With only 20 games left, the Minnesota Timberwolves’ position in the NBA standings is becoming more solidified.
They currently rank seventh in the Western Conference, 3.5 games behind the Denver Nuggets and the Dallas Mavericks. The Wolves would like to reach the sixth seed or above to avoid the Play-In tournament, which could be a gauntlet this year if the New Orleans Pelicans, Los Angeles Lakers, or LA Clippers are fully healthy by that time.
The Nuggets and the Mavericks have been playing great lately. However, both teams remain within striking distance if the Wolves finish the season strong.
The Nuggets have gotten healthy at the right time
Nikola Jokic is having another monstrous season, averaging nearly a triple-double every game, scoring 25.5 points, 13.8 rebounds, and 8.0 assists. He is currently a frontrunner to win MVP along with Joel Embiid, Giannis Antetokounmpo, DeMar DeRozan, and Stephen Curry. Jokic has proven throughout the season that he can consistently win games without his co-star Jamal Murray. His teammates Will Barton and Aaron Gordon have stepped up, averaging about 15 points and 5.0 rebounds each. Journeymen Jeff and JaMychal Green add veteran savviness and depth to the team that they’ve sorely needed with all the injury issues they’ve dealt with.
What’s more, Michael Porter Jr.’s agent recently said that MPJ will be “cleared for on-court contact within the next week” and that it is “just a matter of a final ramp-up until his return in March” per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. Additionally, Nuggets president Tim Connelly stated that they will clear Murray to play soon and that it will be up to Murray and Porter “to determine when and if they’re ready.”
The Nuggets have an opportunity to make a deep run in the playoffs, so it seems likely that both players will choose to come back, barring a significant setback in their rehabilitation processes. Even if Murray isn’t the near-superstar he was before his injury, he will still add a lot to their team. It’s hard to see the Nuggets losing any ground in the battle for playoff seeding. It’s starting to seem more likely that they will climb into the fifth or fourth seed above the Mavericks or the Utah Jazz.
Did Dallas make the right trade?
It seems more likely that the Wolves could climb above the Mavericks to get out of the Play-In tournament. The Mavericks traded Luka Doncic’s theoretical running mate, Kristaps Porzingis, at the trade deadline for Spencer Dinwiddie and Davis Bertans. The trade makes a lot of sense for Dallas’ future. Porzingis is a solid player when he is on the court, averaging 19.2 points, 7.7 rebounds, and 1.7 blocks a game this season.
However, injury issues have prevented Porzingis from contributing to winning regularly, much less reaching the potential he was hyped to have when the New York Knicks selected him fourth overall in the 2015 NBA draft. Porzingis only played over 50 games in a season once since Dallas traded for him. He was unlikely to pass that number this year had they not traded him because he had only played in 34 games before they traded him three-quarters of the way through the season. The Mavs freed up some cap space by trading their highest-paid player and quelled any alleged personality conflicts between their superstar Luka and Porzingis.
However, that puts more pressure on Luka to carry the Mavericks to victories for the rest of this season. Spencer Dinwiddie is a solid bucket-getter and distributor who averaged 20.6 points and 6.8 assists per game in his peak season with the Brooklyn Nets. But like Porzingis, Dinwiddie’s injury history has prevented him from being available to play consistently. His most recent injury, a partial ACL tear, kept him sidelined for all but three games last season. He has struggled to get back to the level he was playing at before the tear. But if he can stay healthy, he will be a good floor general for the Mavericks bench when Luka is resting.
Davis Bertans is a 3-point shooting specialist who should also help the Mavericks bench. He has been having a down year. Bertans is shooting only 33.1% from 3-point range, even though he has shot around or above 40% for most of his career. However, he has made 46.2% of his 3-point shots on 6-of-13 shooting in his first four games with the Mavericks. It’s a small sample size, but it may be a sign that Bertans has reached the end of a prolonged shooting slump. It may also demonstrate how playing with a great distributor like Luka can boost your shooting numbers. Not only can Luka find open shooters on any part of the court, but he also draws double teams that make extra space for them to shoot.
The main thing that should make the Mavericks easier to catch than the Nuggets is their lack of depth, especially at the center position.
- Dwight Powell is now the team’s starting center, and while he is a solid defender, he only averages 4.4 rebounds per game (about 5.0 fewer than Luka) and is only 6’10”.
- Their bench center Maxi Kleber is also a solid floor-spacing big, but he too is undersized at 6’10” and cannot protect the rim as well as Porzingis did.
- Boban Marjanovic is 7’3” and can stand in the way of the rim. However, he seems to have fallen almost entirely out of the rotation, having only played 17 games this season.
The lack of size and depth at the center position may make the Mavericks matchups with dominant big men like Jokic or Karl-Anthony Towns difficult.
Luckily the Wolves get to play the Mavericks two more times before the end of the season, so they will have a chance to gain some ground in the standings in head-to-head matchups. Minnesota has one win and a loss against the Mavericks this season, but Luka did not play in either game. Therefore, they aren’t exactly a fair assessment of how the teams match up.
The Wolves are 2-1 against the Nuggets this season and will have a chance to get one more win against them before the season is over. If the Wolves want to elevate themselves out of the play-in tournament and into the sixth seed, they will have to make the most of their matchups against the teams they hope to pass to prove they deserve the spot.
