Deep Dive: Balancing Beasley
Minnesota need their enigmatic shooter to step up now more than ever.
The Timberwolves need to find a way to tread water. It had been a promising season, one that had seemed to be barreling toward a play-in or even playoff birth, but, thanks to COVID-19 ravaging their roster, they have quickly found themselves in that familiar predicament. It’s easier to square and analyze faltering defensive schemes or off-form players, but dealing with a roster depleted by a virus that is undoubtedly bigger than basketball is a strange gray area. Things are weird around the entire league and the Wolves, as usual, have found their way onto the wrong side of the weirdness.
Still, the Timberwolves need to find a way to tread water. Even when those tsunami waves continue to crash down over them and the weight of the water grows heavier by the day, the middle of the Western Conference is so jampacked that they remain locked in a playoff battle. They need to find a way to tread water. Out of necessity, Malik Beasley is their lifeboat. Players will slowly start to trickle back into the lineup over the coming days and weeks, but while Beasley is able to avoid the health and safety protocols, he is going to be relied on more heavily than ever to help his team keep their head above the rising tides.
It’s been a tough season for Minnesota’s enigmatic sharpshooter. Mainly because the shooting … hasn’t been sharp. More concerningly, however, his shot selection has often eviscerated the team’s ability to execute an energetic, ball-movement offense and has put a cap on his own individual ceiling. Beasley has a shooting trigger like a spooked hare, but his eagerness to whip it out in any and every situation has been one of the reasons Minnesota’s offense has been stuck in the mud for much of the season.
Only seven qualified players are shooting more 3-pointers than Beasley per 100 possessions (14.8) despite him connecting on just 34.8 percent for the season. If Beasley is taking the right shots, there are few who would attest to those monstrous volume numbers. The problem is that he hasn’t been. There has been astonishing peaks, sure, but also cold and lonely valleys.
According to Basketball Index, just 14.1 percent of his long-bombs have been classified as “open”. Whether that number is an indictment of Beasley, the coaching staff, or both, it’s not ideal for Minnesota’s offense. Beasley has been pressing and prodding on the court trying to find the slippery rhythm that has been avoiding his grasp all season long. If the Timberwolves are to survive a fortnight (at the least) of depleted lineups and hardship contracts, he is going to have to locate and lock down that rhythm.
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