A shirtless Anthony Edwards sat at his locker after the Minnesota Timberwolves lost their fourth straight game.
“We’ve been trying to figure this out for the whole year, man,” he said after Minnesota’s 115-104 loss to the Sacramento Kings. “We thought defense was our identity, and it’s not looking like it at all. Our identity right now, me and Mike [Conley] was talking about it, I think it’s we soft as hell as a team.”
We soft as hell is a pointed assessment of a team struggling to find themselves. At 8-10, the Wolves appear to be flailing to plug all the holes in their defense, which was their former identity. Unfortunately, the lack of Flex Tape has caused one hole to widen, and we must discuss it at length.
Minnesota’s defense is unable to slow down opposing guards.
To set the stage, the Wolves rank 12th in defensive rating at 112.1. Their offense rating ranks 13th at 113.0 per game, resulting in a 0.9 net rating that ranks 13th in the league, between the 9-10 Sacramento Kings and 8-8 Miami Heat.
All three rankings reflect a .500 team that meets the eye test of their play this season. Much like last year, the Wolves continue to say that they need to rely on their defense, which ranked first in the league last season with a 108.4 defensive rating. The 3.7 difference doesn’t seem like a lot. However, looking at their offensive rating last season of 114.6, Minnesota sported a 6.3 net rating, ranking third in the league.
That is where the problem truly lies. Minnesota’s defense has slipped enough to no longer support a league-average offense. For argument’s sake, if the Wolves had their current 113.0 offensive rating and last year’s 108.4 defensive rating, it would reflect a 4.6 net rating.
A 4.6 net rating would rank 9th in the NBA, between the 13-7 Orlando Magic and the 12-8 Los Angeles Clippers. Therefore, if Minnesota’s defense remained stable, it would still struggle due to its offense. However, they would likely be firmly in the playoff mix with a winning record.
The Wolves have a soft spot in their last ten games, where they went 3-7.
They struggle to contain guards.
Below are the opposing guards from each of the past ten games. I’ve displayed their points, field goal percentage, and three-point percentage compared to their regular season total averages.
Kings (11/27): Fox, Monk, Ellis
- Vs Wolves: 61pts, FG (24/45), 3pt (8/18)
- Season: 49.0,17.6/36.1, 5.1/14.2
Rockets (11/26): VanVleet, Green, Brooks
- Vs Wolves: 58pts, FG (21/48), 3pt (11/24)
- Season: 46.9, 16.6/41.9, 7.1/20.9
Boston (11/24): White, Holiday, Pritchard
- Vs Wolves: 36pts, FG (13/29), 3pt (6/20)
- Season- 45.4, 15.6/33.4, 9.1/22.5
Raptors (11/21): Barrett, Dick, Barnes
- Vs Wolves: 57pts, FG (19/34), 3pt (4/12)
- Season: 60.9, 21.6/50.5, 5.7/18.2
Suns (11/17): Booker, Jones, Allen
- Vs Wolves: 75pts, FG (27/51), 3pt (11/22)
- Season: 45.9, 15.6/36.0, 6.7/19.2
Kings (11/15): Fox, Hueter, McLaughlin
- Vs Wolves: 69pts, FG (25/46), 3pt (6/14)
- Season: 39.4, 14.6/31.3, 4.2/13.3
Blazers (11/13) Sharpe, Henderson, Banton
- Vs Wolves: 57pts, FG (20/40), 3pt (5/14)
- Season: 39.2, 13.9/32.7, 4.3/12.9
Blazers (11/12): Sharpe Henderson Banton
- Vs Wolves: 43pts, FG (17/33), 3pt (9/13)
- Season: 39.2, 13.9/32.7, 4.3/12.9
Heat (11/10): Herro, Rozier, Robinson
- Vs Wolves: 45pts, FG (16/31), 3pt (6/15)
- Season: 47.3, 16.5/38.1, 8.8/22.3
Blazers (11/8): Simons, Henderson, Sharpe
- Vs Wolves: 36pts, FG (14/38), 3pt (2/12)
- Season- 46.1, 16.4/39.9, 5.3/16.9
The data is clear: Every combination of guards outscored their season averages when playing the Wolves, and most of them shoot considerably better from the field and average or worse from distance.
However, it’s puzzling that they can do this against the Wolves. Minnesota should have a stout perimeter defense with Edwards, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and Jaden McDaniels, who are above-average perimeter defenders and crucial players in Minnesota’s defense last year. The Wolves also have the luxury of Rudy Gobert patrolling around the rim.
To complicate the problem even more, the Wolves allow opponents to shoot 35.2% from three-point range. That ranks 11th in the league and is 0.2% better than last season. With 18 games played, the sample size shows that the Timberwolves are a relatively good perimeter defense when guarding the three-point arc.
If you add mid-range shots, the Timberwolves rank 13th in the league, allowing opponents to shoot just 36.6% from shots greater than 15 feet away, which is 0.2% worse than last season. Adding just those distance mid-range shots, Minnesota’s defense drops two spots in the ratings. That starts to highlight its problem with guard containment.
Looking at shots from ten feet or closer, the Wolves drop further to 17th in the league. That range includes layups and dunks but also adds floaters and close-range pull-ups. The Timberwolves allow teams to shoot 59.7% on arguably the easier shots in the league. Minnesota drops to 20th inside six feet, allowing 64.1% of shots to fall. Typically, the percentage increases as the shot location gets closer to the rim, but the Wolves go from 11th against threes to 13th to 17th to 20th in these four locations.
That change in rankings appears to contradict the thought that the perimeter guard play is hurting Minnesota’s defense the most. However, looking back to the past ten games against guards, their overall field goal percentage is 49,6%, not significantly higher than Minnesota’s season average of 47.2% defensive field goal percentage.
However, considering field goal percentage is usually inflated by teams’ bigs who shoot closer to the rim, and the fact that most teams’ guards over the last ten games shot worse than their season averages from three, it exemplifies that guards are scoring easier than they normally die inside the three-point arc against the Wolves. The date reflects the biggest issue: opposing guards can drive past Minnesota’s defense at will, get into the paint, and make easy layups, floaters, and hook shots.
“Ball contain and rim protection have not been there consistently,” Chris Finch said earlier this month after practice. “So we’ve gotta get better at that. Rudy has to commit earlier when he’s out there.”
The Wolves have lost every game since Finch said that, and it still stands. Guards can drive by the on-ball defender, and confusion or lack of trust leads to a delay in Rudy Gobert or Naz Reid rotating or attacking the ball-handler, leading to a layup line in the game. Below is one of the many examples of guards working into space and using Minnesota’s chemistry against them.
As frustrating as acknowledging the problem is, the likely answer to fixing it is arguably more frustrating. The Wolves have to build chemistry. Minnesota’s starting five of Conley, Edwards, McDaniels, Randle, and Gobert posted a 112.4 defensive rating in their 194 minutes together this season.
If you take out Randle and look at Minnesota’s four-man rotation, the defense improves to 110.6. In 58 minutes where Alexander-Walker is on the rotation in place of Conley and adding Randle back in, the defensive rating improves to 101.6, which would rank as the league’s No. 1 defense. Remove Randle, and the defense remains elite at 103.3.
Let’s start over with the starting lineup. However, this time, we will replace Conley with Donte DiVincenzo. That means there are three 2023-24 Wolves with the two new pieces, and the defense plummets to 119.3, which is their worst lineup to log over twenty-five minutes together. That suggests that Randle and Divincenzo are the problem with the Wolves, not necessarily the chemistry. But looking at their two-man lineup, they are 111.7 in 275 minutes played together.
That’s why chemistry is this team’s biggest improvement area defensively. Randle and DiVincenzo understand their roles together, reflected in their two-man rotation numbers, which are inflated when playing with bench players who can be more malleable around the former New York Knicks teammates.
When put into the rotation with Minnesota’s other starters, Gobert, Edwards, and McDaniels, there’s confusion about who should do what and where they should be on the floor defensively. That’s likely due to the comfortability the three Wolves became within their system through extended minutes they played together in 2023-24.
With guards scoring at will against the Wolves and the lack of cohesion inside the team, the Timberwolves are floundering to regain their defense, which was their biggest asset from last year. While calling the team soft may be an oversimplification of the issues inside the Wolves locker room, they will need to figure out a way to build chemistry and band together quickly if they don’t want more fans booing as they walk off the court.
