It’s a circle that is tough to square.
Nobody can be disappointed with how the Minnesota Timberwolves have performed this season. Nobody. Even in this stretch, one of the toughest any team will face this season, they’ve managed to scrape by and keep stacking enough wins to keep them in first place in the Western Conference. First in the West. Even now, that seems more life-changing hallucination than a factual sentence. And yet, with every game that goes by of late, it feels like the cliff’s edge creeps closer and the Wolves have their foot to the floor in an attempt to plummet off it.
The game ends 117-106. A flattering outcome all things considered. There was scarcely a morsel of this one that broke the Wolves’ way and, much like their last meeting with the New Orleans Pelicans, the Wolves felt the keen sting of a matchup nightmare and wallowed in their inability to overcome it.
There’s been some issues simmering under the surface for a while now. The Wolves deserve a ton of credit for being able to overcome them and keep winning at a commendable rate. However, eventually the mask was going to slip and the scarred and twisted visage lurking beneath was going to be revealed in all its horror. Those problems aren’t just simmering anymore, they’re reaching boiling point and becoming liable to sizzle and spit their acidic juices all over this wonderful season.
All of them leaped angrily from the pot in this one. The offensive ineptitude continued — perhaps worse than ever — and Minnesota’s stout defense experienced another slippage and thus couldn’t counterbalance the overly simplistic coaching and poor execution with ball in hand. The fouls started mounting, the turnovers and lack of 3-point shooting became an issue, and the non-existent defensive rebounding provided the cream on top of the putrid cake.
So it’s a tough circle to square. Because this team is good. They might be great. They’re likely better than any we’ve seen for over 20 years. It almost feels ungrateful to deface that with worries and complaints. And yet it’s nigh on impossible to watch this team right now and not be filled with them. It’s a marathon of a season, this next few miles feels crucial.
Mike Conley: 3/10
Where he goes, the Wolves go. On the surface, he’s not the pillar holding up the weight of the franchise, but it sure does feel a lot different when he is languishing. Whether it’s age and a hefty minute-load catching up to him, the opponents’ scouting report cracking down on how important he is, a combination of both, or simply a form slump, his ever-reliable ways are waning of late.
So, after another night where he couldn’t find his rhythm as a shifty scorer or a shrewd playmaker, the Wolves feel all of it. The absence of his usual self isn’t just that of the usual missing veteran, it’s a gaping fucking crevasse. A vortex sucking in all of the nutrients that this team needs.
They go where he goes, and right now his tires seem a little flat.
Finished with 7 points (70% TS) and 9 assists in 26 minutes — -24.8 net rating.
Anthony Edwards: 7/10
He’s a part of the problems and a victim of the problems. Both things can be true and both things are tendrils of concern braiding their way into the fabric of this team right now. He’s not in the cockpit for the recent trainwrecks, but he does seem to be greasing the wheels.
It feels like he’s lacking trust in his teammates. He’s watching them stumble and faceplant over and over again on the offensive end while his coaching staff stand idly by and refuse to add more structure to the team and he’s taking it upon himself to shoulder the entire offensive burden. It’s understandable, it’s almost expected, but it doesn’t feel conducive to ending the virus that is infecting his teammates.
It’s a testament to his overbearing talent that he’s still putting up All-NBA numbers while seemingly slumping with the rest of his team, by the way. It’s actually fucking bonkers. But when the wins aren’t flowing like they used to then he’s going to feel the glare of the spotlight as much as anybody.
He will for this one. He will have to stand in the searing heat like the rest of them. He puts up huge numbers and really he’s the only weapon the offense has that’s sharp enough to pierce any of New Orleans’ armor, but his mind-numbing turnovers and meandering ball-dominance only further the offensive struggles on too many possessions. When he slips back into his off-ball defensive shambles as he did in this game, he hovers far too close to a net negative than someone with his numbers should.
Finished with 35 points (66.3% TS), 4 rebounds and 5 assists in 37 minutes — -21.1 net rating.
Jaden McDaniels: 5/10
A strange night to track.
In terms of checking Brandon Ingram, there’s fuck all he could do. He forces him into the mid-range, gets a lanky arm up in his body double’s face, and still watches the ball nestle into the nylon incessantly all night long. The defensive scheme, and McDaniels’ strengths within it, demand that teams beat the Wolves in the mid-range. Ingram is the kind of player who cackles at that mantra and sledgehammers it apart.
Offensively, he was more insistent with his scoring than we’re used to — which is a good thing. However, it’s often a sign that the offense is broken. They don’t run plays for him — inexplicably — so when he is having to self-create against a set defense without any movement around him, something has gone wrong.
So was he good or was he bad or was he something in the confounding middle? It’s in the eye of the beholder, I guess.
Finished with 11 points (55% TS), 2 assists and 2 steals in 33 minutes — -29.7 net rating.
Karl-Anthony Towns: 4/10
At some point, he’s going to have to get back to playing the type of basketball that made this team so melt-in-your-mouth brilliant for so long. They don’t get back to that without him pulling the wagon and it’s no surprise that his emphatic drop-off has coincided with the team’s worst stretch of the season. He’s that important and when he’s off, he’s that fucking off.
There’s plenty of worry to spread around about his offensive game; he keeps turning down 3s, he seemingly has no idea what his best attributes are, and the spacing awareness that he appeared to master early on is back to being brutally bad. He’s always going to grind his way to some tough buckets — he’s just so talented — but the seamless Swiss army knife style he had going on for a while there has completely dissipated.
The more concerning part is his defense, because we know he will find a rhythm again on the other end. We know this is an ebb and the flow will hook us back in.
He rightfully basked in the plaudits he received for conforming to the power forward position and doing his job defensively at a better-than-respectable rate early in the season, but he has swan-dived off that mountain peak of late. He’s straight-up refusing to make low-man rotations, he’s getting cross-matched in transition, and he is back to being a foul-prone liability.
Something has to change. For the Wolves to return to their zenith, everything has to change.
Finished with 22 points (49.8% TS), 6 rebounds and 2 assists in 36 minutes — -27.7 net rating.
Rudy Gobert: 2/10
We know what early foul trouble does to him. It eats at him. It gnaws at his effectiveness like termites through fucking pine. Foul trouble is his silverfish, chomping at the sparkling tuxedo that he’s so often adorned this season.
It’s not just that he’s forced to sit on the bench and that obviously hurts the rim pressure and defensive prowess of his team, it’s that he is a changed man when he comes back onto the floor. Tuxedos are fucking shit if they’re covered in holes.
It’s unclear whether he would have been able to stifle the rampaging bull that is Zion Williamson even with a hundred fouls to play with, but when he is holding back in fear of a whistle he’s a sprinkler in the amid an inferno. When he can’t make up for that defensive timidness with some rim-rolling joy offensively, he becomes a wet flannel draped over the entire night.
They need him back. The real him. The rugged and spritely and dominant him.
Finished with 5 points (64.4% TS) and 5 rebounds in 24 minutes — -29.4 net rating.
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