During this year’s media day, Tim Connelly and Chris Finch discussed maturity for the Minnesota Timberwolves heading into the season. Last year, the team struggled to win the games they were supposed to. As a result, Minnesota barely snuck into the playoffs for the second year in a row. Connelly said a successful season would be defined as being better than last year and winning a playoff series. Finch noted that the team had to be tougher while relying on their defense, and that’s what their identity should look like.
Over a quarter of the 2023-24 campaign is in the books, and identities and standings are starting to take shape. The Timberwolves are at a place they haven’t been in over 19 years. They own a 24-8 record, positioning them as the best team in the Western Conference. It has been pure jubilation amongst the fanbase. Target Center has been sold out for every game as fans are chomping at the bit to see their team perform at a level most have never seen before.
Minnesota hasn’t gotten to this euphoric state by mistake. The team has found its identity after season-long soul-searching last year. Being defensively led is what Finch was hoping to see from his team, and they have rang that figurative bell loudly, as the Timberwolves are the best defensive team in the NBA, but the best team in the West still has room to grow.
Coming off a 129-106 road loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, Finch and his team were back on their home court for the fourth time in December – welcoming in the Luka Dončić-less Dallas Mavericks on Thursday evening.
Vegas had the Timberwolves as a 12.5-point favorite entering the game. With no Luka magic on the other side, Minnesota had a sizable advantage before the ball tipped, following a common trend this season. Heading into the game, the Wolves had already played seven games against teams that were without their star players. Minnesota was 7-0 in those contests and remained undefeated in such games after its 118-110 win against Dallas last week.
Target Center was buzzing postgame, but Finch and the rest of the team weren’t during their postgame media availability. If you didn’t know better, you would say the Wolves lost Thursday’s game. For all intents and purposes, it felt like they did, especially on offense.
“I think everyone is, at times, a little too worried about getting their own offense going,” responded Finch after the game when asked about his team’s offense.
Ant had a hot start, and we have to ride that hot start, but when that hot start is over, then you’ve got to start making plays. Other people, if they haven’t touched the ball for a while, they can’t just decide they are going to put their head down and go to the hoop, or they are just going to jack up a shot because they haven’t shot it for a little while. And that’s everybody. At the end of the second quarter, in particular, we all were having a pity party for ourselves offensively. There are a lot of ways to be immature, and generally, this team has been very mature, but we have to grow up offensively; it’s time.
Looking at the box score, it appears that the Timberwolves had a great offensive game. They shot 38-of-74 (51%) from the floor, 17-of-33 (52%) from deep, and Edwards scored 44 points on a ridiculous 12-of-23 (52%) from the floor. However, what made Finch say Minnesota had to grow up on offense was the 22 turnovers – 11 of which came in the first half. Minnesota’s turnovers allowed the Mavericks to go on a 15-6 run heading into halftime, pulling them within five points during a game where they had no business being that close at any point in time.
“When we didn’t turn the ball over, we shot the lights out,” Finch said postgame. “We were going places where there is nowhere to go, and it’s on us. It’s just bad decisions. At that point in time, we deserve to turn the ball over because they’re just not smart plays. When we space, make the extra pass, and trust that the ball might come back to us, we’re good, we’re really good.”
Tim Hardaway Jr. registered 18 points on 4-of-7 from deep in the second half. He torched the Wolves from inside and out, causing Minnesota’s coaching staff to make rotational changes to stem the tide. Without Luka on the floor this season, the Mavericks have a 114.3 offensive rating, just about seven points lower than when he is playing. The Wolves had an opportunity to put the clamps down on a sluggish team without their best player and failed to do so.
Thursday’s game was a perfect example of how everything goes awry for the Wolves when their defense is failing them.
The age-old saying “defense wins championships” is something every high school coach repeats ad infinitum. It’s a cliché that is true for lower levels of sports but not leagues such as the NBA. Minnesota’s opponent has scored more than 125 points in five of the team’s eight total losses this season. The Wolves’ opponents punched them in the mouth on defense at some point in all five of those contents. In response, the team seemed to resort back to what we saw from them last season offensively to try and catch up. Many offensive struggles exhibited by the team boil down to decision-making, and, by default, blame is being laid at Edwards and Towns’ feet.
“We are on [Ant and KAT] a lot. They have great freedom, maybe too much, and that’s on me,” said Finch postgame. “They have the responsibility to make the game easy for everybody, and they’ll do it. It’s not all the time that they don’t, but when you have guys who are natural-born scorers, sometimes, when they aren’t scoring, they don’t feel like they are impacting the game … we’ve got a lot of work to do on the offensive end.”
There is irony here. Finch made a point in the offseason that he needs to integrate more structure into the offense. But he didn’t want to restrict how his star players would naturally play. That is a tall task for any head coach to succeed. But at a certain point, you must let star players get in their bags and do what they see fit down the stretch of games. However, there’s a balance to be struck because that can occasionally promote sticky ball movement and repetitive plays.
“We are in a rut where we are trying to play call our way through things,” said Finch. “I think we’ve got to get out and move it early for the sake of moving it, get it to the second side of the floor. Our bigs at the top of the floor need to do a much better job creating next-action basketball. We’ve also got to cut for each other. Our off-ball cutting has kind of dried up. And when we do cut, we kind of just cut and all lay in the lane, so our spacing is jacked from that.”
The end of Thursday’s game was pretty much decided midway through the fourth quarter. The Wolves handled business, and Edwards was chucking shots to reach 50 points. However, the team’s next game was different, as Minnesota went down to the wire against the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday night.
It was more of the same for the Wolves in the first half. They shot 58% from the floor, 44% from deep, 100% from the charity stripe, and tallied 61 points. However, their lead sat at four as Anthony Davis had 21 points on 9 of 12 from the floor, and Minnesota turned it over 12 times.
“It was the same story as we talked about before the game,” Finch said postgame. “We shot 50% and had 19 turnovers. Whenever we didn’t turn it over, I thought we got pretty decent looks … I thought we moved it really well. Turnovers continue to plague us.”
The Wolves had seven turnovers after halftime, which is still poor. However, their overall ball containment and offensive focus were heightened down the stretch – primarily due to Ant’s impact. He registered 16 points in the second half and 11 in the fourth quarter alone. Edwards charged his team to another gutsy, exciting home win. Thanks to Rudy Gobert’s efforts, Minnesota kept Davis in check after halftime; he scored 12 points in the second half and five in the fourth quarter. Again, this showed the impact defense had on the Wolves’ offense.
Following Saturday night’s thriller, the Wolves were in Madison Square Garden taking on the re-energized New York Knicks less than 15 hours after the ball dropped in Times Square to ring in the new year. Minnesota jumped out to an early 11-point lead, but New York fought back. By the end of the first quarter, it appeared that we were in for a good game, with the Wolves up by nine points.
However, the sky fell on top of the team in the second quarter, as the Wolves shot 4-of-14 from the floor, turned the ball over six times, and allowed the Knicks to shoot 13-of-25 from the floor and command the offensive glass. Towns and Edwards combined for a whopping five points while going 0-of-5 from the floor in the second frame. While the Knicks, specifically Jalen Brunson, were in the middle of their takeover, the Wolves could not keep the game remotely close, as New York led by 12 points at halftime.
Minnesota made it interesting in the fourth but could not overcome the grave they ultimately dug for themselves. There was a buzz in MSG from the jump as the Knicks welcomed in newly acquired forward OG Anunoby. The Wolves could silence the sell-out crowd early, but they crumbled once the rowdy Knicks fans got into it, and the team faced adversity.
Playing in exciting, meaningful games during late December is a new concept for most Timberwolves players and fans. It’s still necessary for this young Wolves team to grow up. But they are the best team in the Western Conference and closed the calendar year with the best start to a season in franchise history. To be in this position while needing to mature is incredibly valuable. Balancing egos and team-wide trust will be a swinging factor in reaching that next level.
