The Minnesota Timberwolves don’t really fit into Rivals Week. They’ve putrefied at the bottom of the league for so long that they’ve never really had the chance to form a rivalry. But, every time they meet with the Memphis Grizzlies it starts to feel a little different. It feels like they’re somewhat relevant again. It feels like they’re a team who deserves the trivial title of Rivals Week headliners. It’s fire fighting fire. Talent battling talent. Fun jousting with fun.
The game ends 111-100. Another chapter penned. The Wolves will never recoup the ground they lost on the Grizzlies in last season’s playoffs with a regular season victory, but it still feels like a body blow to their budding rivals when they manage to oust them. The Grizzlies are good. They talk a lot of shit. They parade their foolishness and arrogance with disregard for the image it projects. It’s part of the reason why they’re so good. It’s also why it feels so good to dropkick them off their perch — even if it’s just for one night.
And this was a wall-to-wall dropkicking. A back-alley beatdown that was shared around the roster. Very few failed to dig their toes into the uncovered ribs of Memphis, and while it still won’t heal those postseason scars, it’ll start to create new ones for the foes on the other side of the hardwood.
It was just one of those rare nights for this peaks and valleys Timberwolves team. All of a sudden it was flat ground. It was solid underfoot and the journey felt doable again. The goal was in sight and not over a mountain or through a ravine.
They sizzled and sparked and just about burst into flames on the offensive end, lighting the Grizz up to the tune of 51.2 percent from the field and 37.1 percent from deep. They moved the ball crisply and willingly, they moved their bodies with the same verve, and they never slumped or wilted or stumbled.
Then, on the other end, they squeezed the vice even tighter. They held Memphis to 40.9 percent shooting and 24.2 percent from long-range. They forced a heap of turnovers — again — and they kept pumping life back into the building with big stops every time Memphis looked like making one of their patented runs.
The kind of night you dream about parlaying into a season. The kind of vibes that linger in the memory. The kind of game worth building a foundation upon.
D’Angelo Russell: 9/10
This night was the personification of his rising stock. At the start of the season, when things were slipping through cracks and down into the pits of the underworld, shooting 41 percent from the field, 30 percent from deep, and turning the ball over six times would have been another stake driven into his vampiric heart. Another reason to despair. Another potential trade partner disconnecting their phone.
Now, it almost feels like it was extraneous. Inconsequential. Whereas the start of the season’s shooting splits were surrounded by sloppiness and devil-may-care, this night’s shooting was encircled by energy. Like somebody jammed a rocket up his fucking ass.
The turnovers — most of which were fumbles by teammates or hand grenade attempts to get something going at the end of the shot clock — were insulated by a bunch of sick dimes out of pick-and-roll or while acting as off-ball connective tissue for the offense. The shots that did go in were timely, including 10 quick points in the first, and the ones that missed were clean looks coming from cleaner process. The defense was the best of the season, just a flurry of viper-quick hands and punctual rotations. The rebounding, once again the best effort of the season, was unfathomably important against this Memphis team.
Maybe those phones are reconnected. Maybe the Wolves’ front office brass should be the ones pulling their plug.
Finished with 19 points (53.1% TS), 8 rebounds, 7 assists and 3 steals in 39 minutes — +14.6 net rating.
Anthony Edwards: 10/10
He’s just a superhero at this point. Straps on his fucking cape and flies into action every single night. Before the crowd was done piling into their seats, he was burying Jaren Jackson Jr. under the Batcave. And he was shrugging off supervillains all night long. Dillon Brooks got it, too. Little weird fucking Dillon Brooks. Gums flapping. A mountain of bark and a molehill of bite. While he was chirping, Edwards was dominating.
It’s constant three-level jackhammering. There isn’t anybody in the league that can stop him getting downhill, be it off screens or in isolation. If the lane is clogged, he just tap-dances his way into the mid-range area and sauces defenders with his ever-improving handle. And, of course, he nails treys. Big ones. Every one he hits just feels different in the arena. Obsidian daggers plunging into the heart of his hapless opponents.
His third quarter was the scarehead of this evening. With all of that three-level fairy dust and a sprinkling of playmaking and defensive dominance, he kept the Grizzlies stumbling back into the sarcophagus. He ends the night with his cape intact, foot on the chest of Brooks, and heroic music blaring through the in-arena speakers.
Finished with 25 points (60.6% TS), 7 rebounds and 7 assists in 37 minutes — +14.1 net rating.
Jaden McDaniels: 8/10
Continues to kind of meander on offense. The bright flashes are still there — a couple of transition finishes, a soft and feathery middy, and an isolation dribble combination that left Ja Morant looking like a tough-talking traffic cone — but he isn’t producing with the same consistency as he was a few weeks back.
It doesn’t always matter with him, though. He locks motherfuckers up. You hear the clink clink of his jail keys as his long strides grace the hardwood. You hear the exasperated whimpers of another scoring phenom being stifled. Morant got his. But it did feel stifled. It felt McDanielsed. He forced bad shots, he doubled down on his mistakes, and he generally racked up empty calorie numbers.
Clink clink.
Finished with 8 points (71.4% TS), 6 rebounds and 3 assists in 31 minutes — 0.0 net rating.
Kyle Anderson: 10/10
He is the best. I’m not fucking kidding. He might be the most entertaining player in the league. Who needs dunks and herculean feats of athleticism, he has elongated eurosteps, a robotic shot form, and the ability to whip passes like your grandad after snorting a viagra. That weird and wild impact has seeped into the entirety of the fanbase and breathed a new lease of life into them.
And this was his crowning jewel. The most flamboyant feather in his cap. His pièce de résistance. He starts the night by punishing his pudgy, pouty former coach for leaving him in acres of space, draining two treys in the opening minutes. And it only blooms from there, a big fucking sunflower of an evening.
There were his usual bouts of passing brilliance, the fast break over-the-shoulder flick was the cream of the crop, but it was his scoring that stole the show in this one. Two more triples to tack onto his opening pair were partnered by an overwhelming surge of floaters, layups and fun. All of it displayed in his own unique way.
Finished with 23 points (70% TS), 3 rebounds, 6 assists and 2 steals in 27 minutes — +10.1 net rating.
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