Are you not entertained?
If nothing else, the Minnesota Timberwolves are entertaining. They aren’t consistent, not at all. Not through the season as a whole or stretches of games or even within the same game, but they rarely push you away from the edge of your set. Just when it seems like the right time to opt out of what has been an incredibly erratic season, this team flips a switch. They put their mitts back on the rope. They winch us back in. This was just the latest peak in the Wolves’ personal roller coaster. Just another hearty helping of entertainment.
The game ends 111-102. They needed it. They need every single win they can get, but they need the ones against venomous Western Conference foes the most. The New Orleans Pelicans are in a current state of freefall, but even without their burly basher in Zion Williamson, they’re laced with talent, coaching chops, and heart. Throw in a raucous crowd, and you have a cauldron to climb out of.
And the Wolves escaped that melting pot. Through another sluggish start, a double-digit hole, Pelicans head coach Willie Green getting tossed and breathing life into the Smoothie King Center, and the looming pressure of the standings peering over them, they escaped.
It didn’t take long for all things to seem lost. Just another disappointing night. Things seemed dire. New Orleans looked hungrier and more prepared to outwork and out-execute their counterparts. Until they didn’t. Until the Wolves curled their lip and bared their fangs. All of sudden, it was a medley of scoring, ball-movement, pace and defensive excellence. They whittled the lead down, then took one of their own. Then they built it. They kept squeezing and squeezing until it felt like New Orleans were going to pop.
Of course, in the most Wolves-y way, they made sure to tighten our sphincter before the buzzer sounded. After Green’s ejection, the crowd were clamorous and the Pelicans responded. It took nerves of steel and balls of iron to overcome it. Big shots and big stops. It took everything this team could muster. And, man, was it entertaining.
D’Angelo Russell: 9/10
He’s just in a rhythm. A flow. Like a big fucking river. Nothing feels forced, nothing feels confusing, nothing feels stupid. He can force things, he can be confusing, he is prone to the odd bit of stupidity. But not right now. Now, he is just really fucking good.
Sure, you can pick on his on-ball defense — he faceplanted over his usual banana skins in this one — and he still struggles to help Minnesota’s putrid defensive rebounding, but all of that feels tertiary lately. All of it feels manageable. The things he does well are glowing like a flaming pentagram. Inescapably devilish.
This game was no different. It wasn’t the complete outburst that we saw against the Rockets, but it was a flurry of effective jabs into the guts of New Orleans. A trio of important treys, a willingness to move off screens and relocate himself into pockets of space for jumpers or second-side dimes, the occasional dab of inside-the-arc hot sauce. And, because his veins crave the sweet relief of an arctic tundra, he smashes the final nail into New Orleans’ coffin with a clutch pull-up middy as time ran down.
He’s making Tim Connelly’s life a nightmare.
Finished with 19 points (54.5% TS), 3 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 steals in 39 minutes — +15.6 net rating.
Anthony Edwards: 10/10
This game doesn’t happen without him. The second-half fight-back isn’t even a feasibility. It’s a fantasy we dream about as the Pelicans skip away with an easy win. But he was there. When things were degenerating into a pile of runny shit, he just kept trudging through it. Some of it felt a little forced — a few too many sticky-mitted isolation forays — but his team were off. His team were lifeless. They needed his energy and his want-to and his thirstiness. He just kept putting his head down and going to work and they needed that the most.
He just held the failing fort until the rest of the gang showed up to the knife fight. Eventually they did, but Edwards didn’t stop lopping fucking heads off with his machete. The third-quarter run was inspired by his sharp-swinging sword. The rim-attacking addiction continued, but he supplemented them with a string of gut-punching triples. Pull-ups, catch-and-shoots, isolation bangers. Just a fucking scoring phenom.
He faded a bit toward the end of the night, but his work was done. He did what superstars and franchise pillars and chiseled demigods do, he put his team on his back.
Finished with 37 points (62.9% TS), 6 rebounds and 5 assists in 37 minutes — +18.5 net rating.
Jaden McDaniels: 9/10
Could have easily let his recent shooting slump eat away at him. Chew him up and wither him from the inside out. But he didn’t. He took those bad energies and shoved them down Brandon Ingram’s fucking throat. Even with his aforementioned offensive woes continuing for a large chunk of this game, McDaniels found all of his defensive dominance again. Like a python, slithering around screens and digging venom-soaked fangs into Ingram and his Pelicans cohorts.
And if you do those things, if you play unselfish defense and do all the little things and keep making a winning impact even in a shooting slump, then the basketball gods find a way to shine their light on you.
Just when things were crumbling and this game was decaying into a realm that would have been hard to recover from mentally, McDaniels put on his cape. A big fucking lanky Superman. He shakes off CJ McCollum and feathers in a mid-range moneymaker before burying the game with a slot 3-pointer. Massive fucking stones.
Finished with 10 points (71.4% TS) and 2 assists in 34 minutes — +9.0 net rating.
Kyle Anderson: 10/10
Good things sprout forth from him. They bloom from his pores. He’s the soil that this team grows from. Now that he has escaped the Houston Hex, he’s back doing this thing, and his thing is fucking glorious. His herking and jerking scoring package is funny as fuck, and just as effective. He only grabbed two rebounds in this game but he boxes out as well as anybody on the roster. A quartet of stocks is only the tip of his defensive iceberg.
But the headliner on this night was his playmaking. The kind of point-forward shit that changes this team’s outlook. The kind of table-setting that turned Rudy Gobert from a bumbling baked potato to a dominant demon. The touch-bounce-pass he pummeled through a closing pocket was astonishing. Like, full-on wizard shit. He had a couple of lobs and whips and skips, too.
Just a really fun player.
Finished with 10 points (64.4% TS), 3 rebounds, 7 assists, 2 steals and 2 blocks in 33 minutes — +24.6 net rating.
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