They say hard work beats talent. The truth is hard work supplements talent. Hard work insulates talent. Hard work accessorizes talent and bedazzles the intricacies of talent. When the talent void is too deep and dark to overcome, it truly doesn’t matter how much hard work is pumped into the whole ordeal. This league is stuffed with talent, maybe more than ever, and without enough of it teams are doomed from the beginning.
The game ends 122-107. The Minnesota Timberwolves were doomed from the beginning. They’ve been a volatile mess throughout every segment of the season, but they’ve been able to stave off some of the Karl-Anthony Towns injury nightmare through the greatness of Anthony Edwards. But now he’s gone, too, and without their enigmatic wunderkind they’re a brittle shell likely to crumble into a powder each and every night.
And this is what that looks like. Their remaining core worked hard, they played the right way for the most part, and they squeezed every drop of talent juice out of their withering fruits. They never truly commanded the game, but they consistently forced Toronto to fight off their pesky advances with a solid defensive evening and a more illuminated effort to move the ball offensively.
But hard work only got them so far, and the night ended with the middling Toronto Raptors steamrolling them and opening the Western Conference trapdoor that little bit wider underneath Minnesota’s feet. Buckle up, shit is about to get even weirder and even more fraught.
Mike Conley: 5/10
He was just good enough to avoid being bad and just bad enough to avoid being good. Solid, but ultimately unspectacular. Like soup. Nobody loves soup, but nobody fucking hates soup, either. It’s prosaic language that pales in comparison to the flowery poetry that we’ve seen him scribble periodically since his arrival.
He makes a few shots inside the arc as a crafty finisher, but he fails to hit any of his four triple-tries. He slips a sick pass through the Raptors’ defense to a cutting Jordan McLaughlin, but he fails to inspire the Wolves’ offense with his playmaking outside of that. He ebbed and he flowed and he peaked and he valleyed.
He was fine. Vanilla. Soup.
Finished with 12 points (61.5% TS), 2 rebounds and 3 assists in 26 minutes — -13.5 net rating.
Jaden McDaniels: 8/10
Got the slightest glimpse of the bubbling volcano of potential he has buried inside him. One day that fucker is going to erupt and spew molten hot chunks of vindication all over our awaiting faces — it’s nights like this one that proves that is more of a when rather than an if.
He hasn’t been at his very best for a while defensively and he was taken to task a smidge too often by Fred VanVleet’s wily ways in this one, but he was superb offensively. The long-range shooting leap is real and gets realer by the evening, and he was able to skip past Toronto’s horde of rangy wing defenders to score inside and make passes to the rim or the perimeter.
Until Edwards and/or Towns shuffle back into the lineup, he’s the man. That’s not enough to win games consistently, but watching him progress is going to be a sweet silver lining.
Finished with 18 points (60.5% TS) and 6 rebounds in 31 minutes — -25.0 net rating.
Taurean Prince: 1/10
This felt like the morning after the night before. He couldn’t have possibly been more shitfaced drunk against the Bulls and there has been nary a play that had more of a profoundly negative impact on the season than his turnover did. So, naturally, he spent this game hungover and hurling on the hardwood.
Everything just seems hard for him right now. The door is right there, unlatched, yet he insists on trying to kick the thing down. Or climb through a window while hogtied. Or abseil down the fucking chimney like some sort of chiseled Santa Claus. Every shot seems forced and results in a dented rim, every pass is wildly and unruly, and every defensive possessions ends with overcommitment or silly fouling.
He needs to figure it out or risk finishing with an unsavory taste dancing on his season’s palette.
Finished with 4 points (25.4% TS), 2 rebounds and 2 assists in 30 minutes — -8.1 net rating.
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