The Minnesota Timberwolves are finding something. Hell, the Minnesota Timberwolves may have already found something. Whatever it is, whatever special juice or sauce or pixie dust they’re weaving through their on-court performances right now doesn’t particularly matter. Not to fans and not to the Western Conference standings. All that matters is that they’ve found it. All of a sudden, as we all wallowed in a season chock-full of crotch-kicks, the Wolves are fun and bold and villainous again. And how glorious it is.
The game ends 116-106. Another complete performance. A night full of flair and fury. Around every corner was a highlight for the casuals or a deep cut for the nerds. This was the Timberwolves of last season. The much-romanticized Wolves that ran teams ragged, played the antihero to opposing stars, and riled Target Center into a chanting frenzy.
Like that team of old, this night featured a team who were willing to take a few punches. Dallas served them up some early chin music, intertwining a Luka Doncic-laden offense that created good looks for roll-men and shooters alike with a defense that had Minnesota pretzeled for the opening 12 minutes. But the Wolves punched back. They swung brass-knuckled haymakers while the Mavericks stood meek and shell-shocked.
By halftime, Dallas’ nine-point quarter-time lead had been ground to a fine dust. The Wolves stifled Doncic and blocked off his exit routes. The shooters were covered, the star was sulky and saturated with nagging defenders, and the Mavericks’ offense turned to a grimy sludge. On the other end, Minnesota were thriving. They were running and sharing and spacing and saucing.
That quarter — a 36-to-14 second period — hammered the first nails into Dallas’ coffin, with Doncic and head coach Jason Kidd inserting the final ones when they threw a temper tantrum that saw them ejected. From then on, the Wolves could cruise to the finish line, stopping only to create another highlight or talk some more trash.
It’s fun getting under skins again. It’s fun blasting teams out of Target Center again. It’s fun being a Timberwolves fan again. Let’s never take that final sentence for granted.
D’Angelo Russell: 2/10
Strangely enough, he wasn’t really part of the night’s festivities. In fact, for the first time in a while, his minutes were kind of a disaster. It was masked by the fact that most of his teammates were lighting shit up, and Russell deserves a pass after the mountain of bone-crushing performances he’s put in of late. But, if you’re holding a magnifying glass over this game in particular, all you’re seeing is little specks of fecal matter.
His jumper was finally absent and that kind of seeped into the rest of his game. He replaced his usual pick-and-roll passing prowess with more sloppy turnovers than we’re used to and as the game wore on and his powers seemed destined to avoid him for the evening, he lost his aggressiveness entirely.
Again, he has been balling the fuck out of late, so we can forgive one misstep. However, we know he can get stuck in spells of dizzying dominance just as easily as calamitous clank-fests. Let’s hope this was just an anomaly.
Finished with 9 points (34.6% TS), 2 rebounds and 5 assists in 37 minutes — -11.2 net rating.
Austin Rivers: 10/10
You can point to the style of play Minnesota are deploying without Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert, or how their remaining stars have taken the baton and sprinted with it, but Rivers is just as much a headline as any of that stuff. To put it in layman’s terms, what the actual fuck is going on? Where did this come from? Are we going to get this all season long now? And, finally, what the actual fuck is going on?
Talk about serving the law of averages up on a shiny fucking platter. His frozen tundra early-season is now a stupidly hot desert plain. Everything he touches goes in. Lately it’s been corner treys and the occasional straight-line drive, but this game he extended that 3-point touch to above the break and his off-the-bounce buckets came after nifty dribble moves and feathery floaters.
Then, of course, he just shackles anybody Chris Finch asks him to guard. He won’t get the plaudits for the bullying of Dallas’ pudgy little baby, but he did his part whenever he was cross-matched with Doncic. And when he wasn’t, he was rotating crisply across Minnesota’s backline, closing out with that sumptuous technique on shooters, and just being a little fucking pest all night long.
A really big piece of the pie right now.
Finished with 16 points (101.5% TS), 5 rebounds and 2 assists in 37 minutes — +23.1 net rating.
Anthony Edwards: 10/10
Running out of superlatives. A thesaurus just can’t cover what this kid can do. It’s just stupid. It’s dumb. It’s absurd. Now, as quick as a samurai slices a katana, he has transformed himself again. Like a beautiful butterfly emerging from an overnight cocoon. This version can have a night where he is actually quite inefficient shooting the ball and still shape the night to whatever outcome he chooses. There is too much swag, too much energy, too much talent for even shooting percentages to weigh him down anymore.
And that’s because, along with his 7-of-21 shooting clip, he does all of the little things. And the big things. And the fucking medium things. He shoots 11 free throws, a number that honestly could have been in the 20s with a better whistle. He continues to set the table like a big muscly busboy. He guzzles rebounds like they’re fucking Red Bull. He reminds Christian Wood that no matter how many little fat Slovenians he plays with, he is always going to be lunch meat for someone of Edwards’ quality.
The coming of age has begun. The revolution is being televised. The king is taking his throne.
Finished with 27 points (52.2% TS), 13 rebounds, 9 assists and 2 blocks in 38 minutes — +26.3 net rating.
Jaden McDaniels: 10/10
The laugh as Doncic crumpled into a steaming sack of wails was an all-timer. The stone-faced McDaniels cracking a grin as the freakishly talented toddler hurled his pacifier out of the stroller. It probably was a foul that Doncic was complaining about, which made it even funnier. McDaniels, the current holder of the league’s worst whistle, had gotten away with one, and that sealed the deal on a night where he fucking boxed up the league’s most dominant ball-handler.
Every herk and every jerk that Doncic made, McDaniels shadowed him. Every twist and every turn, McDaniels followed. Every screen and every push-off, McDaniels powered through. It’s harsh to put his swooping poster dunk, spot-shot triple and handful of crisp dimes on the backburner, but shutting down Doncic is no mean feat. Getting him tossed due to pure frustration is another dimension of dominance entirely.
Finished with 13 points (54.7% TS), 5 rebounds and 2 assists in 37 minutes — +20.2 net rating.
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