The Minnesota Timberwolves continued their home opener against the Utah Jazz, which head coach Chris Finch described before the game as another opportunity for his team to further develop their maturity as a team.
Great teams are able to combine great performances against championship teams like the Wolves against the Denver Nuggets on Wednesday with equally good games against weaker teams. Since the Jazz are 2-4 and have lost three of their last four games, Saturday certainly fits that description.
It’s clear Finch has made strong starts because this Wolves team isn’t built to climb out of holes. The evolving identity is rooted in half-court execution on both sides rather than a run-and-gun style that can score points quickly. His team made this message a reality early on.
Minnesota played a more structured offense, getting Anthony Edwards to get the ball around off-ball screens to attack switches and getting good spacing to create driving and passing lanes for their young star. Attacking gaps to create for himself and others, Edwards scored or assisted on all of the Wolves’ first nine points while his team made eight of its first nine shots.
Karl-Anthony Towns joined him by playing face-off ball against the much thinner John Collins, whom he tackled twice for points and a third time for a shooting foul, giving him a quick six points and the Wolves one early gave us a healthy lead of 17:8. The two teams then traded shots, which was due to some good distance and shooting spacing and a mix of poor defensive errors.
Jazz head coach Will Hardy then brought Lauri Markkanen back into the game and released him (and the rest of the team) from deep. The Finn hit a trio of hard three-pointers to bring Utah back within three points before sophomore winger Ochai Agbaji hit a stunning three-pointer to make it 29-27 for the Wolves.
Even when Utah didn’t hit the ball on 3-pointers, they took their misses; The Jazz scored seven points on seven offensive boards, which continued into the second quarter. The Jazz did a good job of penetrating the paint only to squirt it back out during corner splashes, eventually softening up the interior defense for drivers like Keyonte George and Talen Horton-Tucker. Utah mixed its attacks well and kept the Wolves’ defense off balance in the first half of the quarter.
Kyle Anderson was great for Minnesota throughout the half, scoring six points, dishing out four assists, blocking two shots and making one steal in his 16 minutes. His playmaking has been crucial for a Wolves team that is still struggling to find consistent production from Nickeil Alexander-Walker or Shake Milton. Anderson was the link between Towns and Naz Reid, who quickly scored nine points in 13 minutes in the first half. This trio had a net rating of +11.7 entering the game and will be fun to follow.
But as soon as Edwards arrived, he sensed it was time to take matters into his own hands, as he usually does at crowded home games.
The All-Star engine realized that the Jazz didn’t have a single defender who could stay with him in straight-line driving situations, and so he easily assembled the league’s 24th-ranked defense. Whether it was quick attacks, Euro-stepping through the lane or trying to dunk over Kelly Olynyk, Edwards lent energy and goals to an offense that struggled to get open attention for most of the quarter.
Minnesota rode that wave, playing with more tempo and outscoring Utah with a 15-5 run to end the half and go into halftime with a 55-50 halftime lead behind Edwards’ game-high 19 points.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but when the Wolves came out of the locker room they were once again playing with very little energy. There wasn’t much man or ball movement against Utah’s man-to-man defense, and the Jazz managed a small 8-4 run capped by an explosive THT dunk over Gobert, prompting a timeout by Finch.
Out of the scrimmage, Utah switched to a hybrid 2-2-1 zone, which served as a hard reset of sorts for the Timberwolves’ offense. Minnesota started moving the ball, finding the middle of the zone and just picking it apart. The Wolves scored on six straight possessions, highlighted by two much-needed 3-pointers from Towns, who started the season 5/24 (20.8%) from beyond the arc. KAT and Co. used this explosion to extend the lead to eight before the usual suspects arrived and opened the game.
“It was great to see some threes come in for him because we really need that. We need him to take more. He’s looked really good for most of the season so far. It was only a matter of time before they went in. He also had a matchup in the post. It was nice to see him finally start a run,” Finch said of the three-time All-Star. “It’s good to get a few games going. The spacing was really good and led to a lot of really good things for him and us.
In the midst of that onslaught, McDaniels picked up his fourth foul in just seven minutes of play, prompting Finch to turn to Anderson, who was soon joined by Reid. They, along with Towns, scored the team’s next 17 points, highlighted by a Slow-Mo buzzer-beater that capped a terrific 37-27 Timberwolves frame. At the other end of the field, Minnesota only worked one-sixth from deep after allowing 10 made 3-pointers in the first half alone.
On that scoring run, Anderson scored two difficult isolation points as the shot clock expired, and Reid did a phenomenal job converting the Wolves’ defensive rebound into a transition scoring look at the other end of the court. And as the team got going in the halfcourt, Towns fouled in the middle of the defense to keep the pressure on. Minnesota scored a season-high 31 goals while scoring 24 times (77.4%), led by Towns, who scored nine of his 10 free balls.
It was the best game of the year for KAT, which finished with 25 points on 7/14 shooting, seven rebounds and two steals.
The Wolves had a 92-77 lead after three plays, which quickly climbed to over 20 after a three-pointer from Reid and a pick-six from Conley following a turnover. From there, Minnesota reached the finish line in an ugly offensive fourth quarter that included three minutes of play and just one shot on both sides. Edwards ended that losing streak with a huge windmill jam, putting the finishing touches on an impressive, businesslike 123-95 victory for a now 3-2 Timberwolves team that held its opponent under 100 points for the fourth time in five games. Minnesota now holds the No. 1 defensive rating in the league (101.5) and the No. 4 net rating in the NBA (+7.4).
Edwards finished the game with 31 points on 13/19 shooting, eight rebounds and six assists, which was a complete performance from him after setting the tone with a great first quarter. With his final score, Edwards surpassed the 5,000-point mark for his career, the fewest games scored in franchise history (228).
This story will be updated throughout the night as coaching and player media becomes available.
Photo by David Berding/Getty Images
A defensive identity
No NBA team has held its opponent under 100 points more times in the first two weeks of the season than the Minnesota Timberwolves (four). That matches the number of times they made it throughout the entire 2022-23 season, including the postseason.
“You just won’t win much if you’re not careful. I’ve been on teams that tried to outperform others and that looks great. But often you end up on the wrong side of the scoreboard and it’s not much fun. You don’t feel like you can ever control the game, even if you score,” Finch said after the game.
“When I got here and we were really young, it was just easier to have a chase mentality than to read too much and stuff like that, so just put it behind you…Last year I don’t think we ever had an identity have found . We just never did,” he admitted seriously. “We have done a lot of good things. We have reinvented ourselves many times over time. But at the beginning of the season, we just knew based on our lineup that it had to be defense. It had to be a defense and it had to be big. If you want to play big with big guys, you have to do the things that big teams do. Great teams should be physical and play defense.”
There is no doubt that the Timberwolves found success early on in their journey to establishing a defensive identity. Outside of the second half in Atlanta, they played nine strong defensive halves and showed promise in fixing two key problems they had last season: consistently losing the battle for points due to turnovers and rebounds. On Saturday, Minnesota scored a season-high 23 points on 18 forced turnovers and won 43-39 along the boards against a big Utah team despite allowing 17 offensive rebounds that led to 24 second-chance points.
Finch was quick to praise his players and coaches.
“First and foremost, our boys are convinced of the urgency of returning. We highlighted anyone who wasn’t doing their part in the transition and we had some guys who had bad habits and they were a lot better, certainly since Game 1 but all season long,” Finch said before introducing the new Co Coach praised Corliss Williamson for taking the lead in transforming the team’s transition defense.
“[He] did a really, really good job of developing our plan of attack in defensive transition. We are more organized than ever before. He kind of oversees it for us and made it easy. … But what it comes down to is you have to care, you have to come back, you have to have a give-a-fuck factor.”
This combination has resulted in the Timberwolves posting the league’s best defensive rating in transition despite allowing opponents’ sixth-highest transition rate. Minnesota undoubtedly needs to be better at simply winning back so that rebounds and steals can’t become transition opportunities; But when it comes, Wolves have done an excellent job of preventing them from slipping into points.
Next up
The Wolves will keep the homestand going by welcoming Jayson Tatum and the red-hot Boston Celtics to Target Center on Monday night. Fans can watch the 7pm tip-off on Bally Sports North.
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