ricky Rubio tallied 2991 assists in a Wolves jersey.
- David Kahn led the Wolves to 223 losses in 312 tries.
- Michael Beasley missed 3,472 shots for six different teams — not including the shots he took with the Shanghai Sharks.
- Thirty-nine different Wolves draft picks happened — one of which goes by the name of Loukas Mavrokefalidis.
- Flip Saunders tragically passed away from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
- KG came back.
- The Target Center underwent a renovation that cost $140 million.
- According to ESPN, basketball has become the most popular sport amongst youth in America.
Today, life is good in Minnesota. Soak it up.
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