The balloon gets punctured early and the air flooding out of it is thick with the taste of a similarly remembered disappointment.
It’s important to remind ourselves that the season is a long, winding, meandering marathon, hardly decided by one game on the road against a matchup nightmare, but that air is still hard to breathe.
The game ends 97-94. In many ways, that feels like a flattering scoreline. For all the ugliness that swirls around that score like a violent tempest, there is a heavy dosage of hope and optimism in the closeness of it all. The Wolves didn’t deserve to win and the fact that they were a pair of makes away from stealing one should provide some sort of cushion under their opening night plummet.
Minnesota did well to keep this one close, but they were always flying by the seat of their pants, always another turnover or missed shot away from the game getting away from them, always more lucky than good. Just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Every shot that could clank viciously off the rim did so.
The Toronto Raptors are a mosquito fleet if mosquitos were fucking enormous and they buzzed up and down the court menacingly all night long. There just aren’t many teams deploying lineups with four 6-foot-9, multi-tooled gazelles loping around at one time and the Wolves aren’t equipped to stifle that kind of team.
When they were able to get Toronto to play in the halfcourt, Minnesota showed their defensive excellence, but that didn’t happen often enough. This is a Wolves team that will have to lean on their defense to win them games and they leaned on it hard in this one. However, there needs to be some sort of offensive punch accompanying the defensive lean. They can’t wade into these shit-fights and expect to leave without a stink.
The tagline, underlined and italicized, is Minnesota’s offensive struggles. Everything feels and smells and looks different if they even approach league average at converting their offensive looks. When you shoot 34 percent from the field and 25.8 percent from deep then you lose. Usually, you lose badly. That’s just how it works. It remains a make or miss league and the Wolves missed what they should have made. Over and over and over again they missed what they needed to make. A torrent of misses that ended up drowning the entire roster.
The season starts on a sour note. However, it’s long and it’s meandering and it’s a marathon where only the fittest survive. A shaky first step isn’t the end of the world.
Mike Conley: 6/10
He was merely a passenger on this unfettered trainwreck, never acting as the one driving the train, but he ended up mangled and crushed under the weight of the wreckage nonetheless. There was nothing Minnesota’s owl-wise leader could have done to stop this game from veering into the brick wall, but that doesn’t mean he had a night to remember.
In fact, it was an utmost forgettable evening. Sure, he made a few of his customary baskets — a couple of smart drives and side-stepping jumpers coming off screens — and he dovetailed with Rudy Gobert with the usual artistry the pair possess, but that was the extent of his exploits.
It was a baseline Mike Conley night when the team would have needed something extraordinary to overcome their self-imposed demons.
Finished with 11 points (55.7% TS), 4 rebounds and 3 assists in 31 minutes — -10.8 net rating.
Nickeil Alexander-Walker: 2/10
He isn’t Jaden McDaniels. He shouldn’t be expected to be. The spidery tendrils of McDaniels’ game reach into innumerous parts of Minnesota’s DNA and uplift them all. It’s unfair to expect Nickeil Alexander-Walker to do that. And yet it’s hard to escape the feeling that he just isn’t what they needed in this game or as a starter in general.
He lives for the chaos. Breathes the fucking chaos in. Works at his best when the game is begging for an injection of chaos. This game already had chaos. Too much of it. Every fucker in a Wolves jersey was far too chaotic for their own good. Alas, that meant NAW was a burden to carry.
He didn’t make any of his 3-point tries, and at least two of the three attempts were ill-advised ones. He was consistently out of control as a driver and playmaker. He defended with his usual verve, but he was too small to handle Toronto’s mega-wings and not shifty enough to contain Dennis Schroder.
He isn’t Jaden McDaniels. We’re all becoming painfully aware of that in each game that he is asked to wear his shoes.
Finished with 2 points (20% TS), 4 rebounds and 2 assists in 23 minutes — -33.1 net rating.
Anthony Edwards: 5/10
He bounced between varying degrees of what the actual fuck is going on throughout the entire evening.
Occasionally, it was the type that we know and love; the silky pull-up treys, the shot-creation boomlets, a newfound ability to find the roll-man as a passer and pull down rebounds at an extreme rate. However, it was the bad kind of what the fuck is going on far too often.
His shot selection was as horrendous as it has ever been. A gruesome mix of overconfident hero ball and a lazy willingness to let the defense push him out of his comfort zones. He bailed the Wolves out throughout the night, but he shoved them between the hammer and the anvil tenfold. It never felt like he trusted his teammates to touch the ball and that made him seem more selfish than superstar-ish.
We all know he is one of the most devastating scoring forces on the planet, but he needs to deflate his ego in order to let his talent shine. This type of inefficient shot-fest can’t be the new normal.
Finished with 26 points (43.9% TS) and 14 rebounds in 38 minutes — +1.2 net rating.
Karl-Anthony Towns: 4/10
If Edwards is having a nightmare night, the Wolves can’t have Towns join him in the pits of Hades. The cold waters of the River Styx can’t drown both of Minnesota’s offensive pillars. That’s a non-negotiable if this team wants to be competitive.
This was just a really fucking weird night for KAT. The weirdness of it branched out in so many different directions that it’s hard to really pinpoint what was a concern and what was an anomaly.
His shooting — from every area of the floor — felt anomalous. This is one of the league’s most versatile and dangerous three-level scorers and tonight he was a frog in a fucking blender. He was a walking brick as a shooter and a consistent headache for his team as a driver.
Also anomalous was his defense. In the good way. He was stout at the rim, willing and able to move his feet to contest shooters, and consistently making the right rotations as the Wolves clamped Toronto’s halfcourt offense. He was his usual lazy and slow-footed self as a transition defender, but he wasn’t the only culprit in that area.
What falls under the concerning umbrella is his decision-making. It’s an anchor tied around this team’s ankle and it has been for years. It always feels like his next brain fade is lurking ominously around the corner and they all piled up upon one another in this game.
The shuddering lowlights featured Towns turning down a dunk to throw a wayward lob to a contested Gobert, leading to another fast break foray for the Raptors. That boneheaded killer-play that was only topped by a pass to a covered Gobert while Minnesota trailed by four points with under a minute to go (instead of just taking the 3-point shot).
He just isn’t a trustworthy player. That really is concerning. You never feel comfortable when big decisions are set to be made and he is the one set to be making them. All the talent in the world isn’t going to change that.
Finished with 19 points (37.3% TS), 10 rebounds, 3 assists and 4 blocks in 36 minutes — -0.1 net rating.
Rudy Gobert: 8/10
Pick the nits and fling them away right now. He’s still fucking dopey. He still has hands like frying pans. He still makes things a little clunky offensively due to his sheer mountainous size. Those things are still true and they’re not going to dissipate any time soon. They were always the case, even when he was at the peak of his powers on teams that kicked the shit out of the rest of the league.
The difference is that last season he wasn’t doing the outlier things that had always made those things palatable. Well, he did in this game. This was the most spry and energetic he has ever looked for the Timberwolves. Ever. No other game comes close.
He was everywhere defensively; blocking shots from different area codes, completely shutting down Toronto’s halfcourt defense with his rim-protection and rotations, and moving his feet like a graceful tap dancer when asked to defend in space. He was also fantastic offensively, at least with the aforementioned caveats. He finished well in traffic, he caught lobs and rolls, and he sprinted the floor like he was back in his 20s.
He was the best player out there for Minnesota. That’s happened before, but it’s never happened with this much litheness and pop.
Finished with 15 points (52.8% TS), 13 rebounds, 2 steals and 4 blocks in 32 minutes — -16.7 net rating.
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