Minnesota Timberwolves: 5 places Wolves rookies will help on defense

Switchability

When Thibs played with conventional lineups composed by two big men in the paint (Karl-Anthony Towns + Taj Gibson or Towns + Gorgui Dieng or Taj + Dieng), the opponents had an easy time in the regular season when it came to hunting mismatches and attacking Towns or Dieng on the pick-and-rolls.

Towns hasn’t always shown the lateral quickness to stay on elite shot creators on a regular basis. Gibson, who’s very competent in that skill, is getting older and will probably have to live with that back injury that bothered him during the playoffs. But if Thibs tries to ration him below 30 minutes per game, at least he should stay effective.

Bates-Diop and Okogie should be a sure plus when it comes to switching on defense.

Drop back on the slip screens, guarding the ball handler, recover quickly. Here is Bates-Diop at Ohio State and the duo during Las Vegas Summer League.

No cuts and middle penetrations allowed. This is what Thibs loves to see from players who are defending between the arc and the elbow.

One of the missing parts on defense last year was on curl actions and in executing the ICE defense in the manner in which Thibs designed it.

Here, Bates-Diop is forcing properly to the sideline and then has good awareness of the need to help on this stagger curl.

Next to these types of defenders, Towns makes sense. His versatility on pick-and-rolls is quite underestimated, as Dunking With Wolves alum Jake Paynting points out below, by the narrative that he’s overall bad defensively.

The way the NBA is going, switchability will continue to be key moving forward.