Another second half collapse is real cause for concern for the Minnesota Timberwolves

The Minnesota Timberwolves have become unreliable.

In retrospect, it was probably inevitable, but it’s beginning to fester like a hangnail just the same.

Remember back in 2023? Before the ball dropped in Times Square, the Wolves had the second-best record in the NBA at 24-7 and had beaten the only team ahead of them in their lone matchup. Their defense was more than two points better per 100 possessions than anybody else, and became a five-player sleeper hold on opponents after halftime.

In the third quarter, their on-ball pressure and fearsome rim protection squished their foes like a bug. Minnesota allowed 100.7 points per 100 possessions in 31 third quarters before the calendar flipped on the 2023-24 season. That was a staggering 7.1 fewer points allowed than the second-best defense.

If an opponent managed to survive that third quarter and make it into the final stanza, they almost never had the juice to finish the task. The Wolves won 11 out of 12 games that were competitive enough to be called “clutch” – defined by the NBA as the period of time when teams are within five points of each other and there is less than five minutes left to play. They had the league’s fourth-best offense to go with the fourth-best defense in those moments, and shot the ball more accurately, in terms of effective field goal percentage and true shooting percentage, than any team.

But perhaps the most telling stat is that in the October through December period that comprised the 2023 part of the 2023-24 season, the Wolves ranked 26^th in total clutch minutes played, just 42. Opponents simply weren’t getting that close that often, and if they did, it was an uphill slog against a very confident team accustomed to triumph.

Not so in 2024.

In the first 20 games of the New Year, the Wolves have already logged more clutch minutes, 53, than they experienced in the 31 from 2023 – the second-most in the NBA. No, it is not a huge sample size, but those relatively scant minutes are the most consequential, and often reflect the mood and tenor of a team. What they reflect about the Timberwolves is not good.

The Wolves went 11-1 in games with clutch minutes in this season’s calendar year 2023 because they scored 23.7 more points per 100 possessions than they allowed in those tight situations. Thus far in 2024, the Wolves’ record in games with clutch minutes is 3-8 because they have scored 20.8 fewer points than they allowed in the clutch. That’s a whopping 42.5-point swing per 100 possessions, caused by a decline of 32.1 points by the offense and 12.4 points by the defense. Even granting the careening nature of small samples, that’s extraordinary regression.

As of Thursday morning, the Wolves are 11-9 in 2024. If you do the math on 3-8 in clutch games, that means they’ve had a good chance to win all but one contest of the 20 played this calendar year. But are middling – unreliable – in eventual outcome.

The past week has been emblematic of the Wolves’ current checkered routine. They walloped a woefully shorthanded Dallas Mavericks team to close out January, then blew a 17-point first half lead in a two-point loss to Orlando. They toyed with Houston for a second straight time to finish a home stand, then lost to the Bulls in Chicago after being up 22 at the half.

Between the Dallas and Orlando games, Anthony Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns were named to the Western Conference All Star team. The Houston win ensured that Chris Finch and the rest of his staff would be coaching the West All Stars as tribute to the Wolves holding the best record in the Western Conference two weeks before the game.

But the good vibes couldn’t tune out some underlying discordance. Rudy Gobert – the most consistent Wolves player and leader of their top-ranked defense – was stiffed in the All Star selection process. Then the Orlando loss made the All Star hoopla feel like nostalgia from another time (and it was – 2023). When I asked Finch after practice the next day after the Chicago collapse if he had a breaking point, he welcomed the question, revealed that he put his team through a blistering film study of the entire fourth quarter, and said, “I think what was needed today was absolute clarity and redefining some roles and getting some people back in their boxes and getting them to worry about the right things and the things they do best.”

Much of the Wolves offensive inefficiency, especially in crunch time, seems to come from a lack of structure. When I posed that issue to point guard Mike Conley in the locker room after Orlando, he stated that more structure had been implemented, but that the players still had to read and react to the defense as part of maximizing the play call.

Finch confirmed this at practice.

“We have a few sets that have been good to us to close games with. They involve getting our best players the ball in space, in action. When that happens, they have to make the right play. If they dust off the play and just go iso (isolation, or solo against the defense), then we don’t know what’s coming next, so the rhythm of the offense just falls down. Maybe we turn it over, maybe we get caught in poor transition, certainly we maybe don’t get a good shot. At that point in time, my breaking point is I don’t give them the ball at the end of games. I think the ball has to be back in Mike’s (Conley’s) hands a lot more at the end of games. And that’s something you’ll see differently coming up.”

In the cakewalk over Houston, late game offense was a moot issue. In the collapse against Chicago, the poor judgment and execution looked depressingly familiar.

I believe two of the best aspects of this Wolves team are the coaching of Finch and the play of Ant. Their mutual admiration should be a source of reassurance for Wolves fans – a coach who has taken the Wolves to the playoffs in every full season he has spent with the team and a 22-year old nascent superstar.

But if they are on the same page, they are reading it in different languages. And they know it.

To avoid outright friction, they coat it in humor.

One of Finch’s great virtues is the ability to criticize in a manner that doesn’t make it personal. His style is direct and honest, more book report than expository sermon, seemingly weighted with facts far more than opinion, so that any rebuttal is induced to proceed on the same grounds. When the win over Houston secured the coach’s presence at the All Star game, his players were universal in praising him for his clear communication and bottom-line accountability. And Finch was equally magnanimous in praising their “coachability.”

But some sly levity shaded the sunshine a bit. Asked what it might feel like to be coaching Lebron James and other legends, he capped his “amazing honor” gushing with, “And like these guys (his own Wolves players), I’m sure they won’t listen to what I have to say either.”

Ant had his own bon mot regarding Finch’s All Star nod.

“I think we’re just going to take all the mid-rangers out of the game,” he said, referring to players whose shot mix includes inefficient shots from the midrange distance from the hoop in the half court. “If one of the starters shoots a midrange, I’mma be like, ‘Finchy we don’t allow those right there.’”

The subtext of this is that Finch has let it be known that he dislikes a preponderance of midrange jumpers and wishes Ant would cut their volume – and that Ant basically ignores him, especially in crunch time, especially when he is going “iso.”

It is beyond dispute that, just as Gobert is the engine behind the Wolves defense with Jaden McDaniels an important complement, Ant is the engine behind the Wolves offense, with KAT an important complement. If you want to understand why Gobert is the Most Valuable Player of this 2023-24 team thus far, it is as simple as the Wolves ranking first in defensive efficiency this entire season, while the offensive efficiency has just as steadily been mired a notch of two above the bottom ten in the 30-team NBA (it currently ranks 19^th).

Of course everything is relative. For the third straight season, Ant’s overall numbers have noticeably improved across the board. His field goal percentage, three-point percentage and free-throw percentage are all career highs.

But it is not unfair to point out that they should be higher – and would be, with a smarter shot mix. The two most efficient shots are at the rim and from behind the three-point arc. Per basketball-reference.com, Ant has taken 27.9% of his career field goal attempts from zero to three feet away from the basket. Thus far this season it is 21.4%. For his career, 35.5% of his shots have been three-pointers. This season it is 31.4%. Inaccurate midrange jumpers make up the difference, with Ant setting career-highs in frequency from three-10 feet out (19.3% of the mix this season compared to 15.3% for his career), from 10-16 feet out (13.3% this season versus 7.4% for his career) and from 16 feet out to the three-point line (12.4% versus 8.6%).

Ant is not an especially accurate midrange shooter. On the contrary, for the season, per nba.com, he is ninth in midrange attempts yet 44^th among the 50 most-frequent midrange shooters in terms of accuracy. Over the last ten games he is 11^th in overall attempts and 49^th among the top 50 midrange gunners in terms of accuracy.

The caveats here are that Ant is getting to the free throw line more often, which improves his efficiency, and that, while his turnovers are a career high, his assists have improved at an even greater rate, which means he is getting his teammates involved better than ever. The counter is that Ant is improving each year on a baseline of inefficiency, relative to his high usage.

On Tuesday night, his dominant first half included 23 points on 3-4 shooting from three-point territory, 3-7 from inside the arc and nary a miss in eight free throw attempts. He also had four assists versus a single turnover as the Wolves scored 69 points in 24 minutes. The team was plus 20 in the 18:22 Ant played and plus two in the 5:38 he sat.

In the second half and overtime, Ant scored 15 points on 2-for-5 shooting from three-point range, 4-for-10 from two-point territory and just three free throws, of which he made one. He had but one assists and three turnovers as the Wolves scored 54 points in 29 minutes. The team was minus 24 in the 25:11 he played and minus four in the 3:49 he sat.

Oh, and Conley had four assists in the first half, four assists in the second half and zero assists in overtime, when Ant took two-thirds of his team’s shots. Conley finished the game with zero turnovers.

Obviously, not all of the Wolves offensive troubles can be blamed on Ant. Put bluntly, Finch and company are squandering the best long-range shooting team in franchise history. The team is third in the NBA in accuracy from behind the arc, at 39.1%, yet 22^nd in three-point attempts. (The good news is that KAT is finally upping his three-point volume.)

Three of the top six players in the rotation are shooting better than 40% from distance, led by KAT at 43.7%, then Conley at 43.6% and Naz Reid at 41.3%. And none of the other three are below 36%, led by Ant at 39.4%.

The 2024 regression to nearly .500 basketball after the lofty heights to start the 2023-24 season creates the thirst for a roster shakeup. It is no secret that the bottom of the rotation has hurt the team’s offense, and the need for bench help in the form either a playmaking point guard or prolific scorer is palpable.

According to The Athletic’s Jon Krawcznski, the beat writer with the best connections on inside intelligence, President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly has been active seeking one of the other, with hometown product Tyus Jones as the sexiest option and rumor. The difficulty is that the Wolves sacrificed most of their draft picks in the trade for Gobert, and any teams in selling mode at the trade deadline are clearly looking to rebuild with youth.

Whether Connelly can be creative (and circumstantially lucky) enough to make a deal or not, the Wolves have raised expectations with their glorious first half of the season. Even if the team succeeds in adding a solid bench piece in place of disappointments like Shake Milton and (to a lesser extent) Troy Brown Jr., it won’t move the needle as much as reverting to the suffocating defense that propelled the fast start and making better decisions on offense.

Otherwise, continuing this five-week stretch of unreliable performance will lead to more dramatic changes in the makeup of this team as the new majority owners contemplate soaring into luxury tax territory over the salary cap.

Late on Wednesday afternoon, President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly provided a smart, conservative, multipurpose patch in the form point guard Monte Morris, acquired from Detroit for Shake Milton, Troy Brown Jr. and a 2030 second-round draft pick.

To call Morris a Swiss Army knife would be overstating it. He’s more like an adjustable wrench that should be very handy for the Wolves in a few specific ways.

He’s had extensive experience as a floor general. When Connelly was running the Denver Nuggets two years ago, he plugged Morris in as the starter at the point after the team’s second-best player, Jamal Murray, was out all season with a torn ligament. He logged the fourth-most minutes on a team that made the playoffs. And last season he was the starter for the Washington Wizards.

In those two seasons, he was a respected three-point shooter, canning 39.5% for Denver on a volume of 4.2 attempts per game, and making 38.2% for Washington on 3.3 attempts. (His career accuracy from distance is 38.9% in what is now his seventh season.) Better yet, he takes care of the ball. In those two seasons as a starter he dished 659 dimes versus 138 miscues for a gaudy assist-to-turnover rate of 4.8-to-1.

In other words, the insurance policy on any injuries to Wolves 36-year-old Conley just got upgraded.

The trade also didn’t significantly constrain the Wolves’ already dicey salary cap situation moving forward. The $9.8 million Morris is making this season is very close to the combined $9 million it cost to pay Milton and Brown. And while the Wolves had the option of terminating the deals for both now-traded players after this season, Morris’ contract is expiring anyway.

Morris doesn’t possess galaxy-brain court vision or above-average athleticism. He’s simply a capable pro who has bailed out a Connelly team in the recent past. He attributes are modest – but reliable. Which is what the 2024 Timberwolves need as they head into the playoff push on the final 30 games of the season.