Timberwolves Wrap: Wolves collapse in Atlanta

The Timberwolves recent road struggles and confounding issues against the Eastern Conference continued on Monday night with an ugly loss to the Atlanta Hawks.

The Timberwolves are a playoff team. They’re probably even a top-four or top-five seed in the Western Conference. But the confounding losses are beginning to pile up.

Over the course of a long season, every single eventual playoff team loses games that they shouldn’t. It’s a tired exercise to tally up the “bad” losses for any team, to be sure.

That said, the Wolves have already lost at Brooklyn and Atlanta — the two worst team in the lesser of the conferences. The loss to the Hawks was particularly painful, with a road contest in Toronto against the 33-15 Raptors in less than 24 hours. While Dwayne Casey’s crew rested comfortably in their homes on Monday night, the Wolves were letting one slit away in Hotlanta.

The Wolves played a strong first quarter and led by a 32-27 margin. The bench struggled in the second, however, and the Hawks built a modest lead before the Wolves starters returned and grabbed a three-point lead back before halftime.

The third quarter saw the Wolves stretch out an 11-point advantage, but sloppy play from the visitors allowed the Hawks to get back to within three as the final frame began.

In the fourth, sub-par defense from the Wolves again played a large part in their downfall, but this time it was compounded by poor offense. Jeff Teague was terrible throughout the game (this is not an exaggeration — I am far from the leader of Teague-bashers, but this was one of the worst performances you’ll see), and he missed a couple of point-blank shots down the stretch and turned the ball over after forcing an awful pass intended for Jimmy Butler with 34 seconds remaining and the Wolves down by one.

Minnesota still managed to get a stop and the ball back with 14 seconds left. After a timeout, Teague set-up to inbound the ball but promptly was called for a five-second violation. The Hawks then sunk two free throws, and with no timeouts remaining, Butler missed a potential game-tying 3-pointer just prior to time expiring.

Tweets of the Night

Key Takeaways

• As our friends at Punch-Drunk Wolves alluded to in the above tweet, Teague is … struggling. He’s a good player, and is probably the definition of a league-average starting point guard. But his fit as a high-usage point guard in a Timberwolves offense that revolves around Jimmy Butler (and, to a lesser extent, Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins) is tenuous at best. To make matters even worse, he’s a poor defender.
• Tyus Jones has been better than Teague this season, and it isn’t close. He was not, however, all that much better in this one. That said, this minutes split should look much closer to 50-50 as the season wears on.
• Towns, once again, finished with a single-digit number in the “FGA” column. It’s absurd that a player as efficient and effective as KAT could finish with only eight shot attempts. It isn’t, however, entirely a scheme issue. Watch back Towns’ non-putback makes from the game. There are a couple of drives that are often open to him if he looks towards the rim earlier in the offense instead of simply turning to pass the ball around the perimeter. (More on this in a piece on the Wolves offense later this week.)
• The bench, outside of Gorgui Dieng, struggled mightily once again.
• A couple of interesting nuggets to remember as we all spend the evening cursing Jeff Teague: Gibson missed a potential game-tying free throw with 1:03 remaining in the game. And just a few minutes prior to that, both Teague and Gibson were issued technical fouls after complaining about a (correct) charge call against Teague. Atlanta’s Dennis Schroder made one of the two technical free throws, and it was a one-point game until the final 14 seconds.

Player of the Game

Kent Bazemore: 22 points (8-14 FG, 4-8 3P, 2-3 FT), 4 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 blocks, one steal

Nobody on the Hawks was a world-beater in this one, but Bazemore drained four 3-pointers and had two huge blocks in the open floor against Teague, including one on a layup that would have given the Wolves the lead in the final minute.

Notable Box Score Lines

• Karl-Anthony Towns: 15 points (6-8 FG, 1-2 3P, 2-2 FT), 13 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, one block
• Jimmy Butler: 24 points (7-15 FG, 1-3 3P, 9-9 FT), 7 rebounds, 3 assists, one steal, one block
• Taj Gibson: 17 points (8-12 FG, 1-2 3P), 4 rebounds, 4 steals, 2 assists, one block
• Andrew Wiggins: 18 points (8-14 FG, 2-4 3P), 3 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, one block
• Jeff Teague: 2 points (1-12 FG, 0-2 3P, 0-1 FT), 10 assists, 4 steals, one block
• Gorgui Dieng: 11 points (5-7 FG, 1-1 FT), 3 rebounds

Butler was good throughout, save for a coupe of rare late-game misses. Gibson was awesome, especially on defense and bailing out the Wolves offense by knocking down mid-range shots. Wiggins was very good, and Teague had a weird, 2-assist, 10-assist, 4-steal game.

Next: Checking on the Wolves' ICE defense...

What’s Next?

The Timberwolves have to fly from Atlanta to Toronto to face the Raptors on Tuesday night at 6:30 p.m. After defeating the Raptors at Target Center 10 days prior without Butler in the lineup, the Wolves will look to upset Toronto once again, although this time on the second half a back-to-back.