In the Minnesota Timberwolves’ December 23rd game against the Sacramento Kings, Anthony Edwards had a big night, putting up 35 points, 5 rebounds, 10 assists, 1 steal, and 1 block. While the stat line is impressive, the number that stands out most is his 10 assists. The Kings game marks the second time this season that Ant has had double-digit assists in a game, and the second time he’s done it in the last six games. Before this season, Ant had only had two total double-digit assist games, one in each of the last two seasons. Therefore, he has already doubled his career number this season.
That’s significant to me because superstars who make their teammates better is one of the most important ways they go from being great to being a top-5 player. LeBron James has always been a great scorer. But his ability to pick apart defensive coverages, apply pressure in the right places, and create easy opportunities for his teammates is a huge part of what makes him the greatest NBA player of this generation. Similarly, Luka Doncic has made the Dallas Mavericks a playoff team almost every year since he was drafted because of his ability to score in high volume and distribute to open teammates when he gets double-teamed.
Edwards may not have entered the league as a great distributor like James and Doncic. But like almost every other part of his game, Ant has shown he can learn and improve rapidly as a distributor. In Ant’s first season with the Wolves, he averaged only 2.9 assists per game. But he’s significantly increased his assist average in every game since, averaging 3.8 in Year 2, 4.4 in Year 3, and 5.3 this season.
Part of Ant’s increase in assist rate seems to have come from knowing when to get off the ball and find an open man when he’s double-teamed. Opponents have double-teamed Edwards a lot more this season. Therefore, his opportunities to swing the ball to a wide-open teammate have increased, and he’s gotten better at finding them. Ant had a nice assist out of pressure against the Kings. He drove into the lane from the perimeter, and three defenders collapsed to cut off an easy layup. The defenders in front of Edwards made it difficult for him to throw a pass cross-court to Naz Reid in the corner. Instead, he did a 180-degree turn and passed the ball behind him to Jaden McDaniels, who made the wide-open three.
Lately, Ant has improved on another dimension of passing — finding Rudy Gobert on rolls. In the Kings game, 3 of Ant’s 10 assists were to Gobert, leading to some of the easiest points the Wolves got all game. In the second quarter, Gobert stepped up as though he were going to set a screen for Ant. Edwards moves towards Gobert as a misdirection, then quickly cuts the opposite way, and Rudy slips towards the basket instead of setting a full screen. Ant recognizes that Rudy has a clean runway to the rim and hits him with a bounce pass between two defenders. Rudy catches it in stride, takes two dribbles, and lays the ball in over Domantas Sabonis for an and-1 opportunity.
Ant and Rudy reran the same action later in the second quarter. However, when Gobert slips to the basket this time, Sabonis steps up to double-team Ant instead of rolling with Gobert, leaving Gobert wide open under the rim. Ant recognizes this immediately and considers passing it over the top to Gobert. But he sees Sabonis walling up quickly and instead zips the pass around the side of Harrison Barnes, the other defender double-teaming. All Rudy has to do from there is turn around and dunk the ball; no defenders can get there in time to contest him cleanly.
In the fourth quarter, Ant and Rudy ran a dribble handoff into a pick-and-roll. Gobert again rolls to the basket and has a free lane because Sabonis stepped up to double team Ant. Edwards takes a dribble to his left so that he can get a better angle on the pass and again slings it around the side of the defender to Gobert. De’Aaron Fox tries to run in to steal the pass but is too late, and Gobert again turns around for an easy dunk.
Ant found Rudy consistently on pick-and-rolls in the Kings game, leading to several easy points. It also made it so that double-teaming wasn’t a solution for slowing down Minnesota’s offense in a game where KAT, usually the team’s second offensive engine, was out. Suppose Ant continues to be able to exploit double teams by finding Gobert open in the lane. In that case, it not only shows how much he’s improved as a passer and decision-maker but also significantly raises the team’s ceiling.
Last season, Wolves fans observed that many players had difficulty finding Gobert in the right places. Only Kyle Anderson and KAT could do it at the beginning of the season. Then we learned from Mike Conley that Gobert can be an extremely dangerous pick-and-roll partner if you know how to get him the ball in the right spaces. Conley’s ability to learn to play with Gobert’s strengths made them a successful offensive pair when they played for the Utah Jazz.
In an interview with Jim Peterson, Conley talked about what makes Gobert such a good pick-and-roll partner:
He’s one of the best in the league I’ve been around that’s able to make contact [with a screen] and really get some distance from the guy guarding me and allowing me to get opportunities to shoot. But with that space, creates an opportunity for him to roll, and his vertical ability to get above guys and the rim, it makes it an easy game for a point guard to find him in different spots on the floor.
Chris Finch also had a good quote about what makes Conley and Gobert such a dynamic duo on offense:
Patience is probably the thing they have most together. Mike comes off [a screen], he has an awareness of how and when Rudy is gonna roll, and from that, he has great feel on what the defense is gonna do with it. Are they gonna come up? Are they gonna bend back? Are they gonna help in? That obviously is just a learned skill from Utah. But Mike’s been able to impart a lot of that nuance to our guys.
Ant seems to be picking up on these nuances, getting better at reading how Gobert creates space for him and recognizing when he can find Gobert on a roll. Ant also seems to be learning how Gobert can make offense easy through Conley’s teachings and experience playing games with Gobert. That feels important to Minnesota’s offensive ceiling because it would mean that the Wolves have another guard on the team who can unlock Gobert’s offense and easy dunks for him at the rim. It’s huge if that guard just so happens to be your best player and scorer who has the ball in his hands more than anyone else on the team.
While Ant strung together 3 assists to Gobert in the Kings game, he has been setting Gobert up nicely throughout the season. The following clips are some of Ant’s best passes to Gobert this season.
The Conley-Gobert pick-and-roll is the team’s safety valve on offense right now when Ant and KAT aren’t hitting their shots or the game’s pace is getting out of control. However, if Ant learns how to be even close to as effective with Gobert as Conley is, their pick-and-roll partnership can become one of the team’s most dangerous weapons because Ant is one of the most dynamic scorers in the league.
The Utah Jazz were first in the Western Conference two years in a row in 2020-21 and 2021-22. The Jazz ranked fourth in offensive rating the first year, and they ranked first the year after. Imagine how good those teams could have been if Donovan Mitchell had developed a more consistent two-man game with Gobert and had a roster full of great perimeter defenders. That’s the potential ceiling for this Wolves offense if Ant gets better at playing with Rudy.
