We are a whisker beyond the two-thirds mark of the 2023-24 NBA season – 67.1%, to be precise, with 55 of 82 games in the books – and it is high time that the worriers and cynics among the Minnesota Timberwolves fan base cease being fools.
Be it their dread or their gawker-slowdown regard for this team, each acts as a parasitic drain on the succulent spectacle of joyous, masterful hoops, the likes of which haven’t been seen around these parts for at least 20 years. At this point, the best worst-case scenario for these doomsday Draculas is a melodramatic, “I told you so” in mid-April – after an overwhelmingly giddy arcade ride that we strapped in for back in late October.
Yes, I understand the gall required for me to write those words. Spooked by the kindergarten-grade level of maturity the Wolves paraded throughout the embarrassing loss to Charlotte four weeks ago, followed by a trio of fourth-quarter collapses – plus a couple of flirting-with-disaster bouts of crunch time ineptitude –over the next eight games, I declared the team to be “unreliable” and poor-mouthed them with stats and snide asides as recently as last week.
But then the good times rolled anew.
A day before the trading deadline, President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly dumped two recent minor mistakes – summer of ’23 free-agent signees Shake Milton and Troy Brown Jr. – and filled an inside straight by acquiring backup point guard Monte Morris in the swap. Morris can run pick-and-roll and splash a three-pointer. He can calm down jitters or take a back seat as the situation warrants. Best of all, his assist-to-turnover ratio is elite – as in top five in the NBA the last couple of seasons – which is a balm and a boon for a squad frequently besieged by careless decisions with the ball.
Head Coach Chris Finch compared Morris to current starter Mike Conley, which is a mostly truthful statement flecked with wishful thinking. The important gist is that their styles and temperaments are very similar, and that Morris spent the previous two years starting more than 130 games at the point for Denver and Washington, respectively, helping the Nuggets get into the playoffs the last year Connelly was running the show in Denver.
But the arrival of Morris isn’t the reason the Wolves have suddenly become a beast at both ends of the court. After four weeks of mediocrity (ratified by their 8-7 record) to start the new year, the team has reasserted its defensive identity and added the spangles of a potent, efficient point production by the offense.
Faced with a pair of opponents who by consensus are expected to go deep into the playoffs, the Wolves returned to the snuff-‘em-out, third quarter defense that defined their rise to the top of the Western Conference standings, erasing the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Clippers, yielding just 22 points to Milwaukee and 19 to the Clips.
But that huzzah-worthy development was buttressed by an offense worthy of partnership. As the Wolves were limiting their theoretically fearsome foes to a combined 41 points in those two third quarters, the offense was swiping right on the abacus up to 79 points.
The sample size on this sudden offensive renaissance is actually larger than a third quarter of two games. To get an accurate grasp of the past two weeks, we will use the website Cleaning the Glass, which omits “garbage time” play when the game is out of reach and end-of-the-bench players get rare minutes of action. In the seven contests from Jan. 31 to Feb. 13 (stats from last night’s Portland game were not yet available), the Wolves yet again have the best defense in the NBA – a miniscule 104.3 points allowed per 100 possessions, which is more than three points fewer than other team. The revelation is that the offense, which throughout the season has wobbled between 15th and 20th in efficiency, rang up 122.9 points per 100 possessions, third in the NBA over that span.
What happened? And is it sustainable?
Answering the first question goes a long way toward answering the second question.
What happened was the Wolves finally started fixing the blatantly obvious flaws in how their offense operated. Their top two scorers, Anthony Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns, had set the template for bad basketball by routinely dribbling into triple coverage clustered down near the basket in an inevitably futile draw fouls and/or convert ridiculously difficult shots. They were driven to protesting distraction (especially Ant) when they didn’t get the call from the officials, and forfeited possession and overwhelming majority of the time via missed shots or turnovers.
This isolation “hero ball” was directly at odds with the “ball movement, movement without the ball, quick decision-making” catechism of Finch’s offensive approach. It failed to take advantage of the bevy of quality three-point shooters on the roster.
There are other factors in the offensive inefficiency, and the blame obviously extends beyond Ant and KAT. But the fact remains that from the start of the season through Jan. 30, only the Utah Jazz turned the ball over at a higher rate than the Wolves. And during that same period – the 2023-24 season up until a little more than two weeks ago – the Wolves had the second highest accuracy from three-point range, 39.1% but ranked 27th in the volume of three-point attempts. Both significantly contributed to their 19th offensive rating in that span.
By contrast, since Jan. 31, the Wolves rank 15th in turnover rate, essentially average among the 30 teams. And while their three-point accuracy ranks third in that two week period (and has actually gone up to 40.9%), their volume has climbed to 13th in attempts. Presto: Their offensive rating (with garbage time included, as we are going with nba.com for these more detailed numbers) is up to 4th in the NBA.
Why did the team finally take the blatant hints on how to score more efficiently? It’s no surprise that one of the best explanations came from Conley, the sage veteran, who referenced a team meeting where the statement was made the entire team had to work harder. Hat tip to my podcast partner Dane Moore for the following quote (slightly edited here for brevity).
“We work so hard on defense that we forget you have to have to put that effort in on offense – you have to cut, screen, drive the lane just to give up your body to make a play for one another. The last few weeks we’ve done that,” said Conley. “You’ve seen it more and more where guys are kicking it to the corner and swinging it one more time and then a guy drives and finds Rudy (Gobert) for the lob. All that stuff was kind of missing during that stretch where we weren’t playing well.”
Another possible key is that Finch finally listened to Gobert’s plea to have the Wolves shoot at the basket directly in front of the Wolves bench when they are on the road, so that Finch can implement and enforce the structure he has installed in the past month or so to reduce turnovers and move the ball quickly. (The road team gets to choose ends of the court, which flip at halftime.) Gobert has also been on the bandwagon for more three-point shots.
Last but certainly not least, the Wolves are playing better offense because they are finally sick and tired of their self-sabotage. And with the talent this team has on its roster – upgraded by the addition of Morris – improved offense should be sustainable so long as they selflessly expend the energy (per Conley), listen to their coach, especially in the second half (per Gobert), and retain the maturity required to enable rather than betray their skills and the coaches’ schemes.
As fans and pundits, there is obvious and somewhat necessary nit-picking to be had, as we engage and absorb the game we love. But it is also healthy to appreciate what an outlier this season has been in the history of the Wolves franchise. Those who opt for cynicism, martyrdom, or some Stockholm Syndrome-addled blend of the two might want to consider that we’ve absorbed some of the dysfunction that suffused this franchise for the fallow period from 2005-2021, when 15 of the 16 Timberwolves teams ended the season with a losing record. Maybe you’ve decided you’d rather be heartless than heartbroken.
Meanwhile, in a make-or-miss league where getting stops has become increasingly difficult, the Timberwolves have been playing historically great defense for nearly four months now – and are sending two teammates to this weekend’s All Star game who are renowned for their phenomenal skills on offense.
They own the second-best record in the NBA, and have played the lone team above them, the Boston Celtics, to a draw in their two meetings – both overtime games, with each side winning once. Against opponents with a current record of .500 or better, they are 23-11 and have a .500 or better record against every winning team they have faced except Phoenix, who beat them in their only matchup thus far.
They have played the fewest home games of any team in the NBA, where they are 19-5. Seventeen of the 27 games they play to finish out the season after the All Star break are at home.
In Conley and Gobert, the Wolves have superb veteran leadership, with Conley’s supernatural composure and Gobert’s palpable passion creating a complementary blend. Kyle Anderson is a vocal veteran and a stickler for accountability. KAT is a max-salary star who doesn’t pull rank with his teammates. The trio of Ant, Jaden McDaniels and Naz Reid, form a special brotherhood of burgeoning stars (or in Ant’s case, superstar) just coming in to their first fat contracts. Each provides an extraordinary skill and yet a broader swath of talents and virtues than one might initially suspect. Nickeil Alexander-Walker has been a revelation this season, providing the “sublime surprise” factor that is a crucial component of any team overachieving on initial expectations.
I’ve been in Timberwolves locker room since 1990. Watched Chuck Person, Christian Laettner and Doug West talk smack about each other to the media just loud enough for everyone to hear. Watched Kevin Garnett get torn between his loyalty to Flip Saunders and his desire to support Latrell Sprewell’s contract demands (egged on by Sam Cassell). Seen Jimmy Butler and Jamal Crawford freeze out KAT as they scanned the box score after every game and muttered things that made each other laugh, win or lose. Seen the gnomic passive-aggressiveness of D’Angelo Russell.
I’ve also seen really harmonious Wolves locker rooms.
Not surprisingly, one of the best was the 2003-04 season when they went past the first round, KG was MVP, and there was a cool mix of vocal vets (KG, Cassell and Spree), quiet leadership (Ervin Johnson), resilient role players (the genial Fred Hoiberg, the shy Trenton Hassell), odd ducks (Michael Olowokandi, Wally Szczerbiak), and easy interviews (Troy Hudson, Mark Madsen).
Also not coincidentally, this season ranks with – or maybe above – that 2003-04 group. Some players contribute to great chemistry. Ant fosters it. He’s an alchemist – in the locker room, on the court, with the media. The dude exudes winsome wisdom and goodwill, toasting teammates like the best man at a wedding, shrewdly selecting Conley as his go-to confidante for basketball science class instruction, conflating hyperbole and sincerity in a manner that you take to heart even as you only half-believe it. He’s age 22 both chronologically and as a mean between the best attributes of people age 5 and 39.
Gobert is a different human being this season. As opposed to last season, when he acted and was regarded like a stodgy stepfather in the locker room, he’s now a cherished breadwinner among the tribe, affectionately razzed off the court and paid heed on it. The presence of Conley has been invaluable to this process, and just about everything else. He’s the water of this team, replenishing anything in danger of shriveling and turning seeds of goodness into shoots and blooms. Crucial to everything but able to meld and mix with whatever flavor you want to add.
Without belaboring the rest of the characters, there is precious little discord, contract distractions (SloMo [Anderson] has been a stoic good soldier), or hard boundaries among difference in age, taste or personality.
Further up the ladder, Connelly and Finch have genuine mutual admiration for each other. Despite the appropriate tension over Gobert’s underwhelming first season here, they both doubled down on the “bigs and skilled bigs” blueprint without a scintilla of indecision and had their faith justified. Connelly has quickly erased free-agent misjudgments and been a wizard at trade deadline roster tweaks. Finch continues to speak bluntly without creating friction and never seems to duck a question regardless of who is asking.
Are there concerns about the litany of past playoff failures on the roster and how that will affect the team come the first-round series against a foe whose record is lesser but is likely to be formidable and star-studded anyway? Absolutely. Are there concerns about blowing past the salary cap in a manner that hamstrings (in the medium term) or short-circuits (in the near term) what has been an immaculate bit of roster construction? Yup.
But a whisker more than two-thirds of the way through the 2023-24 season, the Timberwolves have proven themselves to be one of the two best teams in the NBA, with a lot of ammunition that they will continue to be so in the final third of the schedule.
That is remarkable. And a wellspring for positivity for any and all who follow hoops in this region. Scan the roster. Consider the individuals, and then the mix. There is a lot of joy to be had here. And it’s contagious, so don’t be careful.
Britt Robson
Britt Robson has covered the Timberwolves since 1990 for City Pages, The Rake, SportsIllustrated.com and The Athletic. He also has written about all forms and styles of music for over 30 years.
