You play with your food and it might just congeal and sour on your plate. You play with fire and it’s liable to smolder your skin. Sometimes, though, the food just gets a little colder and less appetizing and your skin only heats up a little uncomfortably. The Minnesota Timberwolves fondled with their food and frolicked in the flames all night long against the lowly Detroit Pistons, but they walked away unburnt and unsullied and in this league that’s the only thing that matters.
The game ends 124-117. These banana skin games can be tricky at the best of times, but the Wolves seemed intent on making life harder for themselves from the first tip and, to their credit, the struggling Pistons obliged without a second thought. Those differing mindsets resulted in an end-to-end firefight and a win that felt a little more tainted than some of the heroic ones we’ve witnessed this season.
This is the big leagues. Even Detroit, a team on pace to break the league’s most degrading record for least wins in a season, has a roster worthy of the big leagues. If you give them a sniff of the final buzzer feast, they’re apt to take a big old fucking bite out of it.
However, in a way, this was another example of why this edition of the Timberwolves is different from the one we scrutinized last season. That version drops this game. They did it twice against the Pistons among a host of cellar-dwellers last season and it ended up being a goblin gnawing at their heels when the standings shook out and landed them in a first round playoff matchup with the steamrolling Denver Nuggets.
This season’s team takes care of business. By hook or by crook. It’s not always going to be the glamourous blowouts we all desire, but wins are wins and wins are what makes this Wolves World go round.
Mike Conley: 3/10
It’s rare that our geriatric genius actually acts his age. Of course, he’s wiser and smarter and often just fucking better than many of the young’uns surrounding him, but he’s rarely the one who looks old and slow in both body and mind.
For some reason, it was the Detroit Pistons who rendered him primordial. These are the nights he’s usually made for; the ones that demand a cool head, a sharp mind, and a steadying touch. However, he was as much a part of the problem as any of them. He took too many ill-advised shots, got sloppy in traffic with his handle and his passing, and got torched by the frighteningly quick feet of Jaden Ivey and the methodical prodding of Killian Hayes.
He always has redeeming qualities — he knocked down some important triples in the second half and he did eventually find some synergy with Rudy Gobert and/or corner shooters with his pick-and-roll playmaking — but this was a really poor night by his lofty standards.
Finished with 8 points (47.4% TS), 3 rebounds and 7 assists in 29 minutes — +31.4 net rating.
Anthony Edwards: 6/10
His middling nights are the kind of nights most players dream of. That’s just the level he’s on now. He has such an ability to wreak havoc on a game that anything short of a full-blown explosion leaves something to be desired.
This was a game that ebbed and flowed and never fucking stopped ebbing and flowing. He periodically produced a spellbinding moment that sucked the air out of Little Caesars Arena — his floating hammer just about asphyxiated the whole fucking joint — and he routinely followed that up with a head-scratching shot or a missed rotation within Minnesota’s shoddy defense.
He was part of the problem and part of the solution. When things were going wrong, you could point at him and find ways he was exacerbating it and when things inevitably turned he was often the one driving it. A youthful contradiction.
Finished with 27 points (52.4% TS), 5 rebounds, 8 assists and 3 turnovers in 33 minutes — +5.3 net rating.
Jaden McDaniels: 9/10
Funnily enough, he was far below his menacing best defensively. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still one of the best vampiric wing-stoppers around even on a night that was subpar for him, but Minnesota’s defense as a whole never found its usual footing and he’s always going to be one of the largest parts of that defense, for better or worse.
He was magnificent with the ball in his hands, though. This was a brief glance at the overwhelming potential he has on that end. We don’t always get to glimpse it — he’s often too busy shackling the opponent’s best player and standing in the corner — but when we do it’s like spotting a meteor hurtling toward your fucking doorstep. Both frightening and awe-inspiring at the same time.
This wasn’t his usual dose of catch-and-shoot triples and offensive scraps, this was step-back 3-balls, swooping drives off-the-catch or coming off ball screens, and trips to the free throw line stemming from that aggression.
Perhaps these games against the league’s easy-beats aren’t the greatest arena for overall growth as a team, but giving McDaniels more reps will always be a prudent undertaking and he ran with them this time around.
Finished with 23 points (90.1% TS) and 3 rebounds in 30 minutes — +6.3 net rating.
Karl-Anthony Towns: 8/10
The theme of the night is that everybody was pretty fucking awful defensively and he was no exception. He seemingly missed a ton of rotations and was step slow in everything he did and he wasn’t the only one by any means.
However, the other theme of the night is that Minnesota looked as crisp with their shot-making and offensive execution as they have for some time and Towns was often the fulcrum of that. It’s always abundantly clear when he’s got a matchup he can exploit, you can almost see him wiping the foam from his mouth as he eyes up his hapless prey.
The entire Pistons squad was in the gunsights in this one. When he went to the post, he feathered in hook shots and muscled up driving finishes. When he stepped outside, he nailed all and sundry. A brimming handful of the bastards without a single miss. He should shoot more. Way more. But when he’s taking five from deep and making five from deep it’s hard to deny how important his long-range shooting is and how it bumps up Minnesota’s offensive efficiency.
Like Edwards, his skill level is so insane that these nights can be taken fro granted or nitpicked unnecessarily.
Finished with 27 points (75.5% TS), 6 rebounds and 4 assists in 31 minutes — +6.7 net rating.
Rudy Gobert: 9/10
While he probably wasn’t directly bad defensively — it feels like that’s scientifically impossible at this point — he did suffer from the lack of ball containment by the perimeter defenders and, at times, had to deal with a gaggle of Pistons coming at him down an open runway and not even he can withstand that for long.
Still, nary a night goes by these days where he isn’t a ridiculously high-level contributor to winning. He’s fucking dominant. He’s everything he was supposed to be and a few things more than that as well. Jalen Duren is young, but he’s rugged and he’s versatile on both ends and Gobert just munched him up and spat out his remains.
He gives us the usual — the putbacks and the rolling dunks and the rim protection — but he’s continuing to mix in new and intriguing aspects into his game. A twinkle-toed eurostep here or a jump hook there. Against the Clippers he widened his defensive range out to the perimeter, too, and that’s worth storing away for later.
He’s the best defender in the world, there’s no doubting that, but he’s reliably giving Minnesota an offensive punch and they simply don’t lose when he does that.
Finished with 19 points (74.6% TS), 16 rebounds and 2 assists in 38 minutes — +15.6 net rating.
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