Last year, I told you that the Minnesota Timberwolves were going to be really good and finish near the top of the Western Conference. That was wrong, as Minnesota snuck into the playoffs as an 8th seed and got eliminated in the first round by the Denver Nuggets. I tempered expectations this year but still felt hopeful. They have rewarded that hopefulness by starting the season 10-3 and looking like a team that can make some hay in the Western Conference playoffs.
The Minnesota Timberwolves success starts and ends on the defensive end, that is where they need to be great if they want to be great. This is, in large part, due to the massive Rudy Gobert trade they made in July of 2022, a deal in which they traded 5 players, including starting Jazz center Walker Kessler, 4 first round picks, 3 unprotected, and a pick swap. Minnesota felt the need to acquire Gobert because they did not think their defense was good enough in 2021-22 with Karl-Anthony Towns manning the middle. The results were there, in the years that Gobert was the full time starting center for the Jazz, Utah ranked 7th, 3rd, 1st, 2nd, 13th (an outlier), 3rd, and 10th in defensive rating from 2015-16 to 2021-22. Gobert was seen as a player you plug in and you have (at least) a top 10 defense, which Minnesota was last season when they finished 10th. However, with the wings the Wolves had surrounded Rudy with, it was expected they would finish higher than 10th and this season, it has come together as the Wolves are 1st in defensive rating in the NBA (though they are pretty much tied with the Boston Celtics and the Orlando Magic). Gobert looks more comfortable this season and the Wolves perimeter defense has improved, a big reason why is Anthony Edwards’ improvement on that side of the court. Jaden McDaniels, Kyle Anderson, and Nickeil Alexander-Walker are also atop the list of perimeter defenders on Minnesota’s roster, helping a defense that is very well connected and among the elite in the NBA. They get even better in the clutch as well, in 22 clutch time minutes (clutch time is defined as a game within 5 points with less than 5 minutes left) they have a defensive rating of 93.6 (5th in the league). They have an elite defense with the best rim protector in the NBA, and that can carry a team deep in the playoffs.
The offense runs through Anthony Edwards. Edwards has had a monster season averaging 25.8 points, 5.9 rebounds, and 5.1 assists and has become Minnesota’s alpha offensively at the end of games. He has taken 14 shots in clutch time situations, the next closest being Karl-Anthony Towns with 7, this team has become Anthony Edwards’ team. One thing the Wolves do not do is take a lot of 3s, as their 3 point frequency percentage is 25th in the NBA, at 35.8%. They are also just 10th in the NBA in frequency with shots that are less than 10 feet close to the basket, at just 46.4%. That means that 17.8% of their shots are from the mid-range area, which does not seem like a lot but it is in this era of shots at the rim or 3’s it feels like it is when compared to other teams. I think they can improve on is taking less mid-range shots and taking more 3s and shots at the basket.
Minnesota also is very organized in large part due to the play of veteran point guard Mike Conley. Conley is one of the elite distributors in the NBA and does a really good job at getting the big lineups Minnesota uses set up. They have spent 516 minutes with two of Rudy Gobert, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Naz Ried on the court this season and while sometimes those lineups can be clunky, ever since the Wolves acquired Conley at last season’s trade deadline, the double big lineups have been much improved. The double big duo’s have net-ratings of 6.1 (Towns and Gobert), 6.0 (Gobert and Reid), and 12.7 (Reid and Towns), all of which are very good. These lineups have worked well this season and Conely is a big reason why.
The Minnesota Timberwolves are really good, after a 1-2 start they have rattled off wins in 9 of their last 10 games including wins against the Nuggets and Celtics at home and 2 wins on the road against the Warriors. It’s early but this feels real and with the Western Conference as open as it is, it really feels like this Wolves can make some noise come April and May.
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