Minnesota Timberwolves playtype dissection

Pick-and-roll

The pick-and-roll is one of the staples of any NBA offense which makes it so disheartening the Timberwolves are one of the worst in the league from a ball-handler’s perspective. Minnesota ranks 20th in PPP and average the same amount as the inefficient isolation.

Not surprisingly, Teague is the player who runs the pick-and-roll as a ball-handler more often than anyone on the team. Butler and Crawford are fairly close behind and appear to be average to above average in this category.

What’s really a shocker is Wiggins inability to score as a ball-handler on this type of play. He ranks in just the 14th percentile and the play results in a score only 34.1 percent of the time.

Moving on to the roll men for the Timberwolves and it looks a lot better from this end. They rank in the 79th percentile and score 1.16 PPP, better than 23 teams in the league.

Minnesota also hits their roll man off the screen more than 24 other teams which is probably a good thing considering the plethora of options they have.

Whether it be Towns or Gibson, the starting unit has great screeners and/or roll men to help the team get a bucket. Unfortunately, when the bench unit comes in they see a significant drop with Gorgui Dieng.

It would be interesting to see Nemanja Bjelica get some more opportunities at pick-and-pop action as he’s seen great success in his very limited opportunities so far. He also gives defenses a different look than the other options on the roster.

Overall, the Teague to Towns combination has shown spurts where it can be very lethal:

Despite Towns lack of a screen on this play, it ends up in a throw-down for the cutting big man. Teague does a great job of finding a nice passing angle and hits Towns with a beautiful bounce pass for two points.

As Teague and Towns and the other teammates become more familiar with one another’s style of play expect to see this result far more often.