Timberwolves Friday Night Storyline: Towns vs. Porzingis
By Ben Beecken
Fans are about to be treated to the first Karl-Anthony Towns vs. Kristaps Porzingis showdown of the season as the Knicks visit the Timberwolves on Friday night.
The New York Knicks and Minnesota Timberwolves are about to face-off for the first time in the 2017-18 season. It’s been over a year since the two teams last met, and a lot has changed since the Knicks swept a rare home-and-home series on Nov. 30 and Dec. 2 of last season.
The Knicks started the current season with an acceptable 17-14 record but have lost eight of their last 10 games. Only one of the eight losses saw the final margin land within two possessions, while both wins, by two over the Pelicans and by four over the Mavericks, were by the skin of their teeth.
Porzingis continues to be a solid player, although there have been only marginal improvements in the Unicorn’s third year in the league. While his 3-point shooting and overall scoring have increased, Porzingis’ usage rate has skyrocketed while his shooting percentage has dropped significantly. Of course, this is largely due to the exit of Carmelo Anthony; opposing teams can now focus on trying to stop the seven-footer without any other true, individual offensive threats on the floor.
Enes Kanter and Courtney Lee have been their typically solid selves for the Knicks and Kyle O’Quinn has been a revelation — especially on defense — but there isn’t much else on head coach Jeff Hornacek‘s roster that strikes fear into opponents.
On the other side of the court, the Timberwolves have done made a complete 180-degree turn in the last 13 months.
The Wolves now boast a clear top-10 player in Jimmy Butler and a suddenly borderline top-20 player in Karl-Anthony Towns. They’re defense has vaulted from bottom-five to 17th in defensive rating league-wide over the past month, and Minnesota has gone 14-7 since Dec. 1. They head into Friday night’s matchup against the Knicks on a three-game winning streak, sitting fourth in the Western Conference with a 27-16 record.
Put simply, Towns has flat-out outperformed Porzingis thus far in the 2017-18 season. We could quote Basketball-Reference.com’s win shares statistic (Porzingis sits at 2.7 win shares, which is 62nd in the league, while Towns is fourth in the league at 6.8), or ESPN’s Real Plus-Minus (Porzingis is 13th among power forwards with an overall 1.59, while Towns is fourth in the league among centers at 3.78).
In their head-to-head matchups last season, Towns got the better of Porzingis both times, although the Knicks managed to grab the win in both games. In the first contest, Towns dropped a crazy 47 points on 15-of-22 shooting from the floor and 17-of-20 from the line to go along with 18 rebounds, while Porzingis had 29 points and eight rebounds, shooting 11-of-20 on field goal attempts. The Knicks won by two points.
Just a couple of nights later, Minnesota lost by four at Madison Square Garden with Towns only contributing 20 points and eight rebounds while shooting just 5-of-18 from the floor. Porzingis also struggled, shooting only 2-of-12 and tallying 11 points and five rebounds.
The two won’t match-up every time down the floor, of course. Kyle O’Quinn is playing the majority of the minutes at center for the Knicks and has been fantastic; it will be a lot of fun to watch him try and slow Towns down regardless of how much that eats into any potential Porzingis-Towns one-on-one showdowns.
Next: How the Timberwolves have improved their defense
All that said, fans can expect there to be some fireworks from the two third-year big men on Friday night. And if things hold true to form, KAT shouldn’t have any trouble proving his superiority over the nationally-renowned Unicorn from the Big Apple.