It’s the type of night the Minnesota Timberwolves have been thirsting for. Since the earth embarked on another journey around its flaming orange emperor, the Wolves have been grafting against the league’s lightweights. They’ve stumbled over the finish line and they’ve melted down and they’ve experienced everything in-between, but they haven’t doled out an earnest walloping for a while. Thirst quenched.
The game ends 121-87. In totality, the Dallas Mavericks aren’t a lightweight, but this wasn’t played in totality. With Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving highlighting a laundry list of outs, the Wolves faced a cadaver rather than the Western Conference competitor that a fully constituted Mavericks can be. There was no time for Minnesota to embrace any empathy for their banged-up rivals, though, these are the types of games that need winning.
So it was. The Wolves spent the first half doing all the things that beget winning aside from actually putting the round thing in the other round thing. They weren’t at their demonic acme defensively, but they held the ghost of Dallas to 48 points, 43 percent shooting and forced nine turnovers. They moved the ball swiftly themselves, but couldn’t cash in on their open looks and ended up in a dogfight for the opening 24 minutes.
It was only a matter of time before playing the right way accompanied receiving the right results. Somewhere within the mass of a third-quarter whistlefest, Minnesota found its rhythm. From that point on it was a massacre. Every shot dropped, every defensive incursion ensnared Dallas, and the lead ballooned to glorious heights.
Job done and done in a way that leaves us all brimming with satisfaction.
Mike Conley: 8/10
There was that moment in the opening minutes of the final frame that has so often been poisonous for the Wolves recently: that fleeting period where their double-digit lead gets whittled away with a swathe of fruitless offensive possessions.
Enter our Moth-Eaten Minnesota Motherfucking Mike.
In order to ensure he gets a few extra minutes of respite in his flagging hamstrings, he nails a pair of triples, dances into the lane for a feathery floater, and implores his offense to run smoothly by dishing out helpers or hockey assists with shrewd ball movement.
To be honest, he was fairly quiet by his standards as he eased his way back into game shape, but he saved his one burst of brilliance for the minutes when his team is usually at its most vulnerable.
Leadership.
Finished with 10 points (46.6% TS), 4 rebounds and 3 assists in 35 minutes — +11.2 net rating.
Anthony Edwards: 4/10
Just looked like he couldn’t be fucked. Like, not even in the slightest. Looked exactly how I’d look if I’d just handed over 40 thousand big ones to my bald-headed Martian employer.
He chose the right night to take off, but his unwillingness to truly unleash his full array of talents against the league’s minnows is a burrowing ringworm in his otherwise fantastic campaign.
It’s worth noting that he flings a fistful of handy passes throughout the evening. In fact, there are a couple of true fucking beauties in there, but he’s reticent to shoot all night and he oscillates wildly between wolfish defense and utter inertia toward the whole caper.
The greatest of the greats don’t take nights off, even those that can be taken off.
Finished with 9 points (76.5% TS), 5 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 turnovers in 30 minutes — +28.9 net rating.
Jaden McDaniels: 8/10
It wasn’t always smooth sailing, but he steered his gangly vessel through any threatening storms and finished the night docked with an air of delight.
When those open corner threes are clanking off the iron the way his were in the infancy of this one, there’s always a chance it drills its way into the psyche of a player and crumbles them from within. For McDaniels, however, he just decided to do the other things that a basketball game presents. Fucking genius, that.
Instead of living and dying by the 3-point sword, he skied in for offensive rebounds and putbacks, he slithered through the defense for a couple of smooth floaters, and he hit Josh Green with a crossover that would make the most cold-hearted of us weak at the knees.
Of course, there was his usual sprinkling of defensive dominance and in-a-pinch playmaking, but it was his determined scoring punch that stood out the most in this one.
Finished with 11 points (52.7% TS), 2 rebounds and 4 assists in 24 minutes — +27.5 net rating.
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