These are reps. The good and the bad and everything in the puzzling space between them. The Minnesota Timberwolves have cemented themselves as a serious entity — this win only further entrenches them in those conversations — so now they need to experience the reps.
They need all of the exuberance that riding the crest of a winning wave brings and they need all of the trepidation that being the hunted entails. They cycled through every emotion a game can bring in this one and they came out the other side with a win in their back pockets; maybe the biggest one of the entire campaign. Reps.
The game ends 109-105. The Los Angeles Clippers have been the best team in the league for a while now. It took some time to incorporate James Harden into their already star-studded squad, but when they did they clicked into a gear that few other teams have been able to click into. This wasn’t an easy kill or an expected win. This was a trademark win. A tentpole win. A rep worth remembering when the playoffs roll around.
The Wolves are who they are. That might sound like an indictment — sometimes it is — but mostly it’s a blandishment. Last season’s Timberwolves were a gormless blob, drifting from character to character and failing to ever land in a foothold that kept them standing for long. Now they are who they are and that means they win how they win.
It’s defense. It’s been defense and it’ll be defense. That sustains whether it’s the lowly cellar-dwellers standing across from them or the league’s most overpowered offense staring them down. The Los Angeles Clippers have been blasting teams away with their unending line of scorers and Minnesota severed their windpipe. That’s who they are.
There’s going to be some hairy moments. There was in this game. The offense sputters and any team in the same contender realm as the Clippers is capable of letting the cannonball fly from deep and making tough shots in a comeback attempt. The turnover issue can fuel those comebacks and they did again in this one. They still don’t have the amount of reps their fellow Western Conference foes do and this is all a process that needs to be played out.
But the Wolves have a sharp sword and they know how to wield it. Defense. The personnel to play it, the coaching to scheme it, and the belief in its efficacy. They lop off the head of any team stupid enough to let them brandish that sword.
Mike Conley: 4/10
He’s the beating heart of this team and so often their blood only pumps in the way it needs to in order for them to live because of him, but there are teams (and matchups) that subjugate him. This was one of them. The Clippers don’t play a true point-guard-sized point guard and that’s what allows them to shrink the court with their length and athleticism defensively.
For Conley, the runt among Minnesota’s dire wolf lineup, that size is restricting. It’s like trying to dance in a fucking straitjacket. There isn’t the room for him to sneak into and apply the finishing touches to pick-and-rolls or off-the-catch ball-movement possessions.
He will always be a threat to knock down jumpers (he nailed two deep triples in this one) and he works hard defensively even when he’s outmatched physically, but our veteran superman has his kryptonite. His unusually boneheaded turnovers and inability to hijack and execute in the clutch are a testament to his troubles with big bodies.
Thankfully, it’s not an every-opponent occurrence and he’s so adept at punishing every team that can’t crowd him out with size, but it’s something to file away as a nagging worry.
Finished with 6 points (42.9% TS), 2 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 turnovers in 32 minutes — -6.5 net rating.
Anthony Edwards: 10/10
He turns it over too much. It’s maddening, it’s cost them before, and it got dangerously close to costing them (among other things) again in this one. Let’s get it out of the way because it feels like an asterisk looming over his game like a blackening cloud. The thing about clouds is they have silver linings and the thing about Anthony Edwards is that his lining is glittering fucking gold.
So dwell on the stupidity that plagues every young player with the usage of a megastar. Be a fucking dweeb, then. Or, you can focus on the ways he is winning the Timberwolves games. The way he is leading the Western Conference’s premier squad. The way he’s changing the very fabric of this downtrodden franchise one stitch at a time.
While Conley felt the scorpion sting of Los Angeles’ rangy wing defense, Edwards smashed it apart. He has it all. Pull-up triples to bring Target Center into a ravenous frenzy, hammering paint incursions for freebies at the line or tough finishes around the rim, and his ever-improving mid-range game.
He was feisty on the boards, he made a ton of great playmaking reads (despite the turnover issue), and he was consistently asked to man Paul George, Kawhi Leonard or James Harden and provided a staunch blockade for all three at different times both on and off the ball.
That’s the gold lining. Bathe in it. Let it wash away your consternations.
Finished with 33 points (77.5% TS), 9 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 steals and 5 turnovers in 38 minutes — +15.5 net rating.
Jaden McDaniels: 10/10
He’s got the most thankless job in the league, you know. He’s knee-deep in the trenches, up to his fucking chin in the grime and the muck, doing everything that nobody else wants to do so and scarcely getting the rewards he deserves for it.
They stick him on Leonard. Or George. Or Harden. Or whoever is the most likely to score on any given possession on any given night. And he’s spider made flesh. The grim reaper with a questionable attitude and a sharp as fuck scythe.
He slips through screens like they’re made of microwaved butter. The ground he covers in order to contest shots is Minnesota’s most fearsome perimeter defense tool. The things he does gets overlooked and underappreciated by everybody except the poor bastards trying to score on him.
On the other end he has to live off scraps. He has to rummage through the dregs of the offense just to find enough sustenance to replenish the stomach his talent demands. It’s a tricky thing to always get right, but when he does it like he does in this game, you see why he’s so valuable. He will give you spot-up triples, he will lope down the floor in transition and he will moonlight as a connecting playmaker.
When he rebounds as he did in this game, as well, he’s the perfect role player. One of very few in the league capable of doing what he does.
Finished with 14 points (70% TS), 4 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals and 4 turnovers in 35 minutes — +5.6 net rating.
Karl-Anthony Towns: 8/10
He was never truly in the game but, more importantly, he was never truly out of the game. He’s often a soaring high or a wallowingly low, so it’s kind of nice for him to nestle in the middle ground. If the lows become these sorts of middling performances, then the boundaries of this team’s potential extend to unseen places.
Because, for someone with Towns’ talents at least, the middle is still fucking impactful. He’s still going to knock down some long-balls. He’s still going to squirm his way into post points. He’s still uber-efficient as a scorer and even more efficient in warping the floor with his scoring and passing gravity — especially if he continues embracing a role that involves standing in the corner more often.
His middle ground also includes his newfangled defensive versatility and attentiveness. The Clippers feast on bigs who can’t slide their feet and Towns has been that in the past. However, this night was an ideal example of his transformation into a lithe defender. Not a stalwart, but a contributor and hardly a bane to the league’s best defense.
So, even with a handful of avoidable turnovers and his relative inability to truly impose himself on the game as a high-scoring force, there’s nothing wrong with a nice comfortable middle ground.
Finished with 17 points (66% TS), 6 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 turnovers in 37 minutes — +15.2 net rating.
Rudy Gobert: 10/10
The reason why Russell Westbrook and his band of bench-bound scrubs laughing at Gobert isn’t anything worth stressing over is that Russell Westbrook is fucking awful.
It’s overkill to call him the sole reason the Clippers lost but every time the ball touched his addled hands it was a win for the Timberwolves. A couple of late 3-point prayers being answered doesn’t change that, they were only necessary because Westbrook capsized every ship the Clippers pushed into the ocean all night long.
The other reason why his air-balled free throws (and subsequent mocking) aren’t anything worth stressing over is because Rudy Gobert is the best defender on the fucking planet. He’s an elaborate castle constructed with the finest materials for the singular purpose of prohibiting intruders. Westbrook is a non-shooting matador who can’t go three minutes without a backbreaking turnover.
And thus it was. Gobert fought through his early charity stripe demons and won the game with not only his icy-veined free-throwing in the clutch, but his insanely versatile and effective defense all night long. He built his ramparts around the rim, he switched and switched and switched onto every perimeter star the Clippers have with elite effectiveness, and he got fouled so much they might as well have given him his own fucking whistle.
Sometimes, the nice guy finishes first.
Finished with 15 points (67.2% TS), 18 rebounds and 4 blocks in 37 minutes — +1.8 net rating.
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