And just like that, you can feel the thud. It’s loud and it’s heavy and it hurts. There was a very reasonable expectation that the Minnesota Timberwolves were going to need some time to magnetize and thrive, but that doesn’t make the thud feel any less forceful.
The game ends 132-126. A game with swings and roundabouts and ups and downs and everything in between. For all the promising signs and gold nuggets that glimmered throughout the night — and they certainly were there — the same amount of dark clouds hung over the evening. The Wolves, at least right now, have too many fault lines, and the pesky Jazz pried open those cracks far too easily.
It started with the peaks, the Wolves shot out of the gates and ran the Jazz ragged with a sensuous blend of pace, ball-movement and defensive presence in the first half, but then came the valleys. The same valleys that haunted them in game one. They zombie-walked into the third period, allowing Utah to beat them up on the offensive glass and rain hellfire from beyond the arc. Then, it was the dogfight. Back and forth we went as the two teams traded fisticuffs for the entire fourth quarter.
It took a late-game run and some special shot-making for Minnesota to eke out an overtime period, but the lack of crisp execution and mental fortitude which has permeated throughout the infant stages of their season was too much to overcome. Now, all there is to do is hope that this was the purely blip on the radar we all expected to see at some point during this soft early-season schedule.
D’Angelo Russell: 9/10
You can pick at some of his unusually sloppy turnovers and some of the defensive issues that saw him spend a long stint on the pine in the third quarter, but it felt like when the Wolves were rolling he was at the epicenter of it.
He started the night like a fucking inferno, burning the hapless Jazz from the mid-range consistently and massaging the offense into position with his general steadiness. He was pace-pushing, too, and that’s when Minnesota’s offense looked at its cleanest. His saucy little no-look dime Jaden McDaniels was the highlight, but off every make, miss, or turnover, he was loping into the front court with pace and precision on his mind. Then, he knocked down a pair of triples in the fourth period when things were sphincter-tighteningly intense.
But the crowning jewel on his night was the play. The fucking play. The play that deserved to be celebrated in the glow of a win and not the gloom of a disappointing loss. He dances with Mike Conley, makes the aging veteran finger fuck the earth’s crust, and tickles home a bank shot to send it to overtime. Ice and veins and shit like that.
Finished with 23 points (61.3% TS), 6 rebounds, 7 assists and 2 steals in 39 minutes — -9.9 net rating.
Anthony Edwards: 8/10
Again, there were some issues. I mean, he may as well have been submerged under a frozen fucking tundra in overtime, because he wasn’t seen, heard, or smelt for that five minutes of game time. That will need to change going forward and tailoring his game to work consistently with both bigs on the floor is a work in progress, as well. He also struggled for much of the night to contend with the slippery ways of Jordan Clarkson, Malik Beasley and Mike Conley, allowing the trio to dust him far too often. Those things matter. They are threads in the tapestry of why Minnesota lost this game.
But it’s worth mentioning that there was a bunch of good. Those threads weave into why the Wolves had a chance in the first place. He started with his trademark burst of shooting and at-rim force, and he continued to play smashmouth offense all the way until his overtime no-show. He kept attacking, he kept weight-rooming guys at the rim, and he kept the Wolves in the game when things were crumbling in the third quarter. Don’t miss the forest for the trees, he is still fucking electric.
Finished with 30 points (59.5% TS), 5 rebounds and 2 assists in 32 minutes — -6.7 net rating.
Jaden McDaniels: 3/10
Thought the things that make him such a tantalizing little grim reaper fuck were absent in this one. Like Edwards, he too struggled keeping pace with Utah’s shifty mosquito fleet and, unusually, found himself a step behind on that side of the ball too often. He also needed to do more on the glass when Utah had Minnesota drowning in the River Styx during the third-quarter run. He is long and bouncy and a chunk of rebounding responsibility falls onto his spindly shoulders.
That translated to his budding offensive game, too. Outside of a few swooping finishes that made me rediscover the topography of my loins, he was stifled as a cutter and shooter. Not his night.
Finished with 10 points (63.5% TS) and 4 rebounds in 39 minutes — -22.5 net rating.
Karl-Anthony Towns: 4/10
He is a pandora’s box of fucking frustration. Some of that stems from the fact that he is so good at playing this sport. He proves that in the way he scores so effortlessly in the fourth quarter and overtime period. There was a hot minute there when he seemed like everything clicked and he was going to will this team home like we’ve seen him do countless times throughout his career.
The problem is, and has been for a while, that effortlessness always feels like it’s a mile away. He spends huge chunks of the night making everything seem so fucking hard. He flops, he loses his mind when his flops aren’t rewarded, he kicks out on closing defenders, he flops, he forces bad shots, he flops, he gives up on defense, he commits head-scratching fouls. Above all, he forces everything. Nothing seems to come as easy as it should.
In the end, the bad far outweighed the good. While he isn’t the only problem this squad has to solve, right now he is making sure he is the biggest.
Finished with 27 points (47.3% TS), 8 rebounds and 2 assists in 33 minutes — -6.0 net rating.
Rudy Gobert: 8/10
We got the whole landscape of what makes him great and what makes him questionable. A kaleidoscope of attributes laid bare for us to pick apart. He is still huge. It almost seems like he is bigger every time we see him. Thunderous limbs like fucking ancient columns. A colosseum of a man. He leverages that into absolute dominance on the glass — even when nobody else even considered helping him — and a handful of sick defensive stops at the rim.
But there will always be limitations. A primordial behemoth can’t be expected to slap putty over every crack. He will still have times where he is sizzled when defending in space, his touch around the rim was gruesome in this one, and his rushed outlet passes and clanked clutch free throws were killers.
It’s important to remember he, perhaps more than anybody else, is experiencing growing pains. If he improves on his current output as he grows in comfortability, he is going to wreck shit eternally.
Finished with 9 points (39.8% TS), 23 rebounds and 2 blocks in 38 minutes — -11.7 net rating.
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