Player Ratings: Game Seven | New Orleans Pelicans
Wolves keep rolling over the shorthanded Pelicans.
This is not the fairytale ending. There is a long, winding, rocky road in front of the Minnesota Timberwolves before any sort of fairytale ending can be seen. Fairytales have beginnings as well, though, and these opening chapters are straight from the kind of storybook we’ve been waiting to read. So, before the villainous monsters creep around the corners, take a second to turn the pages. Savor the words. Embrace the prologue. Clutch at the competency and cuddle the consistency. It’s the perfect opening chapter and it’s worth every second your eyes can spare.
The game ends 122-101. This team made cakewalks feel like laboring hikes last season, so trouncing a team riddled with injuries shouldn’t be taken for granted. They should have won this game but should haves can quickly become nightmares. This one never felt anything close to a nightmare. This was a lucid and wonderful dream. Downtrodden teams only need the measliest scent of weakness to grow in confidence, but the Wolves choked that out of the New Orleans Pelicans as quickly as snuffing a candle flame with a pair of fingertips.
Then they had fun with it. Wins matter more than anything in this cutthroat business, but entertainment comes a close second. Ask the Target Center crowd. Minnesota is striking that balance with a graceful ease right now. They’re still going to be that staunch defensive mob who win by suffocating their opponents, but on nights like this they’re letting the Hollywood joy bleed into that grisly nastiness. They’re both the ominous black clouds and unforgettable colors of the rainbow.
What more can we ask for?
Mike Conley: 10/10
Bite bite bite bite bite bite bite. He’s so good. Not in a blow your fucking socks off way but in a reliably reliable way. Bite bite bite bite. He’s everything they need.
Because he gives this team what they need, how they need it, and precisely when it is required. In this one, they needed him to make triples and so that’s what he did. It seems an eternity ago that this game was still in the balance, but when it was Conley was raining fire from the sky like an astute little dragon. Bite bite bite bite. Chewed the Pelicans up and spat them out.
Still hasn’t turned the ball over since opening night, either. Feels like longer. Feels like that final turnover was the last time the Wolves were wearing these gorgeous jerseys. It could have been farther back than that. He might never turn the bastard over again.
Finished with 12 points (120% TS), 4 rebounds and 4 assists in 21 minutes — +32.8 net rating.
Anthony Edwards: 10/10
He’s doing side quests now. His usual way of body-slamming a game has become all too easy. Now he is the playmaking phenom and the defensive volcano and the windmill-dunking fucking superstar.
This was easy dominance. Walk in the park dominance. Lounge on a white sand beach dominance. Everybody in the arena knew the Pelicans’ boneyard squad couldn’t handle him — they couldn’t if they were the picture of health — and he knew it more than anyone.
He wasn’t even making shots at his usual clip. Instead, he was slinging skip passes to the corner or finding his big French companion on rim-running lobs or pick-and-roll dimes. When the ball went the other way, he spent his evening chasing shooters, executing rotations with slavering vigor, and sending shots away at the rim with jaw-dropping athleticism.
He’s quickly becoming everything. The sun and the moon and the stars and the earth. When he scowls, strong men shudder. When he smiles, women swoon. The mysteries of the universe are his toys. He rattles the thunder and looses the lightning.
Finished with 26 points (53.7% TS), 3 rebounds, 8 assists, 3 steals and 2 blocks in 38 minutes — +34.8 net rating.
Jaden McDaniels: 9/10
Brandon Ingram was New Orleans’ only chance to win this one. He had Jaden McDaniels for company all night. The Pelicans had no chance to win this one.
McDaniels is a shadow. You don’t get away from him. Ever. Ingram spent the night trying to escape his shadow in the cold spaces of the mid-range and, even with some impressive shot-making, found himself more harm than help. For McDaniels, it’s nothing special. For his opponents, it’s an inescapable hell for 48 minutes.
Our wonderfully slim prodigy doesn’t have to do more than he did offensively — a few triples and some slick cutting — on a night like this. He did the same job he always does and it felt as good as ever.
Finished with 10 points (71.4% TS) and 3 assists in 20 minutes — +34.6 net rating.
Karl-Anthony Towns: 9/10
Balanced. Much more balanced. The night was still streaked with unfathomably absurd escapades at the rim, resulting in more hooking of arms and more pushing off and, ultimately, more offensive fouls, but he balanced it out with all the things that have been missing of late.
It was just nice to see him making 3-pointers again. Every great player needs a superpower and that’s his. He doesn’t need to throw a cape on and shoot laser beams out of his fucking retinas anymore. He just needs that one superpower, so seeing it return felt like a warm hug.
He nailed two quickfire triples in the first quarter and was money whenever he was open for the rest of the night. Mix some inside-the-arc stuff between the fouls and he felt a little more like himself again. Still played great defense, too. That’s been a constant.
Eventually, the theatrics need to end, but they’re a little more palatable if he can keep using his superpower.
Finished with 23 points (89.3% TS) and 3 rebounds in 28 minutes — +21.1 net rating.
Rudy Gobert: 10/10
He just keeps on powering through the weak shit they put in front of him. Jonas Valanciunas is built like a fucking tank, but Gobert brushed him aside like he was a butterfly with a bung wing. That’s becoming the norm. The big baguette still has his moments of madness as a finisher and a ball-catcher, but they don’t matter anymore. This Timberwolves circus is intoxicating and he’s the hulking ringmaster.
The thing about him is that you know what you’re going to get. And once again we got it. He runs the floor maniacally all night, he finishes lobs like his enormous tree trunk legs are actually pogo sticks, he sucks in every single rebound imaginable — it’s actually hard to imagine any more rebounds — and he defends. Fucking hell does he defend. He’s the best there is. The best there was. The best there ever will be.
It’s hard not to be enamored with that combination. And, unlike last season, he clearly has the full trust of his teammates on both ends. He’s earned it. He’s earned every inch of recompense he gets.
Finished with 17 points (82.7% TS), 21 rebounds and 2 blocks in 32 minutes — +31.6 net rating.
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