The Minnesota Timberwolves have a record of 2-15 in their last 17 games. When will the struggles stop for the Wolves?
The Minnesota Timberwolves have been a very exciting team to watch at times. Unfortunately, this excitement only comes in certain spurts of the game. In their last two games, the T-wolves took a lead through the first quarter. Against the New Orleans Pelicans, the T-wolves led by a whopping 38-25, but then proceeded to never top 30 in a quarter the rest of the game.
On Wednesday night, they grabbed a 33-23 lead over the Dallas Mavericks after one, but again didn’t get anywhere near to 30 in a quarter the rest of the way.
Part of the problem is on defense. The Timberwolves have given up enormous piles of points throughout this rough patch, which you saw against the Pelicans, giving up 114, and recently against the Oklahoma City Thunder, who cruised by scoring 113.
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The T-wolves won’t win games if they can’t play defense; they have to become more defensively stable this season and make improvements on that end. Karl-Anthony Towns noted that after Wednesday’s overtime loss in Dallas:
"“We definitely took a great step tonight. We just couldn’t contain. We couldn’t do what we needed to do, which was hold a lead, and it hurt us at the end.”"
The Wolves do have some positives about their recent play. According to Timberwolves PR, Towns and Andrew Wiggins both scored more than 20 points for the seventh time. The only under-21 duo to do it more in single season is Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook.
We know the T-wolves have talent. Shabazz Muhammed brings talent, as do Wiggins, Towns and Ricky Rubio. The problem likely starts with coaching. The Zach LaVine experience with head coach Sam Mitchell is rough to say the least, and there’s no real idea for an offense.
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They struggle shooting behind the arc, and don’t take nearly enough shots from there, which all relates back to the coach and his system.
The Timberwolves have a really tough stretch coming up. They take on the Memphis Grizzlies, Cleveland Cavaliers, Thunder, Utah Jazz and Portland Trail Blazers. Sadly, they could lose all these games. What would be nice to see is gradual improvement defensively. They don’t have an identity on defense except for Towns, but Towns can’t clean up everything for them.
They need defensive efforts out of Rubio and Wiggins, especially.
Things to look for if we are going to see the T-wolves stop struggling is LaVine needs to be more productive. When LaVine is productive and active, they get a whole lot scarier. The good news is that Mitchell might be toying around with a Nikola Pekovic/Towns combo.
Kevin Garnett sat out of Wednesday’s game on a back-end of a back-to-back, and Mitchell opted to go with the double bigs again. This might be interesting to work with when they play the Grizzlies on Saturday. They can improve and turn things around if they play from the inside out.
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This means if they focus on either attacking the rim, attacking and dishing to Towns, or towns getting the ball, they can then work jump shots out of that.