The Minnesota Timberwolves loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder highlighted their fourth-quarter woes. The good news is there’s an easy fix.
The Minnesota Timberwolves were oh-so-close to completing a 21-point comeback against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday night. Unfortunately, their offense went stagnant down the stretch and they were unable to get buckets or stops in key moments.
If you’ve paid any attention to the Timberwolves at all over the last few seasons, you’ll know they’ve had more than their fair share of fourth-quarter issues.
In 2016-17, they lost an NBA worst 19 games after holding at least a 10 point lead at any point. If that’s not bad enough, they were also outscored by 1.15 points in the fourth quarter.
Flash forward to this season and the narrative was supposed to be different.
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The acquisitions of Jeff Teague, Taj Gibson and, most importantly, closer extraordinaire Jimmy Butler were supposed to help the young Wolves finish games down the stretch.
Let’s not fool ourselves, there have already been times this season where Minnesota has held strong and got the ‘W’ in games they would’ve likely lost last year.
Unfortunately, we haven’t seen the fourth quarter magic we were all hoping for.
As anyone with one good eye can see, the Timberwolves struggle mightily to finish games down the stretch. They’re out there looking like a group of middle-aged, overweight men playing a pickup game at your local YMCA. Everyone’s walking up the court and then stands around watching the ball-handler dribble the air out of the ball for 15 seconds before they catch their breath and go into a last-ditch effort at a pick-and-roll or post up:
When Minnesota is moving the ball from side-to-side and engaging the whole defense in the first half, their offensive rating sits at 110.9, third in the NBA. They even have success in the third quarter by posting the sixth best offensive rating at 109.7.
But when it comes to the fourth quarter parents better shield their children’s eyes for this is what nightmares are made of.
The Timberwolves offense plummets to 101.4, 24th amongst all teams during the final period. And it’s not as if their defense can save them either considering their 115.7 defensive rating sits at the very bottom.
All of the standing around and watching they do makes it easy for defenses to key in on their pick-and-rolls and allows them to adjust their coverage at a pace even a toddler could understand.
It should come as no surprise they’ve been outscored by a league-worst average margin of 3.61 points in the fourth this season. That’s the highest negative fourth-quarter margin since NBA Miner started tracking this stat during the 1996-97 season.
If Minnesota wants to continue taking a positive step and make some noise in the playoffs, there are a few easy solutions to their woes.
One of those heartaches comes in the form of a never-ending dispute among Timberwolves fans and can be boiled down to one word: fatigue
Two of the top four most-used 5-man lineups belong to the team that calls the Target Center home. That includes the starting five of Teague-Butler-Andrew Wiggins-Gibson-and-Karl-Anthony Towns.
For the season this five-man group has a positive net rating of 5.9. Unfortunately, they sink faster than the Titanic when it comes to playing together in the final period, netting a rating of -12.3.
To be fair, every Minnesota lineup except one has a negative net rating in the fourth quarter according to NBA.com:
However, it’s not a good look when your most common-used lineup in the final quarter is performing so poorly.
A big sign of fatigue is when a player fails to get arch on his shot or is hitting the front of the rim. And that’s exactly what happens to the Timberwolves’ players late in ball games:
Late in a tied game, Butler gets a nice matchup with Washington Wizard’s forward Kelly Oubre who’s 6-foot-7 and generously listed at 205 pounds. Instead of attacking him and using his strength advantage, Butler settles for a fall-away 13-footer that grazes the rim by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin.
In order to avoid this fatigue issue, Tom Thibodeau must lengthen his rotations.
He has capable players in Tyus Jones, Jamal Crawford, Shabazz Muhammad (yes, even Bazz), Nemanja Bjelica and Gorgui Dieng who have each demonstrated success at the NBA level when put in the right positions.
Matchups determine everything in the NBA, however, each of those players should be hovering around the 20 minutes per game number.
If Thibodeau continues to run his starters into the ground, he will continue to get the above-mentioned shots that scream ‘I’m tired!’
Instead of relying on difficult, contested shots, a fresh-legged Butler will be able to attack the rim like he does in here in the third quarter of that same game:
An energetic team can make the defense pay with constant ball-movement and off-ball action to keep all five members of the opposing team engaged in every possession.
The Timberwolves do a decent job of running sets and getting into their offense throughout most of the game. They often use mechanics such as dribble hand-offs, off-ball screens or other false actions to get the defense moving and mask what their true intentions are.
And there within, lies the key.
Minnesota builds their leads or keeps the game close running their sets and believing in themselves. There’s no need to do anything different down the stretch of close games.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of letting your studs such as Towns, Butler, Wiggins or even Teague take over the game and go one-on-one with their man.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m okay with running some isolation plays for your stars, however, the action that comes before iso is what’s most important. It’s critical to keep the defense on their heels and moving, accomplished by a few simple ball-reversals.
The aforementioned dribble hand-offs and off-ball screens completely disappear in the fourth in favor of a stand-around, watch-first centered offense.
The offense isn’t the only issue in the land of 10,000 Lakes. In lieu of letting the defense skate away scot-free, it’s important to note their part in all of this as well.
Minnesota humbly claims a defensive rating of 107.9, ranked 23rd in the league. Unfortunately, when it’s time to turn up the heat, their rating nose-dives to 115.7- the worst fourth-quarter defense in the NBA.
A reason for this is the player’s failures to recognize the scouting reports for the opposing team.
For example, the Timberwolves already played the Thunder twice before entering their Friday night showdown and should be well-versed on their go-to sets.
In their first game, Oklahoma City ran the Spain pick-and-roll multiple times down the stretch:
Steven Adams goes to set a ball screen on Russell Westbrook’s man and Paul George follows closely behind to set a screen onto Adams’ man. George then pops to the perimeter for the pass as a scoring option. The ball-handler (Westbrook) can drive to the rim, hit Adams on the roll, hit George on the pop or pull-up as he does here.
This is a play Wiggins is more than familiar with and was undoubtedly scouted for by the Timberwolves’ coaching staff.
On Friday night, as Minnesota was attempting to make their comeback, every stop they could get in the final quarter was absolutely crucial. It’s why boneheaded mistakes like this one are absolutely killer:
Wiggins is trying to help on this Spain pick-and-roll action and George realizes it so he sprints directly to the 3-point line. Wiggins is slow to react and allows his man to nail a critical shot. I understand Wiggins wanting to play help defense, but he needs to know the formations and tendencies the Thunder like to run. And besides, Jamal Crawford, who’s guarding the worst offensive player in the NBA is likely responsible to tag Adams on the roll.
Due to these offensive and defensive lapses, Minnesota is being held back from reaching their true potential this season.
Next: 5 way too early free agents the Timberwolves should look at
It’s true, Rome wasn’t built in a day. But if the Timberwolves want to build their own empire they better learn how to rule the fourth quarter.