Timberwolves

Does Finch's Freelance Offense Work With Minnesota's New Roster?

Photo Credit: Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images

For all his success, Chris Finch has had a complicated run during his tenure. The Minnesota Timberwolves have played their best basketball in two decades under Finch. He has launched the team out of misery and numerous subpar coaching hires into consistent playoff relevancy and overall stability. Still, success comes with its fair share of challenges. 

Schematically, Minnesota’s young core has always had issues matching Finch’s ideal offensive benchmarks. The Wolves hired Finch knowing he was an offensive-minded coach. Bringing a “read and react” offense, commonly described as a “flow” offense. Read-and-react offenses rely on players with a high feel for the game to reach its full potential. 

There has been an influx of freelance coaches in the modern NBA who rely on the stars and offensive juggernauts to do what they do best. Ultimately, flow systems put trust and belief in the best players to decide the team’s fate rather than the team’s role players or collective talent. Increased talent and offensive firepower in the league have only encouraged flow offenses. 

NBA offenses still run a fair share of set actions, but the actions give players multiple options to go with the ball. Therefore, structured offenses are more multifaceted than they initially appear. Ideally, there is a balance of structure and freelance matching with the roster construction, which the best teams in the league have achieved. 

For example, the Boston Celtics won a championship by playing through each other. They’ve beaten opponents as a unit, working through their five-out offense to find easy opportunities from three and putting defenses in a difficult spot. 

Opponents cannot pressure Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown because the offense can succeed by swinging the ball to one of its three-point shooting threats. That’s even more dangerous when those teammates are multifaceted players, which is a luxury. Still, Boston’s concepts turned them into champions.

The Oklahoma City Thunder are one of the best teams in the West and operate similarly. They work with optimal spacing and shooting threats. Oklahoma City’s coaching staff gives its superstar, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, plenty of room to get downhill and into spots where he’s the most comfortable. Their freelance relies upon dribble, pass, and shoot players who can keep the ball moving without hunting their shot. That allows the team to flow while SGA and Jalen Williams carry the creation duties. 

Boston and OKC have championship-caliber talent, but their identities and offensive concepts play to the strengths of their best players. They raise their teams’ floor and ceiling, making their lives easier and finding the balance of team identity and star freedom. Connectivity is the most vital quality, though. 

To successfully adjust throughout the game, players must have a high enough on-court IQ to know what to do situationally. OKC and Boston readily adapt to their opponents. Fewer deficiencies mean more ways to change depending on the opponent and find holes in the defense.

When Minnesota hired Finch, he became a beacon of hope. The Wolves were 7-24 under Ryan Saunders, even though they had the newly drafted Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels, and established star Karl-Anthony Towns gave them promise. The core needed an offensive-minded coach to deploy them properly and point the franchise in the right direction.

Like most young teams, the Timberwolves experienced ebbs and flows. However, they succeeded early, winning 40+ games and making the playoffs. Expectations were low for the playoff series against the Memphis Grizzlies. Still, there were issues with the team’s offensive cohesion and sustainability when they blew multiple leads and fumbled away the series they could have won. 

However, the Wolves came back to beat the Denver Nuggets in the playoffs last year. Still, many of Minnesota’s longstanding issues manifested in the Dallas Mavericks series. They no longer had the veil of inexperience and youth. There were real issues.

Inexperience and a lack of on-court feel have always reflected upon the future of the franchise Edwards, Towns, and McDaniels. All have plenty of talent and prospect pedigree, but they still had much to figure out to be effective in the NBA using a flowing offensive blueprint. 

The Rudy Gobert trade brought more stability defensively. However, the Wolves still had some offensive concerns. How could the younger core work around another player taking up significant space who only scores at the rim? The roster construction continued to stray from what the Wolves’ original identity appeared to be when they hired Finch two years prior. 

Still, much of it comes down to developing the core the Wolves had in place when they hired Finch.

  • Edwards took his offensive leap, becoming an engine of the offense and one of the best scorers in the NBA. However, his playmaking development and ability to make the correct reads were inconsistent against defenses loaded up on stopping him.
  • Towns was one of the league’s most efficient three-point threats. However, his lingering turnover issues and inability to find consistency on drives, abuse smaller mismatches, and work around physicality hindered his offensive firepower. Collectively, his shortcomings made him less versatile.
  • McDaniels has been an offensive enigma for his entire NBA career. While the flashes of secondary creation have been there, his lack of strength has kept him from being effective downhill. He also has not improved his loose handle enough to beat defenders off the dribble. The same issues can only last so long before becoming a permanent shortcoming. 

The Julius Randle trade has the potential to alleviate many of Minnesota’s offensive issues and give them more of a dynamic feel within the offense. Randle also played under Finch in New Orleans, so Randle was familiar with Finch’s flow offense. Randle has had mixed results in Minnesota, but the Wolves needed his ability to create advantages for others and take advantage of mismatches. Randle’s ability to get downhill with a purpose, distribute to others, and set them up for shots is a valuable trait within the flow of the offense.

Donte DiVincenzo was another key to changing the offense, allowing Finch to run more movement sets off the ball and find easier ways to simulate flow. While Donte was not efficient at the beginning of his Wolves tenure, his effect on the offensive units’ dynamic was evident. 

Still, even after bringing in DiVincenzo and Randle for Towns and improving the offensive rating, the Wolves have had many issues that have hindered them throughout Finch’s tenure. The team’s overall offensive IQ and feel have still limited them, leading to strings of turnovers and opponent scoring runs that continue to feel more self-inflicted than the opponent successfully executing. 

The Wolves have lofty expectations after a Western Conference Finals appearance. Given Tim Connelly’s quick-trigger trade tendencies and Edwards’ competitive window, Finch and the offense must figure out their flow issues and freelance capabilities. The Timberwolves are closing in on the 20-game mark and can’t fall behind in the competitive Western Conference.

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