In today’s NBA, head coaches must work through a lot during the regular season to ensure their team always has the best chance to win. It’s a product of a long season, with injuries, load management, and frequent player movement. The coach’s job becomes simpler once they figure out their lineup combinations. However, the fluidity of in-game adjustments and adapting to other factors, such as foul trouble or keeping a hot shooter on the floor, make closing one of the most challenging things a coach has to figure out.
Chris Finch has been dealing with many of these issues this season. All-NBA center Karl-Anthony Towns has been out since late November. Rudy Gobert, Kyle Anderson, and Taurean Prince have occasionally missed games. That has thinned the roster, forcing Finch to overhaul his game plan frequently. By no means are the Wolves in the minority; all teams deal with this throughout the season. However, developing effective defensive schemes and finding offensive production can often be challenging.
Finch has not been afraid to tinker with his closing lineups lately. While this can allow Finch to find what’s best for that matchup, any coach can over-complicate things and put their team at a disadvantage. Finch’s closing lineups weren’t the only reason Minnesota lost to the Sacramento Kings on Monday. They had way too many turnovers and poor free-throw shooting. But Finch did not do the Wolves a favor to end the game by going with the same starting unit against a five-out Kings lineup.
After the game, Finch said he should have made bigger adjustments to the lineup.
When fully healthy, the Wolves have several different lineups that they can deploy depending on the situation. If they need shooting, they could run a lineup without Rudy (D’Angelo Russell, Anthony Edwards, Prince, Jaylen Nowell, and KAT). If they want a more defensive lineup, they can rock with Ant, Anderson, Jaden, KAT, and Gobert.
The positive here? The Wolves have many different options, and their core starting lineups have done well throughout the games that they have played. DLo-Ant-McDaniels-Anderson-Gobert has a 13.8 point differential and ranks in the 83rd percentile for all NBA lineups with 15 plus possessions played. That lineup has had a standout defense allowing 102.8 points per 100 possessions, which ranks in the 92nd percentile. The offense has to pick things up, though, ranking in the 52nd percentile at 116.6 points per 100 possessions.
Lucky for the Wolves, there is an effective lineup to slot KAT into once he returns. Holding a 5.4 point differential that ranks in the 57th percentile. It has also produced impressive defense, allowing 104.4 points per 100 possessions, which is in the 88th percentile. The offense is the issue, though, ranking in the 26th percentile with 109.8 points per 100 possessions. Nonetheless, the two core lineups are stout, giving the Wolves some balance when KAT returns.
So who should close out games? The NBA defines clutch time as the minutes when the scoring margin is within five points and there are less than five minutes left in a game. The Wolves are tied for the sixth-most clutch games this season with 29 and are seventh in win percentage, going 17-12 in those games. That puts them in solid company. Only the Milwaukee Bucks, Brooklyn Nets, Boston Celtics, Philadelphia 76ers, Denver Nuggets and Memphis Grizzlies are ahead of them in win percentage.
The Wolves already have good standing as a team in these situations, but ironing out the ideal lineup for the scenario when KAT returns is vital. We only have a 99-possession sample size of a DLo-Ant-McDaniels-Anderson-KAT lineup that Finch could use if he wants to sub off Rudy to close games. Ideally, I’m sure they want to keep their two centers, who have the largest contracts on the team, on the floor to close games.
There is a way for the Wolves to keep KAT and Gobert on the floor and effectively close out games. While they have the flexibility to switch things up, they shouldn’t do that because the core players, DLo-Ant-KAT-Rudy, need to be on the floor. However, that means they need to better unlock the offense. The offense ranks 20th in the NBA in clutch time, shooting 42.1% from the field and 31.9% from three.
Clutch time gets confusing and tricky to maneuver because the Wolves are 18th in defense, with a defensive rating of 109.2. This equates to a negative net rating of -3.4, ranking them 18th in the league. These statistics illustrate why the Wolves are letting teams back into games and continue to play close contests. Minnesota is 21st in the league with 93 clutch time minutes played.
Ultimately, the Wolves must find better ways to execute in the clutch and have it match what they can do throughout most of the game. Because if they can do it during multiple possessions on end during the middle of the game, they have to figure out how to do so when closing.
