When you become so accustomed to the sweet taste of caviar-coated wins, the return to tepid bowls of gruel leaves a lingering putridness on the tastebuds. The Minnesota Timberwolves haven’t experienced many nights that went so wrong in so many different ways like this one did so far this season and, while they’re far from burning down the house to smoke out the rat, it’s never nice to feel the cold touch of reality after spending so long perched atop cloud nine.
The game ends 121-107. A game that felt as rhythmless as it did hopeless. Minnesota spent most of the night digging their own grave against a fully constituted New Orleans Pelicans squad, and while they were forced into the sarcophagus by a bizarrely one-sided refereeing performance, they couldn’t claim to have a finger on victory all night long.
For the majority of the season, the Wolves have been able to command at least one end of the floor all game long. When they’re a smidgen shaky offensively, they can rely on their militant defense to see them through. When the defense slips, they have the talent offensively to put together boomlets in order to stay afloat. Both sides of the floor slipped through their grasp in this one, a recipe for a meal barely worth smelling.
It seemed like each dam wall broke simultaneously, allowing a flood of mishaps to drown them. Their long-range shooting was absent all evening and was accompanied by too many misses right at the rim. They found themselves committing silly and untimely turnovers consistently and, while they couldn’t buy an impartial whistle, they got their hand caught in the cookie jar far too often. Put simply, the coaching staff couldn’t figure out a way to stop New Orleans’ downhill demon Zion Williamson or construct an efficient offensive flow at the other end.
Above all, perhaps, was the looming specter of Anthony Edwards’ absence. The Wolves have beat up on their fair share of injury-ridden opponents so far this season, but they were the one with the unfillable hole in their lineup in this one.
The scheduling gods have set their task for Minnesota and they weren’t able to answer the first calling. On to the next.
Mike Conley: 7/10
He’s probably overstretched in his offensive role right now. It’s not that he can’t score the ball and do it in all manner of ways, it’s that lumping the responsibility of carrying the scoring burden for long stretches is neutering the low-usage brilliance that makes him such a snug fit on this roster. When everybody else decides they’re going to shrivel into a sultana on offense, all of a sudden he’s shouldering an even heavier load.
He does what he can. Of course he does. He’s fucking awesome. He still knocks down four triples despite having New Orleans’ perimeter defenders draped all over him and he still weaves through the teeth of the defense and makes plays as a passer and a decisive scorer. But you could tell that his usual sharpness was waning from the extra usage he was carrying.
Instead of his that casual shrewdness we’re used to, he wasn’t able to marshal the offense into efficiency as often and he struggled to handle his added responsibilities and CJ McCollum’s zippy scoring on the other end.
In complete and utter Murtaugh-ness, he’s too old for that shit.
Finished with 17 points (71.5% TS), 5 rebounds and 7 assists in 27 minutes — -33.9 net rating.
Nickeil Alexander-Walker: 3/10
The pendulum swings and swings and fucking swings. On any given night Alexander-Walker could be the second coming of Zeus himself or the very last thing you want to see gracing the hardwood. Unfortunately, as was the case for many of his teammates, he was stuck floundering in the latter in this one.
He was always going to be pushing a big wheelbarrow of shit uphill trying to guard the taller and longer Brandon Ingram, and he got soaked in the excrement more often than not. When the pumpkin found him on the other end, he was wayward with his shooting and downright puzzling as a driver and a playmaker.
You have to take the good with the bad. The great with the horrible. He’ll spin you through the whole spectrum.
Finished with 7 points (44.4% TS) and 5 assists in 24 minutes — -22.6 net rating.
Troy Brown Jr.: 4/10
I think he’s a legitimate 3-and-D guy. He might even have some extra goodies in his bag as well. Unfortunately, for guys who butter their bread in that way, they can quickly become a nuisance if one of those tools aren’t there.
So, while he defended well all night and had a few nice possessions as a passer, his 3-ball was missing in action and that made him feel untenable at times. He got the open looks — he finds pockets of space and the ball gravitates toward players who can do that — but those fuckers just kept clanking off the rim and each one felt like another dagger in the rotting flesh of his team.
Live by the three, die by the three. He’s been living lavishly of late, but it was death by a thousand misses in this one.
Finished with 5 points (27.8% TS), 6 rebounds and 2 assists in 27 minutes — -28.4 net rating.
Karl-Anthony Towns: 4/10
It felt like he and Chris Finch conspired to turn a sizzling start into a fizzling failure. There are no prizes for game-planning against the Timberwolves when Anthony Edwards is out of the lineup; Towns is going to get the ball a ton and if you stop him you can shut off Minnesota’s offensive faucet with a quickness.
It seemed like he was ready to carry the load offensively when he burst out of the gates in the first quarter, but when New Orleans adjusted by running doubles at him in the post, Finch and Towns made life far too easy for them after that.
Instead of running plays to pry open advantages for Towns in different ways, they force-fed the ball into the post, allowing him to get swamped by defenders and ultimately sledgehammer the offense into a billion fucking pieces. They moved him out of the post eventually, but Towns only obliged by turning down open triples in favor of cumbersome drives that had him lodged back in that web of defenders.
For most of the season, Towns has been able to contribute defensively when he’s in an offensive funk, but he was lacking on that end in this one, too. With Rudy Gobert loitering in the depths of refereeing hell, Towns was left to fend for himself defensively and found Zion Williamson and his merry band of scorers too much to cope with. He ends up fouling out with a quartet of second-half fouls, putting us all out of the misery he helped inflict in that final 24 minutes.
He needs Anthony Edwards. We all do. But perhaps him more than anybody.
Finished with 17 points (60.4% TS) and 12 rebounds in 33 minutes — -19.7 net rating.
Rudy Gobert: 2/10
With how dominant he’s been of late, it’s jarring to see him fall back down to earth. Thud. He’s been wreaking havoc on the league of late, but it was the league’s turn to torment him and it didn’t take a second invitation for the officials and the Pelicans to drag him into a back alley and beat the living fuck out of him.
In many ways, he typified the night for his team. He was hampered by a couple of soft calls almost immediately, taking him out of the game and out of a rhythm for the rest of the night. Even then, he didn’t help himself in the minutes he was able to log.
Whether it was a return to the terrifying butterfingers, a couple of braindead passing turnovers, or an inability to finish at the rim or stop drivers on the other end, it was an avalanche of woe for the big man.
This seems more like a glitch in his matrix of marvel than something worth dwelling on, but it was obvious how much a poor night from him can torpedo Minnesota’s game style on both ends.
Finished with 8 points (50% TS), 8 rebounds and 2 blocks in 25 minutes — -33.3 net rating.
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