Deep Dive: The Timberwolves Path To Success Is Defense
If Minnesota is set to expel their demons and reach their goals, they need to do it on the defensive end.
Optimism runs rife at this time of the year. It’s like an insatiable disease, spreading its tendrils into the hearts and minds of every fan base and festering within them throughout the entire preseason. Every team has a path to glory glistening in front of them. Every player is the healthiest and happiest they’ve ever been, all of them in for a career-year. Every organization has the highest of hopes and the loftiest of goals. That’s just the way it works.
The Minnesota Timberwolves’ path to glory is defense. Glory being a relative term, of course. The Wolves aren’t going to land in the true upper echelon of the league without something spectacular happening and something spectacular has never happened for this franchise. Snagging a home playoff series and winning a series on the back of it would be glorious, though. Winning two would be vindication for the entire organization.
That’s why this team, one who was rudderless for much of last season despite their talent, need an identity and a clear path to that relative glory. Defense. Not because the word swirls around the mouth like sweet honey but because defense is the area this roster is built to thrive in. It’s their identity.
That doesn’t mean they can’t improve their subpar offense from last season — they need to and they should — but there is no reason this team shouldn’t be striving to sit in the top five in defensive rating this season.
Good things happen when teams end in that position. Great things happen. In Timberwolves terms, miraculous things happen. The adage that defense wins championships is as old as the day is long and, nowadays, perhaps a little outdated. The Golden State dynasty was built upon their offensive wizardry and the Denver Nuggets proved again last season that an offensive juggernaut is hardest to halt.
However, defense still wins regular season games. It wins a lot of them and it does it year on year on year.
In the last 10 full seasons, dating back to the 2012-13 season and excluding the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season, 70 percent of top-five defenses have finished the season with at least 50 wins. Among the 50 total teams who ended with a top-five defense, the average wins sat at 53.7.
That’s what this Timberwolves team should be chasing. Not in a preseason pipe dream way, but in a talent and pedigree way. Even in a year that rode the crest of every wave and felt the water rushing up to meet them on every fall, the Wolves finished eighth in defensive rating.
This year, hopefully with better health, better continuity, and a more well-fitting roster on the defensive end, they can take it one step further and bust into that elite tier.
The Timberwolves’ path to glory is defense. That path will be wending and littered with pesky obstacles, but they took the first steps on that journey last season. In the upcoming campaign, they need to stay on the beaten track, improving on the peripherals, and cementing the identity that they’ve built thus far.
Building On The Positives
Minnesota didn’t often feel like the hulking monoliths that they were last season, in any facet of the game. However, they turned out a defensive profile that mirrors what a big team should look like. This season, with a little more learned unity, there’s no reason to think they can’t do so again and do it better.
The obvious place to start is at the rim and in the areas surrounding the paint. According to Cleaning The Glass, the Wolves actually allowed 35 percent of their opponent’s shots to be taken at the rim, ranking in the 33rd percentile leaguewide, and 21.9 percent of them to be taken in the floater range between 4 and 14 feet from the rim, ranking in the 49th percentile. Not overly appealing as at a glance, but that is what their defensive scheme dictated.
Here’s a perfect example of how Minnesota’s pick-and-roll defense unfolds at its best.
Jaden McDaniels is draped over the ball-handler, Rudy Gobert is anchoring the defense in a deep version of drop coverage, and the Wolves are able to handle the pick-and-roll straight up. Sure, they allow the ensuing field goal attempt to come right at the rim, but McDaniels’ length forces the miss and Gobert’s presence hoovers up the rebound.
If McDaniels gets picked off by the screen — an expected outcome even for the league’s best perimeter defender — then the responsibility falls on Gobert to deter the shot at the rim while McDaniels to provide some sort of physicality on the glass. Even with Gobert’s dwindling block numbers, he still hampers drivers at a premium rate.
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