Timberwolves

The Timberwolves Need To Push the Pace Offensively

Photo Credit: Eric Canha-Imagn Images

The Minnesota Timberwolves are the fifth-oldest team in the NBA.

Age can be advantageous because experience is valuable. However, with age often comes a slower pace of play and a lack of athletic burst. The Wolves have Anthony Edwards to help inject a youthful style of play into their offense, but the team’s overall age heavily hinders Minnesota’s pace of play.

Particularly their transition offense attack.

Through Minnesota’s first 17 games, it ranks last in the NBA in transition frequency at a rate of 14% and last in transition possessions per game (15.5). The Timberwolves don’t have perfect personnel to get out in transition, but they must find better ways to push the pace much more frequently with Edwards and Julius Randle. They must find more efficient scoring opportunities for their best offensive threats while giving the team easy buckets away from the half-court. 

The Wolves can only benefit their offense by hunting for more ways to score in advantageous situations or with more space on the court. However, this year’s Wolves don’t seek out those situations despite Chris Finch repeatedly waving his arm like a third-base coach on the sidelines throughout games.

Whether that is a coaching-to-player disconnect or not, the Wolves haven’t showcased much attention to detail when getting into the early offense, even if it is getting the ball across the mid-court line. Finch has also used Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Donte DiVincenzo outside their traditional roles to initiate the offense, which has magnified this issue. 

The Wolves could push the pace to drive more offense, but transition is also an excellent spot to capitalize on the opponent’s miscues, whether that’s live-ball turnovers or long missed three-point attempts. Therefore, considering their offensive issues, why don’t the Wolves attempt to get out and run in transition more frequently?

Every team across the league has scoring droughts, and basketball is a game of runs. One way to fight through those point swings and shooting variance is to generate more easy shot attempts. The effort to at least find more attention to detail within pushing the pace would still bring more positives than negatives. 

It’s perplexing how many of Minnesota’s unforced errors, such as turnovers and carelessness with the ball, don’t directly correlate to their play style. Typically, teams that run in transition at a high rate will be more prone to turning the ball over and succumbing to more extreme runs. However, this Timberwolves team has found a way to struggle with the pace of play and turnover issues simultaneously. 

The offense then becomes self-defeating. Playing conservatively and avoiding pushing the ball to emphasize ball security is counterproductive if the team still produces turnovers through the half-court offense.

The Wolves still give starter’s minutes to 37-year-old Mike Conley and 32-year-old Rudy Gobert, who’s 7’2”. Still, it doesn’t mean they cannot outlet pass to their more dynamic options, such as Edwards, Randle, Naz Reid, and now Rob Dillingham.

Still, Gobert influences the offensive pace. He snares most of the defensive rebounds, is not quick to outlet the ball, and is not much of a threat as a rim runner on possessions when he doesn’t rebound misses. Only one team that Gobert has been on during the seasons for which the NBA has tracked transition data has finished in the top half of transition frequency. 

The 2022-23 Timberwolves.

  • 2015/16 Jazz | 29th in transition frequency
  • 2016/17 Jazz | 29th in transition frequency
  • 2017/18 Jazz | 22nd in transition frequency
  • 2018/19 Jazz | 19th in transition frequency
  • 2019/20 Jazz | 22nd in transition frequency
  • 2020/21 Jazz | 16th in transition frequency
  • 2021/22 Jazz | 23rd in transition frequency
  • 2022/23 Wolves | 7th in transition frequency
  • 2023/24 Wolves | 29th in transition frequency

However, Rob Dillingham offers hope. His energetic playstyle is already a meaningful change of pace from what the Wolves deployed before he started getting regular minutes. Dillingham naturally pushes the pace on the ball as the initiator, using his rapid speed to push the ball past the midcourt line quicker in the shot clock than DiVincenzo or Alexander-Walker.

Dillingham also has shown more flashes as a playmaker and facilitator than DiVincenzo or Alexander-Walker, making it a no-brainer to continue to give him minutes and a role. He still has rookie growing pains like turnovers and miscues. However, allowing DiVincenzo and Alexander-Walker to return to their usual secondary ball handling and primary off-ball duties will foster a more fluid offense.

Rotational changes can help, but they can only do so much for the Timberwolves. If they want to find more ways to improve their offense and make it easier on Randle and Edwards, they must enable a quicker pace as a collective unit. Even if it is just the lineups that see Gobert sit, the Timberwolves leave too much on the table by playing into their opponent’s set defense much more frequently than they should.

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