Iron sharpens iron.
Lately, the Minnesota Timberwolves have been trying to use all manner of plastics and timbers to sharpen their weapons and they’ve been too blunt to cut through anything. They just needed some iron, apparently. They needed a snarling competitor standing across from them to switch back into the serrated schema that has long since become the way they win.
Iron sharpens iron, and the Timberwolves look whetted and honed again.
The game ends 107-101. It’s been a while since the Timberwolves got into the nitty gritty. It’s been a while since they’ve really overwhelmed someone with their nastiness. If there was ever a time to recapture their growl, it was against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Iron sharpens iron, and the three prior meetings with their top-of-the-West combatant proved that it takes sharp iron to win.
So, as it almost always is for the Wolves, nothing was pretty. The Wolves devolve into a prehistoric pattern of basketball — for better or worse — nearly every time their paws grace the hardwood. We’ve seen how that grimy style can leave Minnesota looking hapless of late, but when they’re able to drag a team into their web they can puncture even the league’s elites with their highly venomous fangs.
And so it was. The two teams traded sluggish blows for most of the night; a Timberwolves run fueled by their defense here or a Thunder run fueled by their flailing megastar there. Back and forth we went and, while the sleekness of play didn’t always lend itself to a top-of-the-table clash, the cutthroat competitiveness and the undeniable will to win on both sides certainly did.
As it often has in this season series, it came down to who could keep their nerve and fire their ammunition in crunch time. The Wolves have been getting rag-dolled in those situations recently, but they composed themselves, flexed their defensive sinew, fought through the refereeing fuckery, and won themselves the ball game.
Iron sharpens iron.
Nickeil Alexander-Walker: 8/10
He’s the kind of player who can miss two-thirds of his field goals and still leave an indelible smudge of brilliance on the fabric of a game. A genuine fucking role-playing savant. Not only is he being asked to play out of position, he’s being asked to fill in for the studious stylings of Mike Conley and he’s being asked to do it on the home floor of one of the league’s best teams.
Sweet. No problem. Takes it all in his fucking stride and keeps skipping along. Sure, he missed some looks he’s becoming increasingly used to making, but the amount of things he does in every facet of the game is so hard to ignore.
He’s clearly the best matchup Minnesota has for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and, while his cousin will scrounge his points in all types of ways, he never has to work harder than when NAW is in front of him. When he isn’t doing the damn thing defensively, he’s getting them into their offense, forcing them to move the ball with his drive-and-kick game, or scuttling around to box-out offensive rebounders or snatch up loose balls.
And, when it really matters, he finds his shot again. He’s got fucking gorilla nuts, after all. He nails a contested triple in the fourth frame and follows it up with a pull-up mid-range jumper and two free throws to put a bow on the night.
Sensational.
Finished with 12 points (46.6% TS), 3 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals in 35 minutes — +11.2 net rating.
Anthony Edwards: 9/10
These are the nights. The nights that make you believe everything that has dogged the heels of this cursed fucking franchise is going to drift away. He’s not even at his very best, but he’s such a game-changer, such a driving force, such a winner that it doesn’t even matter.
All night long he’s relentless. He’s in that zone where everything is tilted toward walking away with a win. You can almost see the flames shimmering in his eyes. The Thunder are a legitimate team who are becoming a legitimate rival and he hasn’t met his own lofty expectations against them (and the ravenous defending of Lu Dort) this season. That was always going to change. Those crackling pupils showed it.
He wouldn’t allow Dort’s defense to deny his rim-attacks and when they swarmed him as a team he wormed his way through it or cashed in jumpers over it. The swooping hammer with Gilgeous-Alexander hanging off him was the cherry on top of a sumptuous dessert.
He did have a few loose moments defensively but he locked all the way in during the fourth quarter and spent the entirety of it hassling Gilgeous-Alexander or Jalen Williams or any fucker in his warpath. Star players don’t do that anymore.
Finally, he gives an ode to everybody who had to watch the referees gift the league’s golden child soft call after soft call while ignoring the Minnesota miscreants. He lambasts the black-and-white reprobates and the league that’s employing them for missing all manner of arm slaps and holds while awarding the slightest touch on that Randall from Monsters, Inc looking motherfucker on the other end.
One of us. The best of us.
Finished with 27 points (62% TS), 4 rebounds, 4 assists and 4 turnovers in 40 minutes — -2.7 net rating.
Jaden McDaniels: 9/10
Versatility personified. He’s a big afro-laden ball of fucking versatility. In every sense of the word.
He’s usually the one whom Chris Finch tasks with checking the league’s shiftiest scorers. He’s about a billion fucking feet tall and yet he goes out there every night and shadows tiny roadrunners and shuts off their water. However, because he’s so tall and so versatile and so good, he can also spend a night alongside Chet Holmgren and have him curled into a flaccid ball of nothingness by the end of it. Jaden McDaniels has an afro and Chet Holmgren has Civil War sideburns. Enough said.
I love his versatility. Not just defensively — that is the calling card — but also on the other end. He’s relegated to the corners so often that we don’t always get to see it, but when he flashes his peripheral talents it’s like a diamond shining through the mineshaft mud.
He gets a couple of silky little floaters over Sideburn’s long arms, his usual helping of threes and two muscly tip-ins. The final and most important of which sees him sky in from the corner to bury the Thunder with a gentle putback touch.
Versatility.
Finished with 14 points (63.6% TS) and 3 rebounds in 31 minutes — +12.1 net rating.
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