3 Lessons For The Timberwolves For Game 3
As the Timberwolves come back to Target Center on Friday, there is a lot they can learn from their first two playoff games against the Nuggets.
Welcome to By Derek James, a weekly newsletter about all things professional basketball— from the NBA, WNBA and everything in between. Each week, Derek James will provide you analysis and commentary on the league through nearly decade of covering the leagues. Please subscribe for regular updates.
There is now the option to support my work for $5/month or $50/year. Whether you support the newsletter with a paid subscription or your time, I am grateful.
If there is one thing you should know going into Friday’s Game 3, it’s that the Timberwolves are 6-5 (by my count, so grain of salt there) all-time in the third game of a playoff series. Some of those include Seattle in ‘98, Portland in ‘00 and San Antonio in ‘01. All this series, like this season, they were the underdogs.
My personal favorite is being at Target Center in 2001 and losing my mind as a 12-year-old. Terrell Brandon had 24-6-9 to go with Kevin Garnett’s 22-8-4. Wally Szczerbiak added 18 points and combined with Garnett, the pair shot 22 free throws. The Spurs could not hit a basket and lost 93-84, but won Game 4 and the series.
You do not want to go into Game 3 down 0-2 as the underdog. The Timberwolves have done it more times than not in their history, including this season. This time, it’s not that they trail the series by two games, it’s how they have. If the Timberwolves want to be successful, they are going to have to learn some lessons from the start of this series.
Slow Starts Dig Holes
In Game 1, they lose total control of the game in the second half and the Nuggets win by 29 points. Then, this is how the Wolves began Game 2:
The Timberwolves struggled to move on offense and bend the Nuggets defense. You can see on both charts illustrate how the Wolves too often settled for 3’s as a result. Defensively, Denver got some good second chance points in the first half. Despite Anthony Edwards and Rudy Gobert scoring in double figures, the Timberwolves still trailed at halftime.
I am fully aware and understanding of how shorthanded this team is in this series. Jaden McDaniels is no elite scorer, but he can contribute offensively and is a legit perimeter defender. Naz Reid poses a lot of challenges for many opposing bench defenses, too.
The firepower may not be there, but the last thing this team should want to do is lose 3.5 uncompetitive games to end the season. They have to do something with the players they do have. Mike Conley was efficient on Wednesday, but another good dose of Kyle Anderson would help. The question becomes who else can give the team the lift they have needed in this series.
Let’s Talk Towns
I tweeted about this at the time, but Towns cannot have a first half like he did on Wednesday. Towns did not make a field goal and had three fouls, minimizing any positive effect of his seven rebounds. When you couple that with his previous playoff performances and Game 1’s 5-for-15 outing, it looks bad. It just does. Towns is still, arguably, this team’s best player and has not consistently looked like it in the postseason.
Of course, once Towns scored eight points on 3-of-4 shooting and grabbed five boards in the third quarter, and then I got replies. But he did not make another shot for the rest of the game. I do not think it’s a coincidence that when Towns got going, the team had a rally of a quarter and trailed by just two points going into the fourth.
I am not writing this to bag on Towns. He is a much better player than he has shown in most of his playoff appearances. Edwards was awesome, with 27 second-half points to have the first 40-point game in franchise history. But relying on that type of performance every night is not sustainable.
Towns is an All-NBA-level talent who did have a significant injuries and has had to adjust to playing around Gobert this season. There are a lot of circumstances, but they can’t have another no-show or a half-game from Towns in Game 3 if they want to take one from Denver.
The Rebounding Disparity
It’s no secret the Timberwolves are a bad rebounding team. They were a bottom-five offensive rebounding team and a league-average-at-best defensive rebounding team. This same problem is rearing its ugly head again. Here is how the Nuggets have beat the Wolves on the glass so far:
Denver has out rebounded Minnesota 45-36 on average
Denver has grabbed 55.2 percent of all available rebounds compared to just 44.8 for Minnesota
Denver has grabbed 25.3 percent of their available offensive rebounds, against 16.7 percent for Minnesota
Denver edged Minnesota 15-8 in second-chance points on Wednesday
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the Nuggets are shooting nearly 50 percent from the field and 42.6 percent from 3 in the first two games of the series, in part, because of how they have controlled the glass. Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr., and Aaron Gordon have all done what you would expect offensively and on the boards. Murray alone has averaged 5.5 per game, a mark only two Timberwolves — Towns and Gobert — have beaten so far.
Rebounds would also mean the Nuggets were missing shots, but getting rebounds does help a team control the game. Whether that is high-percentage second-chance looks or being able to simply end an opposing offensive possession, it helps. Just think: the Timberwolves are barely shooting better from the field (43.8 percent) than the Nuggets are from 3 (42.6 percent). You won’t win many games playing like that.
The Wolves’ rebounding woes certainly aren’t entirely to blame for their offensive and defensive problems in this series, so far, but they aren’t helping either.
This Series Is Not Over Yet
Game 3s are fun because they can really swing a playoff series (probably not this one, though) or help a team save face. We have seen the Wolves do this a few times, like in 2000, 2001 and 2018, to save face and avoid the sweep. This series does feel similarly to the competition they faced in those Blazers and Spurs series.
I said before this series that the Nuggets should be the favorites and that this is probably lasts five games. The one thing that you don’t want to do is to go out sad and uncompetitive. Game 2 featured a great comeback, but the Wolves need to sustain that level for a whole game. And then come back for Game 4 and hopefully the next until they are eliminated. That is difficult to sustain against a team this talented and with the injuries the Wolves have. While difficult, that’s the point of the playoffs. It’s not enough for them to be there and even if they don’t win this series, you hope to see them learn from the first two games and respond strong at home.