Just like that, another round of exhibition games are in the book. Five preseason outings, five wins. There’s not a sensible soul on earth who truly believes that preseason wins parlay into regular season dominance, but the Wolves put their best foot forward and then did it four more times. Through different lineup combinations, opponents, and countries, they kept winning and did it all with an alluring ease.
The game ends 114-105. It started on a deflating note with Karl-Anthony Towns’ newly troublesome knee and Mike Conley’s illness accompanying Jaden McDaniels’ calf strain on the injury report, but it was all uphill from there. With those three starters down, it wasn’t always pretty, but this team feels built to grind out games, meaningless or not.
And so they did, beating up the Zach LaVine-less Chicago Bulls in almost every category all while mixing in heavy bench brigade minutes while the Bulls countered with a hearty dosage of their frontliners.
That’s the buzzword for this one. Depth. Like the fucking ocean. The Wolves have it in spades and it’s getting tough to ignore. Without three starters, Minnesota did what needed to be done against the Bulls’ starters and then played them even when the second and third units started to trickle in. This is a team that has waves of talent and they continue to crash upon drowning opponents even when the headlining studs aren’t in the game.
Injuries aside, the preseason couldn’t have unfurled in a more pleasing manner.
Shake Milton: 5/10
Didn’t overwhelm in his first unofficial start with the Timberwolves, but didn’t cover himself in any stink either. He wasn’t quite able to create as much as he has been in a downhill driving or long-range shooting kind of way, but he does a lot of tiny things that feel bigger than that.
He flings the ball around quickly when he doesn’t have a shot available, the pace of the offense feels crispy when he is at the helm, and he has been surprisingly adept as a point-of-attack defender.
He isn’t Mike Conley and we don’t expect him to be. Being Shake Milton is just fine. Solid as stone is exactly what this team needs.
Finished with 4 points (33.3% TS), 2 rebounds and 4 assists in 24 minutes — +6.0 net rating.
Nickeil Alexander-Walker: 4/10
He’s jacking them fuckers up, isn’t he?
Nine 3-point attempts in a tick over 23 minutes is serious volume from deep and there is a legitimate argument that this team needs that. With this neutered iteration of the squad, it certainly needed that. The problem is that, even with his new and streamlined shooting mechanics, he feels a little too streaky to be launching relentlessly.
Sure, you’re going to get the speedy and hellacious point-of-attack defense and we will revel in it’s beauty every time we see it, but his overall efficacy wanes when if he is going to be a mega-volume shooter who can’t be trusted to make a reliable portion of them. There was no real pop as a playmaker or penetrator in this one, making him solely a live and die by the triple kind of guy. He ended up worm food more often than not.
Finished with 6 points (33.3% TS) and 2 steals in 23 minutes — +14.2 net rating.
Anthony Edwards: 10/10
What the fuck have we got on our hands here, man?
He’s a monster and he’s starting to crawl out from underneath the NBA’s bed, snarling and growling and baring his filed teeth. An unavoidable ghoul breathing life into a defunct franchise. Preseason or not, the entire city of Chicago felt the cold chill rattle down their spines as he awoke and began tearing the flesh from the Bulls’ bones.
And that was all in a first-half’s work.
The earth-shuddering dunk will get the headlines. It should. Death-defying feats of athleticism have become so normal for him that we almost shrug it off in nonchalance, but that shit was insane.
However, the nitty-gritty of his night was just as spectacular. His handle was vice-tight, juking defenders consistently and getting to his spots with crisp combinations. He only finished with a single assist — the mouth-watering hook-lob to Gobert — but he made half a dozen laser passes to open shooters. And he had his usual spoonful of clean finishes around the rim to serve as the cherry on top.
A few sloppy turnovers marred his night fractionally, but if this was a preview of what we can expect this season then we need to strap ourselves in a prepare for the G-force.
Finished with 19 points (70.7% TS) and 5 rebounds in 20 minutes — +12.1 net rating.
Kyle Anderson: 7/10
He just kept things ticking over. He’s a master at keeping things ticking over. He’s a big gangly metronome and the team dances to his consistent rhythm.
He played all of his usual hits. At times, was acting as a pseudo-point guard, setting up others and slow-stepping around ball screens for thoughtful finishes and foul-drawing escapades. At others, it was playing as an off-ball connective tissue within the offense.
At all times, he was measured and stout defensively.
That’s what he does. Nothing new to see here.
Finished with 5 points (107.8% TS), 3 rebounds and 4 assists in 20 minutes — +20.7 net rating.
Rudy Gobert: 7/10
Gobert’s pendulum swung to and fro in this one, oscillating between the hulking rim-runner who dements defenses with his gravity around the rim and the led-footed obelisk that always feels like he is in the way. It was mostly the former, as he finished a few tough buckets and forced Chicago’s miniature lineup to conform to his will, but there were still too many times when the offense stagnated in his wake.
On the other side of the ball, he was who he always is. He still doesn’t seem to have recovered his uber-elite shot-blocking ability — he may never — but he still deters drivers incessantly and his mere presence forces teams to shoot more shots from outside the paint. On nights like this one where the opposition isn’t red-hot with their jumpers, that rim-deterrence fuels Minnesota’s strangling defense.
It’d be nice to see him continue buying into a more muted role offensively, but overall he is a plus contributor once again.
Finished with 10 points (60.1% TS), 6 rebounds and 2 assists in 22 minutes — -2.2 net rating.
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