Maddening. A maddening performance from a maddening team. From the maddeningly sleepy beginnings of the game to the maddening slipping away of a hard-fought lead, all the way to the maddening technical fouls, missed calls, and crumbling late-game defense. The Minnesota Timberwolves are entirely and wholly maddening. Right now, and until they either fall into a hole they can’t climb out of or rise to a level beyond what we’ve consistently witnessed, that’s who they are.
The game ends 135-128. This wasn’t the embarrassing beatdown version of Wolves basketball we’ve seen this season, but it wasn’t what they needed. After the win over the Memphis Grizzlies in their last outing, this should have been a propellor. This should have been a wake to surf in. Instead, it turned into a fun-but-immature loss to an Oklahoma City Thunder team who are pesky, talented and well-coached, but ultimately very beatable. They just don’t have time for those anymore. It’s time to grow up and take care of business against teams they should take care of business against.
A game with such a wide degree of variance and nuance isn’t easily explained away in just a few jotted words, but turnovers, defensive communication and technical fouls will all be underlined and italicized when poring over this one. On the plethora of occasions that the Wolves shifted the momentum away from the gritty Thunder and the swirling hurricane that is Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, one of those three things came and sliced their Achilles.
When they needed to get a bucket to press their foot down further, they turned the ball over. When they needed a stop to stymy a Thunder foray, somebody waltzed to the rim unimpeded. When they needed the referees to just not be truly terrible at their high-paying job, they were T’d up and lost points at the charity stripe. Combine that triumvirate of terribleness with Rudy Gobert’s maddening ejection and Minnesota’s usual 3-point woes, and the recipe for disaster was written in ink.
D’Angelo Russell: 8/10
Inescapable in a number of ways. As usual, his defensive output in the first half was truly hard to get away from. He matadored the Thunder to the rim in that first 24-minute stanza, often choosing to traipse through coverages rather than really get after it. Conversely, he was fucking brilliant in the third quarter, showing us that he is actually capable of hustling through screens, diving for loose balls, and living in the airspace of ball-handlers.
And you can translate that same maddening mantra to the offensive side of the ball. For 40 minutes he was inescapably awesome. He punctured OKC’s perimeter vanguard at least half a dozen times and finished smoothly at the cup, he set the table like a coked-up busboy in pick-and-roll and off-the-catch, and his two 3-point makes coincided with Minnesota’s best stretch.
But when the team needed offense and composure and the coolness that accompanies a player whose veins are literally chips of stalagmites, he threw three horrendous turnovers that led to points on the other end. All of them feeling like obsidian daggers plunging into the barely-beating heart of his team.
Maddening.
Finished with 27 points (43.3% TS), 3 rebounds and 6 assists in 36 minutes — -21.2 net rating.
Anthony Edwards: 8/10
There were swathes of the leadership role that this team needs so desperately — a 13-point 2nd quarter and an 8-point, 4-steal third period to drive Minnesota’s percolation — but it didn’t blanket the entire night like it did in Memphis. It didn’t wrap the blanket around the opposition’s head and choke the fucking life out of them. Most importantly, it didn’t sustain. It didn’t ever feel like he lost his mojo completely, but he failed to score in the final period and was largely in the peripherals while OKC stormed home.
In the end, he finishes the night with an impressive box score, a slightly less impressive impact, and all of the same words as the fan base for that creepy, bald-headed, former cop and current megalomaniac, weird fuck in stripes. The maddening Jacyn Goble.
Finished with 26 points (52.8% TS), 3 rebounds, 4 assists and 6 steals in 37 minutes — +7.0 net rating.
Wendell Moore Jr.: 7/10
The starry-eyed kid looked a little deer in the headlights to start the night. And you can’t really blame him. A few days ago he was probably wondering where he could get a good haircut in Iowa. Now, he is plying his trade in the most maddening of teams and doing so in their starting unit. He turned down a few open looks and missed a few opportunities to scurry to the rim, all while only treading water defensively.
But he settled in. He found a way to contribute and to repay the enormous amount of faith that continues to get shoved his way. He took those driving opportunities and converted with a couple of nifty finishes, his defense started to grow in stature, and he knocked down an open trey. He isn’t in the position to prevent a bad loss, but he didn’t cause this one either.
Finished with 9 points (75% TS) in 16 minutes — -8.0 net rating.
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