There’s something uniquely gratifying about the Minnesota Timberwolves scratching and clawing their way to a win against a downtrodden opponent. Like a burning an effigy of Wolves teams long since past. An exorcising of the apparitions that have slunk through Target Center for decades, their cadaverous tendrils tainting the whole organization year after year. Every night that the Timberwolves fight back those demons and grind out a should-win game, the whole enterprise grows stronger once more.
The game ends 102-94. Let’s be honest, exorcising the aforementioned ghouls isn’t always pretty. For long periods of this game, it was far more repulsive than it was resplendent. The San Antonio Spurs were drowning under a 14-game losing streak and Minnesota’s carelessness with the ball, inability to make shots from deep and porous defense sharpened their hopes of ending that skid in a putrid first half.
It was more than just a shitty prologue, the first few chapters of this novel were barely worth reading. The odds of a fairytale ending were fast diminishing, but this Timberwolves team loves wearing the Prince Charming guise.
The second half was a different beast, as it often has been this season. The increased intensity on the defensive end was especially noticeable, as was their proclivity to move the ball and force the Spurs’ lackluster defense to make decisions that they don’t enjoy making. It was a night that demanded that vigor. This wasn’t a lock that could be picked, the door had to be kicked down.
It never really felt comfortable. Not until the closing moments. That’s what this league requires, however, even teams on the kind of heater Minnesota is right now don’t just get to breeze through games against the league’s plebeians. Each game requires some graft and this Timberwolves team soaks itself in the graft and almost invariably comes out smelling of the sweet fragrance of success.
Mike Conley: 9/10
He bookended the night with expert precision. Like a sniper waiting for his moments and then blasting the fucking skull off his opponents.
When things were messy in the opening stages, he tidied them up with his ability to knock down triples and squirm his way to the line. When composure was the prescription late in the game, he took hold of the offense and instilled a ball-movement and pick-and-roll-heavy regime, meticulously picking apart San Antonio’s shoddy defense.
It’s become his predictable pattern this season. When they need him to be the adult and calm down the gaggle of children around him, he does so with a stern word, a gentle hand, and a shitload of basketball nous.
Finished with 18 points (55.9% TS), 4 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals in 33 minutes — +11.3 net rating.
Nickeil Alexander-Walker: 6/10
Didn’t notice him a whole lot. That’s a double-edged sword. There are nights where he is hard not to notice — in the best way possible. Nights where his menacing defense is so hard to ignore that it virtually headbutts you in the fucking nose. Then there are nights where he is such an offensive bane that he’s equally noticeable, but it’s more a swift kick to the groin.
This game he stood in the middle of that seesaw. He was solid all evening at the point of attack defensively and made some of his trademark ninja-style pokeaways, but he was more of a spoke in the wheel than the defensive wagon itself. He did make some shots, too, a couple of nifty layups and an encouraging pull-up triple moving to his right out of a pick-and-roll action. But he chased that cocktail with some harsh misses and a few poor possessions as a playmaker.
Nothing special. Sometimes that’s perfectly manageable.
Finished with 7 points (43.8% TS) and 2 rebounds in 20 minutes — +2.4 net rating.
Anthony Edwards: 5/10
Clearly not completely over the hip contusion that entangled him over the past week-and-a-bit and that was obvious from the first tip. Fuck knows why he was really out there, but at some point he probably had to give it a trial run and this game was as good as any. It sapped his usual superpowers, though, a big crystal of kryptonite dangling from his neck.
His struggles mainly manifested in his shot selection and accuracy. He seemed hesitant (or perhaps unable) to attack the rim with his usual force and he settled for weary-looking jumpers instead. With every miss, that crystal grew heavier and the tentacles of its effects wrapped tighter around him.
To his credit, he did find other ways to smear his impact onto the game. He was excellent defensively, despite his limited mobility. He had multiple possessions of rampaging on-ball defense and was alert on his rotations all night. He also made plays for others, the slick pocket pass for a Rudy Gobert dunk the sumptuous pick of the bunch.
Let’s hope this run-out was exactly what he needed to whet his blade again.
Finished with 17 points (41.4% TS), 6 rebounds and 7 assists in 37 minutes — +15.1 net rating.
Karl-Anthony Towns: 4/10
Just a really weird night. A big fucking contradiction of a night.
He misses but one field goal attempt, which is really good, but he only takes six of them, which is really bad. Sure, he could have used an extra play or two tilted in his direction, but most of the time the offense started to flow through them his brain would leak out of his eardrum and he’d turn the bastard over in all manner of brainless ways. An over-the-head pass here, a barreling drive into three players there.
His defense was a bit of an adventure all night, too. He was truly horrific in the first half, he missed a bunch of help rotations and he seemed a step slow to everything. It did improve in the second half, especially in terms of his vigilance off the ball, but he likely has a lot of that to owe to Rudy Gobert covering some of his gaps.
It just seemed like an off-game for him. Nothing overly concerning.
Finished with 14 points (95.6% TS), 10 rebounds and 2 assists in 32 minutes — -17.3 net rating.
Rudy Gobert: 10/10
Do you think it’s boring for him? Does dominance ever get boring? Is it like the usual day of work, compared to us punters?
He goes in there, clocks in, fucks up an entire organization’s hopes and dreams for a night, yawns and then goes home. Is this mundane? He makes it look fucking mundane. It’s hard to overestimate how insanely special it is to make what he’s doing every night look mundane.
And all of a sudden that mundane dominance is spreading itself across both ends of the floor. Of course he ruins drives and wards off cowardly would-be scorers all night on the defensive end. That’s how he’s buttered his bread for a decade. But lately he is a genuine game-changer offensively.
Point blank, the Timberwolves don’t win this game without him — his foul trouble proved that — and a lot of that has to do with his ability to put the round thing in the other round thing.
Whenever the ball was pushed his way, he finished with cool aplomb. Whenever a shot clanked off the rim, he was teleported into the right spot, slurped up the offensive rebound, and then hammered home the putback. His lanky French counterpart spent his night looking like a wounded gazelle surrounded by hyenas, with Gobert at the head of the clan.
Finished with 16 points (90.1% TS), 20 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 blocks in 30 minutes — +48.1 net rating.
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