After the Game 7 victory over the Denver Nuggets, Minnesota’s favorite buddy cop duo, Anthony Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns, talked about their relationship with Chris Finch.
“He’s just a great coach, and he don’t sugarcoat anything with anybody.… I think that’s what makes him the best coach in the NBA,” Edwards said. “Because no matter who it is, no matter how high the player is on the pole, he’s going to get on you from start to finish. It starts with the head of the snake, and he’s the head of our snake. We all listen to him, look up to him, and he does a great job of making sure we’re ready to go every night.”
After such high praise from Minnesota’s star player, it had to be an easy decision for ownership and the front office to re-sign Finch to a four-year extension that will keep him in Minnesota through the 2027-28 season. The extension will pair him with president of basketball operations Tim Connelly for at least the 2024-25 season (Connelly has an opt-out clause) and potentially beyond.
Finch’s recent extension also pairs him with the upcoming youth movement in Minnesota. The Wolves have Edwards and Jaden McDaniels signed through the 2028-29 season, Towns through 2027-28 (with a player option), and Mike Conley and Naz Reid (player option) through 2025-26. That timetable ensures that Finch can see through the vision he has created for a perennial contender in Minnesota.
The head of the snake’s vision for the Wolves has remained unchanged since his mid-season introductory press conference on February 23, 2021.
“What I’ve learned about coaching is kind of create a structure with some rules, then get out of the way… over-coaching them at times is more detrimental than under-coaching.” Finch said, “Defensively, our offense will start with our defense.”
Therein lies Finch’s genius and perhaps his Achilles heel: a defensive strategy that sparks transition and offense and perhaps a lack of structure that causes mistakes.
The Wolves finished the 2023-24 campaign with the No. 1 defense during the regular season, and it wasn’t even close. Minnesota ranked first in defensive rating, opponents’ points per game, and opponents’ field goal percentage. The Timberwolves finished at least top seven in turnovers forced, assists allowed, steals, blocks, rebounds, and opponents three-point percentage. Minnesota’s defense was all-around elite and posted the best defensive team rating since 2021-22.
Although Finch is known as an offensive genius, he formed a team with a remarkable defense that matched complexity with aggression. During the regular season, the Wolves deployed multiple sets and counters by using players who could adapt out of their comfort zone. Finch reshaped Rudy Gobert back into the defensive player of the year he was with the Utah Jazz by asking him to play out of his comfort zone.
Gobert was typically a drop coverage defensive anchor. He would drop to the rim when he guarded a pick-and-roll, preventing guards from attacking the basket or bigs from rolling to it.
But this season, Gobert switched on to much smaller guards and trusted that help defense would stop the rolling big. Gobert’s adaptation turned him back into an elite player in Minnesota’s system. He only allowed guards to shoot 32.5% from three for the season on 123 attempts. That unlocked a new look for the Wolves and allowed them to switch between a switch-heavy blitz defense and a drop defense without changing personnel between Towns and Gobert.
Finch also successfully converted Towns to a power forward in 2023-24; he played only 16.2% of his minutes at center. Towns was a below-average defender before this year. However, he turned that narrative around by playing excellent defense throughout the season, often taking the toughest post matchup to allow Gobert to roam off the ball.
Towns posted his best defensive rating (109.1) and highest per-game plus/minus of his career (5.2). While his individual numbers in blocks, rebounds, and steals all decreased, that ostensibly was a testament to his buy-in to his new position. Towns was no longer roaming the paint and taking on tougher individual assignments.
On the wings, the McDaniels-Edwards duo fueled Finch’s elite defense. They posted a 111.1 defensive rating, often guarding the opponents’ two best backcourt players. They held their matchups to shooting 46.3% from the field and only 35.7% from three while forcing the opposing team into 7.5 turnovers during the 29.9 minutes a game they were together. They averaged plus-5.3 points per game when matched up on the court together.
Finch masterminded the defense, positional changes, strategic changes, and buy-in. But while he got the team to lead the league in defense, his lack of offensive structure and concern about overcoaching led to a frustrating middle-of-the-pack offense.
People around the league consider him an offensive genius, and he has earned that reputation. Finch appears to believe in the beautiful game offense that has stemmed from the 2016-18 Golden State Warriors championship teams.
It’s a brand of offense that focuses on off-ball movement and lightning-quick passing, taking advantage of mismatches and defensive players getting stuck in off-ball screens. At its best, this brand of offense, which encourages passing, cutting, and teamwork, is an art form. At its worst, the free-flowing system can lead to frustrating turnovers, players losing faith that the ball will return to them, and disorganization.
The lack of clear isolation plays or clean-cut designed offense has made the ball sticky, as Finch would say, which has been Minnesota’s biggest problem to date. When the ball gets sticky, the ball movement stops, and the off-ball movement turns into ball-watching. This has been the case for the Wolves throughout Finch’s tenure. Occasionally, Edwards and Towns abandoned the free-flowing concept to call their number for a shot. While it’s hard to justify not allowing Edwards and Towns not to call their shot as elite offensive players, it is the easiest way to break down trust in the system.
Consider Golden State’s beautiful game offense. That offense worked because of Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, and Klay Thompson’s unselfishness. All three of them recognized that the best version of the offense involves Draymond Green setting the table for the other players and often playing a pseudo-point guard role.
The offense grew stronger as Golden State’s key three offensive pieces recognized that their off-ball movement would confuse and disorient the defense. The offense became all-time great when everyone recognized that to win a championship, they needed the buy-in of ball movement and pace.
Maybe the Wolves just are not there yet. With the youth of Edwards, 22, McDaniels, 23, and even Towns, 28, the offense may need to age together before the buy-in matches the potential. For reference, the beautiful game Warriors team in 2016-17, Curry was 28, Durant was 28, Thompson was 26, and Green was 26.
The offense Finch wants to deploy demands maturity and buy-in at the highest level. For example, even the 2016-17 Warriors ranked eighth in turnovers, and that’s the best version of what the Wolves appear to want to run. The clip below is from the historic 13 threes game by Curry.
Look at how little he has the ball en route to an all-time performance:
Finch reiterated at his end-of-year press conference, “I mean, I’m just not a big fan of those heliocentric offenses,” he said. “We are still going to be movement-based, sharing the ball.”
After the disappointment of losing to the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference Championship, the Wolves have extended their head of the snake, Chris Finch, for the foreseeable future. However, if the Timberwolves want to win a ring with their current construction, Finch’s defense must remain intact and on top of the league. However, the offensive mastermind may need to add more structure to a team of young stars to ensure the Wolves don’t fall short again.
