Timberwolves Notes: Towns on TrueHoop Podcast

On the heels of their three-game winning streak coming to a halt with a disappointing loss in Dallas on Sunday afternoon, we take a listen to Karl-Anthony Towns with ESPN’s Marc Stein’s True Hoop Podcast.

The Timberwolves sure seemed to be figuring something out, didn’t they?

After a three-game winning streak that included impressive victories over Oklahoma City and Houston, the Wolves headed south to Dallas for an afternoon tilt against the Mavericks. They lost to the worst team in the conference, however, and the streak came screeching to a halt.

Karl-Anthony Towns appeared on ESPN’s True Hoop Podcast prior to the loss, and spoke with Marc Stein about a variety of topics.

They began with discussing the Timberwolves’ tendency to build large leads and subsequently lose games. That’s not exactly what happened in Dallas on Sunday, of course, but it was interesting to hear Towns so confidently suggest that the Wolves were overcoming their issues in this area.

The conversation turned to the Wolves’ playoff prospects. Towns actually sounds fairly resigned to the likelihood that Minnesota won’t make the playoffs, but left open the possibility of a hot streak to catapult them into the still-attainable eighth spot in the West.

Stein incorrectly suggested that Towns has been shooting less three-pointers this season (it was weird, as it’s not close: 1.7 threes per 36 minutes last season versus 5.3 this year, and a three-point rate that has increased from 7.6 percent last year to 21.4 percent through 41 games of 2016-17), and Towns simply pointed out that he needs to shoot a better percentage.

Towns was diplomatic when it came to playing for Tom Thibodeau and drew an interesting parallel between Thibs and his coach at the University of Kentucky in John Calipari. It wasn’t just the overall experience, either, it was the attention to detail of the two coaches and the way that they watched film and applied it to practice day-in and day-out. (The obvious omission in the coaching discussion being last year’s interim coach, Sam Mitchell.)

A fun fact: Towns wanted to play professional so badly that he didn’t play basketball in seventh grade. Remember, his mother is from the Dominican Republic, and baseball is just a bit more popular than basketball in that country.

The interview in it’s entirety is a lot of fun, and covered a few of the rare items that haven’t been discussed constantly in Towns’ young career. Please give it a listen at the above link.

Next: Timberwolves Mid-Season Review: Backcourt Starters

We’ll have a preview of Tuesday night’s Spurs-Timberwolves tilt shortly. In the meantime, have a great Monday evening…