It’s important to appreciate the good times before they’re snuffed out. The Minnesota Timberwolves of earlier in the season were worth appreciating. The version we’re seeing right now is the epitome of snuffed. All of the light that their roaring flame gave off earlier in the season has dimmed and it’s all feeling that same sort of dark that we remember from last season.
Every team has slumps, it’s only natural in this league, but the Wolves are in freefall and it’s beginning to feel like a sickening version of déjà vu.
The game ends 113-112. You don’t lose these ones. You can’t. Not if you’re a top team serious about contention. Every team drops games to the league’s bottom-feeders, there’s no denying or escaping that, but they don’t do it like the Wolves have done recently. They don’t build leads and blow them every night. They don’t have an inept coach whose brainless rotations and offensive philosophies beget meltdowns. They don’t get burned by the same problems over and over again.
So, you can blame the players; they’ve often deserved it. You can blame Mike Conley’s age creeping up on the Wolves; he’s an indispensable cog in the machine that certainly reeks of a maturity that the rest of his team lacks. You can point to the shadowy curse lingering over the entire franchise. It takes a team effort to keep blowing leads, but the Wolves have a coaching problem and he’s the one steering this sinking ship.
You don’t get to play a lineup with four non-shooters and go home with your honor. This game was in cruise control until Finch’s brain leaked out of his ear. Jordan McLaughlin, Shake Milton, Kyle Anderson, Naz Reid and Rudy Gobert. That’s who started the fourth quarter of a winnable game. There shouldn’t be any surprise that it went the way it did.
Perhaps it would be slightly less confusing if they didn’t play the same quartet of queasiness (with Karl-Anthony Towns in Reid’s place) earlier in the game and got outscored by seven points in three minutes. But they did. The definition of insanity etc.
All of those non-shooting players are impactful in their own right, but they can’t play together. Every single coach in the league knows they can’t play together except for the one strolling Minnesota’s sidelines.
Expectedly, the double-digit lead Minnesota held to begin the fourth frame dissipated within minutes, handing momentum to the Spurs on a silver platter and forcing the crowd into a frenzy. There’s a ton of credit that needs to go to San Antonio, too, they kept their foot on the gas when Finch finally changed the lineup and made tough shot after tough shot despite not being able to get stops against an actual tenable basketball lineup.
This game, however, was done the minute Minnesota’s rudderless decision-maker decided that shooting, spacing, and offense as a whole weren’t important enough to worry about. It officially ended with a parade of missed free throws from the Spurs, another incompetent play-call on the final possession, and a clanking Karl-Anthony Towns prayer to seal another Timberwolves meltdown.
You play with fire, you might get your shit scorched. There’s a lot of that going around right now for the Wolves.
Nickeil Alexander-Walker: 8/10
He’s the reason why this nosedive into nowhere doesn’t fall squarely on Mike Conley’s creaking limbs. Alexander-Walker will never have the point guard nous or the ability to run an offense in the same way that Conley does, but he’s doing everything necessary to press his own unique fingerprint onto proceedings and all of it feels pretty positive.
He makes shots from deep reliably, the offense is no less stagnant with him out there running things for the most part, and he’s a snarling greyhound defensively — even more so than Conley. He’s not Conley, of course, but he’s exceedingly impactful. A bargain basement fucking masterstroke from the front office.
He deserved a better fate than the one he was given by his coach.
Finished with 11 points (78.6% TS), 4 rebounds and 7 assists in 33 minutes — -0.9 net rating.
Anthony Edwards: 9/10
There’s been some complaints simmering throughout the fan base for a while now and all of them have been legitimate. He was fucking spectacular in this game, though, and a disasterclass by the coach and a terrible final possession on his part doesn’t change that fact.
Whenever the Wolves needed something done for the first 47-and-a-half minutes, he was there with his hard hat on and a hammer in his fist.
He made jumper after jumper and he managed to find space in the lane against that huge French fucking octopus. He sucked the air out of the building with an all-time putback sledgehammer and made slick passing read after slick passing read. Then he did it all again in the clutch.
The final play-call was a stinker and he needed to get off the ball quicker (or burrow to the rim past the double-team) but the only reason Minnesota was able to push this to a sudden death final possession was his shot-making ability. He nails two triples and an acrobatic layup in the closing minutes and all of them were do-or-die attempts for his team.
He needed that. He needed it because his late-game execution lately has been messy to say the least. However, despite the result, this was a much-needed breakout. If anything is going to change, they’re going to need more of these well-rounded performances.
Finished with 32 points (81% TS), 6 rebounds, 12 assists and 4 turnovers in 38 minutes — +11.4 net rating.
Jaden McDaniels: 4/10
The Jaden McDaniels saga continues. A confusing fucker of a thing that never lets you pinpoint exactly where he is at.
As usual, he was fantastic defensively. Devin Vassell is a fucking bucket and he went about proving that to be true all night long, but he had to make shot after shot over McDaniels’ spindly limbs. McDaniels rebounds well to finish possessions and he swipes away a quartet of steals to help cement his defensive acumen, but sometimes great offense just outweighs great defense.
That’s what happens in this league. The whole enterprise is still run by great offense and Minnesota’s coaching staff would do well to get with the program before their prehistoric philosophy is hit by a a fast-approaching asteroid.
Anyhoo. McDaniels wasn’t overly assertive offensively and he didn’t really need to be for most of the night. In general, he was fine. Somewhere between his best and his worst. The problem in this one (and so many other games) is that he has a remarkable tendency to commit the dumbest fucking fouls imaginable. His foul rate overall has dropped dramatically of late, but he’s always got one in the chamber specifically ready to blast off in the final seconds.
He escaped the shrapnel against the Brooklyn Nets a few nights ago when Mikal Bridges clanked a pair of game-tying freebies, but his inexplicable swipe-down on Keldon Johnson led to the winning trip to the charity stripe this time around.
He has a flair for the untimely, our sweet afro-laden prince.
Finished with 7 points (59.5% TS), 3 rebounds, 2 assists and 4 steals in 33 minutes — +13.3 net rating.
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