Timberwolves Wrap: Warriors dominate Wolves’ preseason finale

The Timberwolves started fast but were ultimately blown out by a feisty, regular-season-ready Warriors squad early on Sunday morning in China.

As bad as the Timberwolves started the last game against the Warriors in China, they flipped the script and dominated the early stages on Sunday morning. But then, things torpedoed in a hurry.

The Wolves clicked on all cylinders in the first quarter, leaning on Jimmy Butler with Jeff Teague orchestrating the offense both on the fast break and in the half court. Karl-Anthony Towns started with three quick turnovers and missed a couple of shots before getting an easy dunk on a beautiful dish from Teague and following that by draining an open 3-pointer.

Andrew Wiggins hardly touched the ball until late in the first quarter, but when he received his opportunity he knocked down a couple of tough shots to keep the offensive attack rolling.

The first quarter was sloppy on both ends from a turnover perspective and neither team played much in the way of defense; the score was 44-36 in favor of the Timberwolves after the opening frame.

Perhaps the biggest question surrounding the Wolves heading into the season is their bench and whether or not simply adding a 37-year-old Jamal Crawford to incumbents Nemanja Bjelica (returning from offseason foot surgery), Tyus Jones (elevated from third point guard to the top backup), Gorgui Dieng (bumped from the starting lineup), and Shabazz Muhammad (came back on a veteran’s minimum contract) was enough to shore up one of the NBA’s worst reserve units from a year ago.

Early on in this one, however, the bench was fantastic. Led by an energetic Muhammad on both ends and a shocking number of aggressive, savvy plays from Bjelica –including stopping Kevin Durant cold on a baseline drive — the bench built the Wolves’ lead into double-digits. Jones got into the act, swiping a couple of steals on defense, and the Wolves starters began to return to the game with a comfortable lead.

But that meant that the Golden State starters were back as well, and they decided to stop messing around. It began raining threes, and really, it didn’t stop until the final horn sounded.

From about midway through the second quarter until the start of final frame, the Warriors slammed the gas pedal and simply would not let up. After a quiet start, Stephen Curry had 35 points before the 4:00 mark of the third quarter. The Wolves helped by inexplicably losing Curry multiple times on offense, but not every make was wide open.

The third quarter was when things really unraveled for the Timberwolves, and the starters for both teams were done playing early in the fourth. The Golden State lead hovered between 25 and 30 points for much of the rest of the game as the likes of Cole Aldrich, Anthony Brown, Marcus Georges-Hunt, and Melo Trimble each saw the court for the first time in the preseason.

Tweets of the Night

A couple of Towns highlights, courtesy of A Wolf Among Wolves. Despite a slow start to the game, KAT picked up the pace a bit towards the end of the first frame. Something we’ll all be watching early on this season is the chemistry between Towns and Butler in the pick-and-roll game, and it certainly seems to be off to a solid start.

Key Takeaways

• It’s tough to draw too much of a conclusion from this one, other than that the Wolves offense will be good (we knew that), the defense needs some work (we knew that, too), and the Warriors are really, really good (annnd we knew that as well).
• The bench unit played well against Golden State’s reserves in the second quarter. When they reentered in the second half the game was well out of reach already, so it’s tougher to gauge that go-round. They do appear to already have some chemistry as a group, although the rotation is something to keep an eye on.
• It would seem wise to leave either Butler or Towns on the court at all times, including with an otherwise all-bench unit, but Tom Thibodeau has not done that as of yet. It remains to be seen if that is due to it still being preseason, but that would also seem to be a good time to work some of the kinks out. Keep an eye on this, as it’s doubtful that the bench will play this well all the time.
• Nemanja Bjeclia played his best game in a long time, looking solid on both ends of the floor. Remember, he was playing well right before his foot injury back in March, but he seemed decidedly aggressive while still making smart basketball plays throughout this particular game.

Player of the Game

Stephen Curry: statistics coming soon…

Note: there was no box score available as of this writing, but we do know that Curry had 35 points with four minutes remaining in the third quarter. Needless to say, his services were not needed after that point.

Notable Box Score Lines

Still no statistics available. We’ll update here when a box score is released.

Next: Another look at the Jimmy Butler-Andrew Wiggins tandem

Next Up

The Timberwolves are done with preseason play after just three games. Their regular season opener is a week from Wednesday in San Antonio and will be broadcast on ESPN. In the meantime, they’ll head back to the states and no doubt have a series of rigorous practices over the next 10 days or so.