What To Watch For: Minnesota Timberwolves vs. Atlanta Hawks
By Ben Beecken
Focusing on … offense?
Strangely enough, it was the offensive end of the floor that betrayed the Timberwolves last time out. Sure, the defense wasn’t exactly crisp against the Grizzlies, but Memphis struggled enough to score that the Wolves should have won easily with an average offensive game of their own.
Instead, it was a brick-fest. And not only do the Hawks have the 26th-ranked offense in the league, but many of the players that made large impacts on offense early in the season (Bazemore, Ersan Ilyasova, Marco Belinelli, Luke Babbitt) are either injured or on different teams.
That means that it’s the punchless, chaotic offense from Monday that needs to get it’s act together against a bare-bones Hawks squad. And if Atlanta turns the game into an all-out bar brawl — and if the officials let them (see: Wolves-Grizzlies from Monday) — than Timberwolves need to embrace the grind and play hard on both ends of the floor.
This is a game in which Nemanja Bjelica, who was scoreless against Memphis, should be able to thrive. The Hawks don’t exactly have bruising big men; Minnesota’s own Mike Muscala is a 6′-11″ center that attempts nearly half of his shots from beyond the arc. Dwayne Dedmon is a fine defender but he isn’t a world-beater and the boards and he won’t scare anyone on offense, either.
Even without Butler and Derrick Rose, the Timberwolves should be able to score at will against the porous and beaten-down Hawks. And they must, if they hope to climb out of the No. 8 spot in the West…