No game is easy in the Association, but when a favorable schedule presents itself it needs to be seized upon. The Minnesota Timberwolves are quickly becoming the hunted, there will be sharp fangs waiting for them around every corner as the season unfurls, so making hay while the sun is shining is paramount. It’s also worth basking in that sun. Feeling the glorious rays seep into your basketball soul. After so many years stuck in the cold, the heat feels amazing.
The game ends 127-103. That’s how you take advantage of a cellar dweller. The Memphis Grizzlies have resigned themselves to a life of self-pity without Ja Morant, casually forgetting that they have two All-Star caliber players on their roster, and instead choosing to roll over and letting their soft underbelly be opened up mercilessly. Minnesota have an especially sharp scalpel right now and they took very little time in brandishing it.
Sometimes it’s nice to just cruise through an evening without any real danger creeping into it. Anthony Edwards hobbling off with a reaggravation of his hip injury just four minutes into the game was a downer, but it didn’t change the plan. Dominate. Crush everything. Feast on the corpse of the woebegone Grizzlies.
Minnesota’s size and cohesion defensively were too much for Memphis’ shoddy scorers, completely covering up the rim and forcing them to win with jumpers. For a team that entered the night as one of the least efficient scoring teams in the league, that was always going to sink the patched-up dinghy the Grizzlies are currently piloting. Once it was clear that the Wolves were firing on all cylinders offensively, this game was naught but a waltz to the finish line.
Mike Conley: 10/10
Feels like his willingness to step into the scoring vacuum sans Anthony Edwards has been a little underrated. It’s easy to forget he’s, in basketball terms, a billion fucking years old. Instead of regaling us with how the Great Pyramids of Giza were erected, he sprinkles his sagacious stardust onto our favorite team each and every night.
So, when the team needs someone to get buckets, he just gets buckets. Don’t confuse that with hijacking the offense. He doesn’t commandeer a fucking thing. He just worms his way into the spaces that are open within the offensive chain of command and brings his usual brilliance with him.
It’s another dosage of floater game, a couple of triples, and a foul-drawing nous that lets him expose his uber-efficient free-throwing. He’s a plus defender, he’s the best playmaker on the team, he’s all of those things and right now he’s a legitimate second option on offense.
Don’t take that for granted. Cryogenically freeze him. Sign him to a lifetime contract. Age be damned.
Finished with 19 points (72% TS), 4 rebounds and 7 assists in 32 minutes — +41.0 net rating.
Nickeil Alexander-Walker: 10/10
Desmond Bane. Human fridge fucking Desmond Bane. He must have nightmares of Nickeil Alexander-Walker, a spindly apparition standing over his bed and cackling in his face. He haunted him all night, just as he did last time the Wolves wiped the floor with the formerly smug Grizzlies.
When Bane is on the ball, trying to dribble with his tiny little penguin arms, NAW is shadowing every movement and shutting off every option. Off the ball, he’s chasing around every screen, staying connected on every cut, and pouring more nightmare fuel onto the fire. Bane makes a few tough looks throughout the night, but he mostly struggles to even get shots off at all. He was blanketed out almost entirely.
On the other end, Alexander-Walker just did what he’s been doing for a while now. He only takes shots that are available to him and he makes them at a very respectable clip, adding into the mix his penchant for reliable table-setting when Conley is on the pine.
He’s made Jaden McDaniels’ absence palatable. More than palatable. Almost seamless. That’s very hard to do.
Finished with 14 points (70.9% TS), 2 rebounds and 2 assists in 34 minutes — +32.9 net rating.
Karl-Anthony Towns: 10/10
I’m just gonna keep firing these 10s off like fucking Oprah. Towns’ isn’t the loudest 10 in the world, he’s just remarkably solid and everything the team needed to fill in the gaps between the role player stardom. Whenever Memphis attempted to peel themselves off the canvas, he was there to land another punch to their glass jaw.
Whether it was a catch-and-shoot triple or a barreling drive resulting in a finish at the rim or a trip to the free throw line, he was a consistent relief valve for the offense. A constant punch. He’s been impressively reliable in every game without Anthony Edwards and even more impressively composed. He’s so often been a puzzle of a player, now he’s a wonderfully painted masterpiece.
Finished with 24 points (66.8% TS), 7 rebounds and 4 assists in 29 minutes — +28.3 net rating.
Rudy Gobert: 10/10
Hahahaha. It’s hard not to cackle while watching him play right now. A big French man amongst sickly boys. He doesn’t play in the way that garners the admiration of the wider public but he’s one of the league’s most impactful players. Fuck it, he’s at the top of that pile. Let’s embrace the hyperbole because he deserves it. Start engraving his name onto all the trophies.
Both ends, too. Both ends. Imagine saying that when balls were ping-ponging off his frying pan hands last season. Now he pummels defenses with his ability to finish lobs, wreak havoc on the offensive glass, and just dunk the fuck out of everything he touches.
And then, when the opponents have escaped the clutches of his offensive dominance, he goes down on defense and shows that he’s the best defender on the planet. Every possession.
His first quarter was the stuff of gods. He was phenomenal after that, let’s be clear, but the way he set the tone with his ability to vacillate between rim-protecting deity to mobile space-eater and back within the same possession is otherworldly. Sure, he blocks everything in sight, but he deters so much more.
They’re scared to shoot when he is close to them. They’re petrified. So they should be.
Finished with 16 points (74.3% TS), 20 rebounds and 6 blocks in 36 minutes — +32.8 net rating.
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