Timberwolves Roundtable: Rating The Season
Experts and Contributors at Dunking With Wolves dive into three questions about the Minnesota Timberwolves this season.
Every Sunday the Dunking With Wolves staff will answer three questions about the Minnesota Timberwolves. We will give you our fresh perspectives about the Wolves and the hot-button topics surrounding the team.
This week’s Timberwolves roundtable includes:
Cyril Girgis: Contributor
Alex Monseth: Contributor
Ben Beecken: Site Expert
Cyril: The win against Golden State has to be my favorite moment. The Minnesota Timberwolves beat the Western Conference champs in front of a record-setting home crowd. What’s even better is how they did it, showing just how they good they can be.
Ricky Rubio severely outplayed the unanimous MVP. The young duo of Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins combined for 46 points and they defended really well. Most importantly, they responded to adversity in the fourth quarter, instead of collapsing in signature Minnesota Timberwolves’ fashion.
Wiggins made two free throws to take the lead right after curry hit what could have been the game-winning floater. This was the biggest win on the biggest stage for the Timberwolves.
Alex: My favorite Timberwolves moment of the season was Andrew Wiggins’ buzzer beater to beat the Suns in January. It had been so long since Kevin Love drained the three at the top of the key to down the Clippers in 2012.
For struggling so much to close out games for a majority of the beginning of the year, seeing the Wolves actually come out on top in a nail-biter was encouraging. The game against Phoenix and the middle of January to the middle of March was a turning point in the season. The Timberwolves were able to at least push themselves back into the playoff conversation. If Minnesota can play like they did during that stretch for a majority of next season, I think the playoffs are well within reach.
Ben: This is a broad answer, but I’ll go with the entire post-All-Star break run, from February 24th to the dominant win over the Washington Wizards on March 13th. The Timberwolves were 6-3 over those nine games (and 9-5 if you go back a few games prior to the break). We saw Ricky Rubio outplay Chris Paul, Stephen Curry and John Wall in wins over the Clippers, Warriors, and Wizards, respectively.
Karl-Anthony Towns was nearly unstoppable, dominating the likes of Rudy Gobert and Blake Griffin. The high-water mark was 28-38 after the win over Washington before Nemanja Bejlica suffered his season-ending injury and the team faded rapidly from playoff contention.
Cyril: The worst moment for me has to be February 4th. After winning 7 out of their last 10 games, the Timberwolves started off that day with tragic news. LaVine had torn his ACL and was out for the season.
As if that weren’t enough, they then proceeded to lose to a Grizzlies team resting Marc Gasol and Mike Conley. The team looked lifeless as they lost to a team missing its main contributors. To put things in perspective, last time the Grizzlies rested their stars against the Timberwolves, they got blown out by 34 points. All in all, just a dark day for this team.
Alex: While Zach LaVine‘s injury was disheartening, I think the six-game losing streak from March 15-March 25 when it looked like we might actually snag the eighth seed was even more crushing.
Coming off wins over Golden State, Los Angeles, Utah, and Washington, we looked almost invincible at times. The Minnesota Timberwolves were playing some of their best basketball perhaps in the past decade. Then, what felt like the inevitable hit with the losing skid. I didn’t think we were actually in trouble until we dropped the game to New Orleans, but after that, you knew the season probably wouldn’t turn out the way all of us hoped it would.
Ben: The easy answer is the major injuries to key players, namely Zach LaVine’s torn ACL and Bjelica’s foot injury. But outside of that, it’s obvious: the late-season swoon and, more specifically, the complete and utter disregard for defense that led to the collapse.
Sure, the slow start to the season and failure to live up the lofty (and largely unfair) preseason expectation was frustrating, but the fact that all the supposed progress on defense that had been made in late February and early March evaporated into a league-worst defense over the last five weeks or so of the season is not only maddening but also concerning. Tom Thibodeau has his work cut out for him, and Wolves fans need to hope that their most-talented players make the decision to commit to playing solid defense as we head into next season.
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Cyril: I think a seven is fair. They obviously fell way short of the preseason expectations, but expecting a young team to turn it all around in one season was a little ambitious. The young core has shown growth, Karl-Anthony Towns is already a superstar and Rubio has improved greatly during the season.
Yes, we find ourselves back in the lottery, but none of the other lottery-bound teams are better positioned for success than these Timberwolves. That’s something worth celebrating.
Alex: I’m going to go with a four. If you take the expectations out of it, sure, Karl-Anthony Towns improved in lot of areas of his game. Andrew Wiggins three-point shooting and scoring, in general, got better. Zach LaVine took his game to a new level and Ricky Rubio started making shots. But this was a team that was supposed to make the playoffs in a Western Conference that wasn’t supposed to have an eighth seed that likely will finish under .500.
To not even be able to get within five games of that playoff spot at the end of the year is a major disappointment. The 22 blown double digit leads (so far), collapses down the stretch, and the terrible defense have been frustrating to watch all season.
Hopefully, the Wolves make a strong push to sign some veteran pieces this off-season. Perhaps then we can live up to the hype.
Ben: While expectations were admittedly out of control from the start, what’s looking like a four-game improvement on the 2015-16 season under interim coach Sam Mitchell is extremely disappointing.
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The early season third quarter struggles and sudden defensive regression at the end of the year, combined with the giant setback suffered by LaVine, mean that this year was more negative than positive. The only saving grace has been measured progress from Andrew Wiggins and continued offensive dominance from Towns, plus Rubio’s apparent resurgence and newfound scoring touch over the final months of the season.