Timberwolves in trouble already after a winless homestand
The Timberwolves came into Friday night’s game touting their City Edition uniforms. They called it a “Remix,” with the two-toned jerseys designed as a way to blend the nostalgia of past teams with the excitement for the new squad.
What we have seen in the first eight games of the season is way too much of the old Wolves and nowhere near enough of the dynamic new-look team that was supposed to finally break through and bring the good vibes back to Target Center. Incredibly, in a season that is not yet 1/10th of the way over, the Timberwolves find themselves at an inflection point.
The stage was set for a strong start to the season. Seven of the first eight games at home, including two against the Pelicans without Zion Williamson, two against the Los Angeles Clippers without Kawhi Leonard and games against the Rockets and Magic, whose rosters are designed specifically to lose as many games as possible.
When the dust settled and the Wolves walked off the court on Friday night with a 104-84 loss to the Clippers, they sat at 3-5, losers of four straight and with the blueprint firmly established for how to beat them. They are not going to face an easier stretch of games all season long, and now they will go on the road for a four-game trip and try to find any semblance of an offense with all the swagger and smiles from their 3-1 start totally gone.
“If I know one thing about slides here in Minnesota, it could go from three to 18 to 19, 20 really quick,” Karl-Anthony Towns said after the Wolves lost to the Clippers on Wednesday night. “We got to put an end to that right now and we’re going to have to put the work in, dive more into the work. Dive more into his game and this craft.”
News flash: they didn’t. Seemingly desperate for a win, the Wolves jumped out to a 20-point lead in the first half on Friday night in the rematch. But they just never could close the door on the Clippers, who missed their first nine 3s after shooting 58 percent from deep in a win on Wednesday night. Once the Clippers started knocking down some of their open shots in the third quarter and tightened their defense, it was a wrap.
Now they go on the road for their first multigame trip of the season. It’s a daunting journey, with games at Memphis, Golden State, the Lakers and Clippers. They need to find themselves, and fast.
“It’s tough right now because we’re struggling,” Anthony Edwards said. “We’re playing good sometimes. We have spurts of playing good, then we play bad and don’t pick it up. It’s tough.”
They are not connected. They are not dynamic. They are the same old Wolves, until they prove otherwise. The season is still so young. It is not time to panic. But there are major areas that need to be addressed, and soon, to get things back on track.
It’s the offense, stupid
Who would have thought that eight games into the season it would be the defense that has carried the day for the Wolves? A team that could be just finishing up a 15-year mortgage in the bottom five of the defensive efficiency rankings has been, outside of one bad quarter against Orlando on Monday and the Clippers on Wednesday, quite good. They are currently ninth in points per 100 possessions and fourth in steals. The 104 points they gave up on Friday night should be enough for this team to win, and it certainly shouldn’t mean a 20-point loss.
The Wolves were blown out in the second half because their halfcourt offense has been an embarrassment. They have missed point guard D’Angelo Russell (ankle) over the last two and a half games, but the problems were there before Russell’s injury. The foundation has been a lack of movement, both in passing the ball and cutting to the basket.
If the Wolves are not scoring points off turnovers, they basically have no chance. They led by 20 points in the first half on Friday night, but never could make the shots they needed to totally close the door. When the offense bogged down in the second half, the Clippers strangled them into submission. They settled for jumpers over and over again, shooting 51 3s and making just 33 percent of them. They lead the league in 3-point attempts (44.4 per game) but are 26th in 3-point percentage (.321). Finch said the Wolves have guys who “are taking far too many” 3s. Edwards went 3 for 12 from deep on Friday night and is 10 for 46 during this four-game skid.
At times the Wolves offense has devolved into turn-taking between Towns, Edwards and Russell. With Russell out of the lineup against the Clippers, if Malik Beasley was not hitting 3s, the Wolves had nothing else.
The Clippers showed the rest of the league the way. They doubled Towns more aggressively than most any team has ever done, even surrounding him before he caught the ball, and dared others including Jarred Vanderbilt, Josh Okogie, Taurean Prince and Jaden McDaniels to beat them. The Wolves are 29th in the league in field goal percentage (.409) and have not been able to make opponents pay for leaving Towns’ teammates open.
Friday night was the perfect example of all that ails the Wolves on offense. The Wolves shot 35.2 percent from the field and 33 percent from 3, but Towns was an efficient 7 for 11 from the field and 3 for 5 from deep. While the rest of his team clanks away, Towns is hitting 51.2 percent of his shots and 49 percent of his 3s. But Towns has taken 20 or more shots just twice this season, an aggressiveness that goes against his inclusive nature.
“I know we go in there and we work hard and I know all the work we put in,” Towns said, “so if they’re going to make a playmaker, I’m going to keep making the right plays and just keep trusting my teammates.”
But 11 shots, and only two in the second half on Friday, is simply not enough for a shooter of Towns’ caliber, particularly on a team that cannot make a shot to save its life otherwise. It is more difficult for a big man to create shots for himself, but the Wolves have no alternatives. They cannot let opponents so easily take Towns out of the game.
“When you’re going to double KAT all the time, yeah, we can create shots out of it, and we did that for a little bit in the third quarter,” Finch said. “But at the same time, it doesn’t feel like there’s a great rhythm out there.”
Towns had two shots — TWO! — in the second half on Friday night, which played right into the Clippers’ hands. Guess what? He made both of them. With the rest of the team shooting as poorly as it is, that just can’t happen.
“I think guys are just trying to do it after one pass,” Finch said. “It’s all about themselves.”
KAT can improve as well
Towns is averaging 23.4 points, 9.2 rebounds and 3.4 assists, more great numbers. His shooting percentages are so far ahead of the rest of his teammates that it’s almost embarrassing. He needs to be utilized better, but he also has areas to improve himself.
He was swarmed by the Clippers in the two-game miniseries, but there were times where he had just Nicolas Batum on him and was not able to position himself to give the guards an easy target to hit. Batum fronted Towns throughout the series, using his length to bother Towns and put him in difficult spots.
Towns was thoroughly outplayed by rival Nikola Jokic when the Wolves played Denver on Oct. 30. The Nuggets surrounded Towns as well, limiting him to 14 points on 11 shots. Jokic scored 26 points on 10-for-23 shooting with 19 rebounds and seven assists.
Against New Orleans, burly center Jonas Valanciunas had 40 rebounds in two games against Towns, who has been much more clear-eyed this season after spending last year in a malaise following the death of his mother.
Towns has always struggled with physicality and has too often got rattled by officiating. More often than not, Towns has a legitimate gripe with officials about the close-call fouls he gets whistled for that he believes others do not. He had kept his composure quite well from the Milwaukee game until Friday night, but a few questionable calls on him got everyone wound up. Towns, and many of the Timberwolves, do not handle tough breaks from the officials very well, and it often affects the on-court product.
“It’s part of our maturity. I think the frustration was a little bit more with just the ball not moving,” Finch said. “Got sticky and guys weren’t getting calls and then you’re easy to guard and then they get some transition buckets on us.”
Towns is infinitely more engaged and invested this season than he was last year, but he has to walk a fine line as he goes through this season. He has never been a player to dominate the shot attempts. He has always said he identifies more with Magic Johnson as someone who likes to keep everyone involved than he does Shaquille O’Neal or another dominant scoring big.
“We need to have cutters and spot-up guys,” Finch said. “Thought he did a good job of putting it on them. They were swarming him down there. He had a couple good finds out of the post for sure.”
Improvement is not linear
There were big expectations for Edwards and Jaden McDaniels in their second seasons, and there has been plenty of promise from both of them. McDaniels has been one of the team’s best individual defenders and Edwards has had his flurries of unstoppable play while showing improved attention to detail on defense. But both have had their struggles as well.
McDaniels simply hasn’t been able to stay out of foul trouble all season. He fouled out in 13 minutes while guarding Paul George on Friday night. He has at least four fouls in six of the eight games so far, including two foul outs.
“Probably just gets his hand caught in the cookie jar once in a while,” Finch said. “Physicality sometimes will bother him, certain matchups. I thought he got some unfortunate breaks out there tonight. I didn’t get a great look at his first foul, but it didn’t feel like it was anything untoward the contact.”
Edwards is working through the process of understanding what shots to take and when. He was just 7 for 22 on Friday night, including 3 for 12 from 3-point range. He has shot double-digit 3s in five of the eight games so far this season despite making just 30 percent of them. Edwards has said that he has to take that shot to keep the defender honest, but the quick triggers in transition or early in the shot clock are starting to draw attention from Finch.
“Sometimes it’s like we’re in a groove and we’re playing well, but a certain guy is not involved, certain guys are not involved in that and then they want to join the party and kind of feels like a record scratch,” Finch said.
Finch has harped on Edwards to drive to the basket more, but the Wolves are also placing an incredible amount of responsibility on his 20-year-old shoulders. They do not have another player on the roster adept at getting into the paint, creating contact and scoring at the rim. The rest of the roster consists almost exclusively of shooters or bigs who cannot break a defender down off the dribble.
“If I ain’t going, then all the coaches looking at me like ‘Go to the rim!,’” Edwards said. “I’m like ‘I’m the only one going to the rim.’ I get it, man. I have fun with it. I don’t know, man.”
He was a little exasperated on Friday night. Edwards entered the season with high hopes and he still has them. But the four-game skid has been a tough one for him to swallow. And you can see the weight of the franchise on his shoulders. Going forward, he will have to make better decisions with his shot selection, which is all part of the learning process for young players in the league.
Everyone wants these guys to be ready to go from the first day, and there have been real flashes of brilliance from both of them. Now the Wolves need some real consistency out of their two wings.
“I’ve got to move the ball more, I’ve got to get to the rim more, get to the free-throw line more,” Edwards said. “We’ve just got to sacrifice for our teammates and try to come up with a win.”
Russell needs to step up
There were some fans who were eager to see who the Wolves would play when Russell left the game against Orlando on Monday at halftime with a sprained right ankle. Russell was 1 for 8 from the field at the time he left, and fans wanted to see Patrick Beverley and Jordan McLaughlin get more of a chance to run the show.
It is understandable why they wanted to look at another point guard. Russell finished last season strong but has been lackluster through the first five and a half games this season. He is averaging 14.8 points and 4.5 assists, both the lowest since his rookie season 2015-16. He is averaging 3.2 turnovers per game and is shooting a career-worst 29 percent from 3-point range and only 36 percent from the field.
But the Wolves have missed his shotmaking, creation and ability to stretch the defense and take some of the attention away from Towns. Edwards said he hoped to have Russell back in the lineup in Memphis on Monday night, which would help organize the offense.
“There will be more better shooters out there,” Edwards said. “Can’t double KAT as much. If they do, D-Lo gonna get them out of it for sure. We ain’t got our starting point guard.”
It was a good bit of rationalization from Edwards, who brushed aside the suggestion that the Pelicans missed Zion, the Nuggets were missing Jamal Murray and on and on. The Bucks were without Jrue Holiday and Brook Lopez when the Wolves went to Milwaukee and won. That is not the Wolves’ fault, but it should be factored in when it comes to evaluating their strengths as a team.
If Russell does indeed return on Monday, it will help the Wolves greatly.
“We need everybody,” Edwards said. “We need everybody from 1 to 15. We need everybody. When we got everybody, we’re good.”
Timberwolves in trouble already after a winless homestand
The Timberwolves came into Friday night’s game touting their City Edition uniforms. They called it a “Remix,” with the two-toned jerseys designed as a way to blend the nostalgia of past teams with the excitement for the new squad.
What we have seen in the first eight games of the season is way too much of the old Wolves and nowhere near enough of the dynamic new-look team that was supposed to finally break through and bring the good vibes back to Target Center. Incredibly, in a season that is not yet 1/10th of the way over, the Timberwolves find themselves at an inflection point.
The stage was set for a strong start to the season. Seven of the first eight games at home, including two against the Pelicans without Zion Williamson, two against the Los Angeles Clippers without Kawhi Leonard and games against the Rockets and Magic, whose rosters are designed specifically to lose as many games as possible.
When the dust settled and the Wolves walked off the court on Friday night with a 104-84 loss to the Clippers, they sat at 3-5, losers of four straight and with the blueprint firmly established for how to beat them. They are not going to face an easier stretch of games all season long, and now they will go on the road for a four-game trip and try to find any semblance of an offense with all the swagger and smiles from their 3-1 start totally gone.
“If I know one thing about slides here in Minnesota, it could go from three to 18 to 19, 20 really quick,” Karl-Anthony Towns said after the Wolves lost to the Clippers on Wednesday night. “We got to put an end to that right now and we’re going to have to put the work in, dive more into the work. Dive more into his game and this craft.”
News flash: they didn’t. Seemingly desperate for a win, the Wolves jumped out to a 20-point lead in the first half on Friday night in the rematch. But they just never could close the door on the Clippers, who missed their first nine 3s after shooting 58 percent from deep in a win on Wednesday night. Once the Clippers started knocking down some of their open shots in the third quarter and tightened their defense, it was a wrap.
Now they go on the road for their first multigame trip of the season. It’s a daunting journey, with games at Memphis, Golden State, the Lakers and Clippers. They need to find themselves, and fast.
“It’s tough right now because we’re struggling,” Anthony Edwards said. “We’re playing good sometimes. We have spurts of playing good, then we play bad and don’t pick it up. It’s tough.”
They are not connected. They are not dynamic. They are the same old Wolves, until they prove otherwise. The season is still so young. It is not time to panic. But there are major areas that need to be addressed, and soon, to get things back on track.
It’s the offense, stupid
Who would have thought that eight games into the season it would be the defense that has carried the day for the Wolves? A team that could be just finishing up a 15-year mortgage in the bottom five of the defensive efficiency rankings has been, outside of one bad quarter against Orlando on Monday and the Clippers on Wednesday, quite good. They are currently ninth in points per 100 possessions and fourth in steals. The 104 points they gave up on Friday night should be enough for this team to win, and it certainly shouldn’t mean a 20-point loss.
The Wolves were blown out in the second half because their halfcourt offense has been an embarrassment. They have missed point guard D’Angelo Russell (ankle) over the last two and a half games, but the problems were there before Russell’s injury. The foundation has been a lack of movement, both in passing the ball and cutting to the basket.
If the Wolves are not scoring points off turnovers, they basically have no chance. They led by 20 points in the first half on Friday night, but never could make the shots they needed to totally close the door. When the offense bogged down in the second half, the Clippers strangled them into submission. They settled for jumpers over and over again, shooting 51 3s and making just 33 percent of them. They lead the league in 3-point attempts (44.4 per game) but are 26th in 3-point percentage (.321). Finch said the Wolves have guys who “are taking far too many” 3s. Edwards went 3 for 12 from deep on Friday night and is 10 for 46 during this four-game skid.
At times the Wolves offense has devolved into turn-taking between Towns, Edwards and Russell. With Russell out of the lineup against the Clippers, if Malik Beasley was not hitting 3s, the Wolves had nothing else.
The Clippers showed the rest of the league the way. They doubled Towns more aggressively than most any team has ever done, even surrounding him before he caught the ball, and dared others including Jarred Vanderbilt, Josh Okogie, Taurean Prince and Jaden McDaniels to beat them. The Wolves are 29th in the league in field goal percentage (.409) and have not been able to make opponents pay for leaving Towns’ teammates open.
Friday night was the perfect example of all that ails the Wolves on offense. The Wolves shot 35.2 percent from the field and 33 percent from 3, but Towns was an efficient 7 for 11 from the field and 3 for 5 from deep. While the rest of his team clanks away, Towns is hitting 51.2 percent of his shots and 49 percent of his 3s. But Towns has taken 20 or more shots just twice this season, an aggressiveness that goes against his inclusive nature.
“I know we go in there and we work hard and I know all the work we put in,” Towns said, “so if they’re going to make a playmaker, I’m going to keep making the right plays and just keep trusting my teammates.”
But 11 shots, and only two in the second half on Friday, is simply not enough for a shooter of Towns’ caliber, particularly on a team that cannot make a shot to save its life otherwise. It is more difficult for a big man to create shots for himself, but the Wolves have no alternatives. They cannot let opponents so easily take Towns out of the game.
“When you’re going to double KAT all the time, yeah, we can create shots out of it, and we did that for a little bit in the third quarter,” Finch said. “But at the same time, it doesn’t feel like there’s a great rhythm out there.”
Towns had two shots — TWO! — in the second half on Friday night, which played right into the Clippers’ hands. Guess what? He made both of them. With the rest of the team shooting as poorly as it is, that just can’t happen.
“I think guys are just trying to do it after one pass,” Finch said. “It’s all about themselves.”
KAT can improve as well
Towns is averaging 23.4 points, 9.2 rebounds and 3.4 assists, more great numbers. His shooting percentages are so far ahead of the rest of his teammates that it’s almost embarrassing. He needs to be utilized better, but he also has areas to improve himself.
He was swarmed by the Clippers in the two-game miniseries, but there were times where he had just Nicolas Batum on him and was not able to position himself to give the guards an easy target to hit. Batum fronted Towns throughout the series, using his length to bother Towns and put him in difficult spots.
Towns was thoroughly outplayed by rival Nikola Jokic when the Wolves played Denver on Oct. 30. The Nuggets surrounded Towns as well, limiting him to 14 points on 11 shots. Jokic scored 26 points on 10-for-23 shooting with 19 rebounds and seven assists.
Against New Orleans, burly center Jonas Valanciunas had 40 rebounds in two games against Towns, who has been much more clear-eyed this season after spending last year in a malaise following the death of his mother.
Towns has always struggled with physicality and has too often got rattled by officiating. More often than not, Towns has a legitimate gripe with officials about the close-call fouls he gets whistled for that he believes others do not. He had kept his composure quite well from the Milwaukee game until Friday night, but a few questionable calls on him got everyone wound up. Towns, and many of the Timberwolves, do not handle tough breaks from the officials very well, and it often affects the on-court product.
“It’s part of our maturity. I think the frustration was a little bit more with just the ball not moving,” Finch said. “Got sticky and guys weren’t getting calls and then you’re easy to guard and then they get some transition buckets on us.”
Towns is infinitely more engaged and invested this season than he was last year, but he has to walk a fine line as he goes through this season. He has never been a player to dominate the shot attempts. He has always said he identifies more with Magic Johnson as someone who likes to keep everyone involved than he does Shaquille O’Neal or another dominant scoring big.
“We need to have cutters and spot-up guys,” Finch said. “Thought he did a good job of putting it on them. They were swarming him down there. He had a couple good finds out of the post for sure.”
Improvement is not linear
There were big expectations for Edwards and Jaden McDaniels in their second seasons, and there has been plenty of promise from both of them. McDaniels has been one of the team’s best individual defenders and Edwards has had his flurries of unstoppable play while showing improved attention to detail on defense. But both have had their struggles as well.
McDaniels simply hasn’t been able to stay out of foul trouble all season. He fouled out in 13 minutes while guarding Paul George on Friday night. He has at least four fouls in six of the eight games so far, including two foul outs.
“Probably just gets his hand caught in the cookie jar once in a while,” Finch said. “Physicality sometimes will bother him, certain matchups. I thought he got some unfortunate breaks out there tonight. I didn’t get a great look at his first foul, but it didn’t feel like it was anything untoward the contact.”
Edwards is working through the process of understanding what shots to take and when. He was just 7 for 22 on Friday night, including 3 for 12 from 3-point range. He has shot double-digit 3s in five of the eight games so far this season despite making just 30 percent of them. Edwards has said that he has to take that shot to keep the defender honest, but the quick triggers in transition or early in the shot clock are starting to draw attention from Finch.
“Sometimes it’s like we’re in a groove and we’re playing well, but a certain guy is not involved, certain guys are not involved in that and then they want to join the party and kind of feels like a record scratch,” Finch said.
Finch has harped on Edwards to drive to the basket more, but the Wolves are also placing an incredible amount of responsibility on his 20-year-old shoulders. They do not have another player on the roster adept at getting into the paint, creating contact and scoring at the rim. The rest of the roster consists almost exclusively of shooters or bigs who cannot break a defender down off the dribble.
“If I ain’t going, then all the coaches looking at me like ‘Go to the rim!,’” Edwards said. “I’m like ‘I’m the only one going to the rim.’ I get it, man. I have fun with it. I don’t know, man.”
He was a little exasperated on Friday night. Edwards entered the season with high hopes and he still has them. But the four-game skid has been a tough one for him to swallow. And you can see the weight of the franchise on his shoulders. Going forward, he will have to make better decisions with his shot selection, which is all part of the learning process for young players in the league.
Everyone wants these guys to be ready to go from the first day, and there have been real flashes of brilliance from both of them. Now the Wolves need some real consistency out of their two wings.
“I’ve got to move the ball more, I’ve got to get to the rim more, get to the free-throw line more,” Edwards said. “We’ve just got to sacrifice for our teammates and try to come up with a win.”
Russell needs to step up
There were some fans who were eager to see who the Wolves would play when Russell left the game against Orlando on Monday at halftime with a sprained right ankle. Russell was 1 for 8 from the field at the time he left, and fans wanted to see Patrick Beverley and Jordan McLaughlin get more of a chance to run the show.
It is understandable why they wanted to look at another point guard. Russell finished last season strong but has been lackluster through the first five and a half games this season. He is averaging 14.8 points and 4.5 assists, both the lowest since his rookie season 2015-16. He is averaging 3.2 turnovers per game and is shooting a career-worst 29 percent from 3-point range and only 36 percent from the field.
But the Wolves have missed his shotmaking, creation and ability to stretch the defense and take some of the attention away from Towns. Edwards said he hoped to have Russell back in the lineup in Memphis on Monday night, which would help organize the offense.
“There will be more better shooters out there,” Edwards said. “Can’t double KAT as much. If they do, D-Lo gonna get them out of it for sure. We ain’t got our starting point guard.”
It was a good bit of rationalization from Edwards, who brushed aside the suggestion that the Pelicans missed Zion, the Nuggets were missing Jamal Murray and on and on. The Bucks were without Jrue Holiday and Brook Lopez when the Wolves went to Milwaukee and won. That is not the Wolves’ fault, but it should be factored in when it comes to evaluating their strengths as a team.
If Russell does indeed return on Monday, it will help the Wolves greatly.
“We need everybody,” Edwards said. “We need everybody from 1 to 15. We need everybody. When we got everybody, we’re good.”
