The Minnesota Timberwolves are nearing the end of one of their best regular seasons in franchise history. They currently have 52 wins, the second-most in franchise history, and still have seven games in which they could potentially tie the record of 58 wins. The Wolves have also managed to stay only one game back of first place in the Western Conference despite Karl-Anthony Towns getting injured. They are nearly guaranteed home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs because the fifth-place Dallas Mavericks are seven games behind them.
But while the regular season has been fantastic, we will judge the Wolves on how far they go in the playoffs. The roster will get incredibly expensive after Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels‘ new contracts kick in next season. The Timberwolves will likely have to make a Western Conference Finals run for the ownership and front office to justify paying the luxury tax to keep the roster together.
Fortunately, the Wolves look like a bona fide contender. They have the best defensive rating in the NBA (108.2), 2.2 points better than the second-place Orlando Magic. However, Minnesota is 18th in offensive rating at 114.6, which is lower than you’d like to see given that championship teams are often top 10 in both categories historically. Still, their defense has been so good that despite offenses across the league scoring at a historically high level, the Wolves have managed to maintain the third-best net rating in the league (6.4).
But Minnesota’s clutch performance is concerning. The NBA’s website defines clutch time as “the final five minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime when the score is within five points.” Although the Wolves have the third-best net rating in the league, they rank 26th in clutch time with a -15.6 net rating. That means that Minnesota’s point differential is -15.6 per 100 possessions, which is surprisingly bad, especially considering how good its record is.
As a point of comparison, the Brooklyn Nets are one spot above the Wolves. They have a -12.3 clutch net rating, a 12-19 record in clutch games, and are 11th in the Eastern Conference. Most of the league’s other top-seeded teams have a positive net rating in the clutch, including the Denver Nuggets (1st with a 27 net rating), the Boston Celtics (6th with 16.9), and the Oklahoma City Thunder (8th at 13.3).
So, how big of a problem is Minnesota’s lackluster performance in the clutch this season? Technically, it hasn’t been that big of an issue. The Wolves are surprisingly above .500 in clutch games, with a record of 19-15 despite their negative net rating. However, 15 of Minnesota’s 23 losses have come from clutch time breakdowns, which is a bit concerning. Additionally, one to two wins may determine which team gets first place in the Western Conference, and the 1-seed is particularly valuable this year. The Wolves would benefit if they avoid playing the Denver Nuggets or the Oklahoma City Thunder until the Western Conference Finals.
What may be even more concerning is that teams with negative clutch net ratings often haven’t done well in the playoffs. On The Athletic NBA Show last week, Alex Speers, the co-host of Slam and Jam, presented his research on the subject.
To find out if being this bad in the clutch portends bad things for the playoffs, I went back to the 96-97 season, that’s as far as it goes back, to find all the teams that had a double-digit negative net rating in the clutch. Now, that is a completely arbitrary cut-off, but guess what? So is clutch time…
So we gotta start somewhere, and I went double digits. In the last 28 seasons, there have been 137 teams with a double-digit negative clutch time net rating. 122 of those teams, 89%, missed the playoffs completely, meaning only 15 of those teams even made the playoffs. 15 playoff teams total in 28 seasons.
Just this season, assuming the Heat figure out the Play-In, we’re gonna have 3 of those teams in the 2024 playoffs between the Wolves, Pelicans, and Heat. Kind of interesting. Back to the 15 that made it to the playoffs, 8 of them lost in the first round, and another 5 lost in the second round, which means out of the 137 teams in the last 28 years with a double-digit negative clutch time net rating, only 2 made it further than the second round.
That history is pretty concerning. As previously noted, the Timberwolves likely need to make it out of the second round to justify keeping their current roster together. However, only two teams as bad as the Wolves have been in the clutch have done that. Beyond that history, the fact that they have performed worse when a close game is on the line is concerning because almost every game in the playoffs is close.
But there is some good news for the Wolves in Speers’ research. Speers says the two teams that made it out of the second round were the 2020 Miami Heat and the 2003 New Jersey Nets. Then he highlights that the 2003 Nets had a strikingly similar profile to the current Timberwolves, saying, “The Nets that season were 2nd in their conference, 18th on offense, 1st on defense. This year’s Wolves team? That’s right, 2nd in their conference, exactly 18th on offense, and 1st on defense.”
Although the Wolves are no longer in second place, their profile is remarkably similar to that of the 2003 Nets, who made it all the way to the Finals before losing to the San Antonio Spurs. The historical data shows that it’s not impossible for a team that hasn’t performed well in the clutch to make a Finals run — it’s just rare. Given how good the Wolves have been this season, there’s reason to believe they can be another outlier in this trend.
However, they likely will have to be much better in the clutch during the playoffs to win multiple series. Speers points out that the 2003 Nets and the 2020 Heat teams flipped their clutch time net rating when they reached the playoffs. The 2020 Heat team had a “+38.9 net rating in 14 clutch games during that bubble run.” Perhaps the Wolves will also be able to figure out how to lock in during clutch time and score more, especially if KAT can come back in the first round.
Additionally, there’s reason to believe that there is some noise within Minnesota’s clutch net rating stat. The Wolves won 19 of their 34 games that ended in clutch time. Therefore, they likely went into clutch time several times with a lead and lost some of the lead, which affected their net rating. However, they still won the game. On top of that, a couple of particularly bad performances can significantly skew the stat to make the team look worse in the clutch than it is.
For example, they went into clutch time up 99-96 in Sunday’s game against the Chicago Bulls. However, the Wolves scored only 2 points in the last 5 minutes, while the Bulls scored 13. The Timberwolves lost the game 109-101. That one lousy performance dropped Minnesota’s clutch net rating from -11.6 (tied for 23rd) to the -15.6 that it’s at now. The sample size is only 139 minutes, so a few bad performances can tank the team’s statistics and make them look worse than they actually are.
It may also be a trend that is present for defense-oriented teams. Two other playoff teams are below the Wolves in clutch net rating. The Heat have a clutch net rating of -15.9 (27th), and the New Orleans Pelicans are -16.9 (28th). Interestingly, both teams profile somewhat similarly to the Wolves in that they have top-of-the-league defenses and offenses that can struggle to score if their stars aren’t rolling.
New Orleans and Miami are tied for 5th in defensive rating at 111.7 and outside the top 10 in offensive rating. The Pelicans are above the Wolves in offensive rating at 116.6 (12th), and the Heat are below them at 113.1 (21st). Perhaps teams that are defense-oriented naturally have worse ratings in the clutch. Their goal is to win by holding a team to as few points as possible, but they have less efficient ways to score when every bucket becomes difficult in clutch time.
There may be many explanations for why Minnesota’s net rating is so bad this season. We won’t be able to tell how good of a clutch team they are until the playoffs come and they get a clean slate. Ultimately, because the Timberwolves’ best clutch-time scorer, Anthony Edwards, is only 22, the team relies on him making heroic plays for much of their clutch-time offense. Therefore, clutch play may still be a struggle for them in the playoffs.
Often, young players make more mental mistakes and risky decisions that lead to turnovers or ill-advised shots when the game is on the line than a veteran of a similar skill level would. However, Ant has stepped up big in Minnesota’s last two playoff series, and his growth as a decision-maker throughout the season gives fans plenty of reason to be optimistic that the Wolves will be able to improve upon their clutch play in the playoffs.
