While the onset of spring seesaws between summer and winter up here on the northern tundra, the Minnesota Timberwolves have been busy weathering a raft of injuries and a more rugged slate of opponents. Through it all, the Wolves find themselves pretty much where they were a year ago: A tier above formidable but a notch below elite in the scrabbling crab barrel that is the Western Conference playoff race.
The team did yeoman work winning four of the first five games after superstar Anthony Edwards was shelved with a knee injury, climaxed by clampdown defensive gems that fueled a road win in Boston (their first in 21 years) and an ugly but epic overtime triumph at home versus the Houston Rockets.
But after that they were sapped and tapped. Even though the Detroit Pistons came to town a full three days later, the Wolves still hadn’t replenished enough of their legs or lungs to let willpower be a factor. Minnesota was pounded in the paint by a point margin of 60-32, and outraced in transition to the tune of a 21-12 deficit in fast break points. They missed 34 of their 43 3-point attempts and got outrebounded 52-38. Final score: 109-87.
Before Monday night’s game in Dallas, the Wolves announced that Jaden McDaniels would be evaluated “week-to-week” due to a bone bruise and tendinopathy in his left knee, language that implies he will be unavailable for the rest of the regular season.
Nevertheless, the Mavericks were a rare cupcake left on the schedule — they hadn’t won at home since late January. Better yet, Ant was finally ready to return, along with Ayo Dosunmu, out the previous two games with a calf injury.
While both played engrossing team basketball, Ayo became the more crucial catalyst. The first of multiple bursts he provided occurred midway through the first period. It began in semi-transition, as Ant hit Ayo in rhythm for a 3-pointer with 17 seconds left on the shot clock to put the Wolves in the lead, 10-8. On the ensuing possession Ayo established position against the larger Daniel Gafford of Dallas and tipped himself the defensive rebound that led to a Donte “Ragu” DiVincenzo trey.
Then Ant grabbed a rebound and arched a long pass to Ragu. But the Mavs recovered quickly and Ragu kicked it back to the onrushing Ayo crossing midcourt. Dallas thought he’d shoot from the arc again, but a nifty crossover dribble put him past the first defender and a deke-filled hesitation, then acceleration down the left lane while shielding the layup with his body, disposed of the second.
Less than a minute later, Ayo was gifted a steal off an errant pass and naturally pushed the pace, dime-ing up Ant for a 3-pointer in the right slot. A minute after that he snagged another rebound, motored up the court, drew two defenders and hit Rudy Gobert in stride for a finger-roll layup, the second time in the game’s first six-and-a-half minutes he’d fed Rudy for an easy bucket within the first seven seconds of a possession.
The Ayo boomlet was capped in signature fashion: Ayo grabbed the defensive rebound with 5:22 left in the first quarter, and, although all four of his teammates were on their horses, speed dribbled ahead of them to confront the defenders, nudging one he’d already turned sideways further aside and lofting a lefty layup over another leaping defender through the hoop with 5:18 on the clock.
The entire sequence described above lasted less than three-and-a-half minutes of game time, during which the Wolves flipped a 7-8 disadvantage into a 23-10 lead.
If that recitation of the Ayo show sounds remarkably similar to what I chronicled in last week’s column, I plead guilty to leaning on the factual evidence demonstrating how and why he has been a godsend for this ballclub.
For the sake of brevity, I’ll give the abridged version of his third-quarter heroics. In the space of 55 seconds (from 9:15 to 8:20 left to play in the period), he drove the lane and kicked it out to Ragu for a 3-pointer, drove the length of the court for a layup, then scored a putback off his offensive rebound. Then, in the space of 83 seconds (6:26 to 5:03), he bookended another assist on a Ragu trey, with dimes for layups by Ant and Bones Hyland — and all three assists came in the first five seconds of the shot clock.
When it was over, Ayo had a robust triple-double: 18 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists, with three steals as the chaser on the stat sheet. In the 33:15 he was on the court, the Wolves outscored the Mavs by 30 points. In the 14:45 he sat, the two teams broke even.
The reason Ayo has been so vital over the past few weeks is because for these Timberwolves, speed doesn’t kill, it thrills. It hastens the decision-making of the team’s top two scorers, Ant and Julius Randle, and promotes better community and ownership on both the offensive and defensive ends of the court.
Updating a dynamic I’ve cited before, the Wolves have one of the NBA’s widest disparities in pace between games they win and games they lose. After blowing out Dallas on Monday, they now have operated at a rate of 102.20 possessions for each team per game in their 46 wins, which would be seventh fastest among the 30 teams if they did it throughout the season; and 100.25 possessions for each team in their 29 losses, which would be 17th fastest if that was their season-long norm. Only three teams — New Orleans, Orlando and Washington — have a wider disparity than the 1.95 extra possessions the Wolves generate in their victories, and none of them have as many wins as the Wolves this season.
Yes, Ant’s been great, but …
This brings us to the matter of Ant’s return. To placate the horde of maniacal Ant fans who regard any negative shading of his role on the team a nearsighted betrayal, let me first state that even if every other member of the roster performed with ultimate efficiency, it is highly unlikely that the Wolves could achieve at the level they do with Ant on board. As I’ve stated before, he’s the most important person in the entire Timberwolves franchise.
But imagine if Ant bent and tweaked his game in ways that have proven to be part of a successful Wolves formula.
Of the ten players who have averaged at least 15 minutes of playing time in the Wolves’ rotation this season, the Wolves play at their slowest pace when Ant is on the court. Much of that lag time occurs as Ant encounters opposing defenses that have been assiduously game-planned to stop him. It can take him a while to absorb and then react to their strategy.
But when the Wolves more often seize upon a faster pace generated by the turnovers and defensive rebounds they create, it disrupts those game plans by forcing opponents to match up defensive assignments on the fly. It also fosters quicker decisions as scoring situations more rapidly open and close.
Ant is on record as saying he doesn’t like to play at a fast pace, which at first sounds odd for a player of his superior athleticism. But Ant is also supremely confident in his game and genuinely feels like the more the ball is in his hands, the better chances of the team winning. That confidence — and the tireless work he puts in to justify it — has again become evident in this season’s annual improvement, his elevated efficiency and value in clutch situations.
But the aging of Mike Conley’s floor generalship has siphoned away some of the team’s capability in the half-court offense. There is no other “classic” point guard on the roster. The closest player to Conley’s mindset is Kyle “Slo Mo” Anderson, who, like Randle, operates at the elbows of the paint and doesn’t have the speed-of-foot or the sure handle on his dribble to bring the ball up under full court pressure. Ragu is the starting “point guard” but has a combo-guard’s mentality. Hyland and Dosunmu are in the mix but both like to tromp the throttle and play full-court offense.
As good as Ant has been this season, his playmaking has faltered. His assists per game of 3.7 are the lowest since his rookie season, five years ago. His assist-to-turnover ratio, 1.31-to-1, is the lowest of his career and lower than anyone in the ten-man rotation except for the notoriously klutzy Gobert. Playing at a faster pace not only would mitigate defenses stacked to stop him, but also unleash his speed, quickness and leaping ability. It would actually lessen the wear and tear of being the primary ball-handler without necessarily reducing his chances to make plays — if he bought in and caught some of Ayo’s draft speeding up the court.
Another nitpick of Ant’s game is his tendency to lose focus on defense. I dealt with this in detail in a previous column and won’t belabor it now. Suffice to say that it is common knowledge around the NBA that Ant is one of the league’s premier on-ball defenders — when sufficiently motivated. At the beginning of this season, he acknowledged the inconsistency at that end of the court and vowed to bring his A-game most every night. At best, the jury is still out on the follow-through of that vow.
A case could be made that Ant and the other Wolves core starters were overloaded for much of the season as the team’s vaunted “young core” of Terrence Shannon Jr., Rob Dillingham and Jaylen Clark all failed to deliver on raised expectations of their value.
But the acquisition of Ayo and Slo Mo at the trade deadline to go with bench regulars Naz Reid and Bones Hyland have given the Wolves genuine depth, especially at the defensive end. Slo Mo has dramatically improved the Naz-Randle frontcourt minutes when Gobert is off the floor by operating as a pseudo point guard on offense and a crafty smallball center on defense while ostensibly playing small forward. Since he joined the team on March 2, the Wolves have yielded a remarkably stingy 99.6 points per 100 possessions, way below the team’s overall mark of 110.3 points allowed per 100 possessions in that 14-game span.
The Wolves have found a way to win without Ant this season, posting 10 victories during 16 games when he has been absent, a winning percentage of 62.5%. They are 36-23 when he plays, a winning percentage of 61%. Again, this is not to minimize Ant’s greatness — he is the supersized talent that is alone capable of raising the ceiling to the level of legitimate championship aspirations.
But the Wolves have been relatively as successful without Ant as with Ant. It is thus logical to try and ascertain how to blend the team’s strengths when Ant isn’t playing to the existing virtues when he is playing. If that synthesis became synergy, the Wolves might not be a notch below elite. With slightly more than a handful of games left in the regular season, followed by the grind of the playoffs, there is no better time to embark upon that synthesis project than right now.
Join Britt Robson for a virtual pre-game chat!🏀
Join Britt for a Zoom event on Tuesday, Apr. 7 at 5 p.m. CT. Britt will chat about the Timberwolves season and answer your questions. This event is free, but registration is required. Register now.
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