Minnesota Timberwolves: What to watch for vs. Sacramento Kings

The Minnesota Timberwolves will try to avoid a winless West Coast road trip as they take on the Kings in Sacramento on Friday night.

The Minnesota Timberwolves won a pair of huge home games before embarking on a lengthy West Coast swing, defeating the Lakers and the Jazz at Target Center and evening their record at 4-4 at the time.

That all seems like a distant memory, however, as the Wolves have dropped the first four games on a five-game road trip. Only one of the losses was truly close: Wednesday night’s four-point loss to LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Wolves will now face old friend Nemanja Bjelica and his frisky Sacramento Kings, who sit at a surprising 6-5 on the season, including a 2-2 home record.

The Kings have lost two straight, at Milwaukee and at home against Toronto, but had won five consecutive games prior to their mini-skid. The Wolves, on the other hand, need a win in the worst way before they head back to the Upper Midwest.

What should you keep an eye out for on Friday night from Sactown? Let’s get into it.

1. Karl-Anthony Towns

If you’ve watched the majority of the Wolves’ 12 contests this season, not much additional context is needed here.

The long story made short is that Towns has been inconsistent at best, and at times appearing as a shell of his All-Star form from just last season. The nearly-22-year-old certainly shouldn’t be regressing, and it’s difficult to not point at the ongoing Jimmy Butler saga and coaching shortcomings as the reasons why KAT has been so easily held in check through the first few weeks of the season.

Towns is averaging just 18.3 points and 10.2 rebounds per game while averaging a career-worst field goal percentage of just 44.3 percent. And those are just the surface level issues.

Overall, Towns has appeared to be playing better on defense, and it isn’t just because of the uptick in blocks to the 2.2 per game that he is currently averaging. He appears to be playing harder on that end of the floor and largely doing a good job on his rotations.

But on offense, he isn’t getting the ball enough, and when he does get touches, they aren’t in the best possible situation for him to succeed. This is partially a coaching problem and partially on Towns; the big man simply needs to be more aggressive.

The Wolves will need Towns to dominate the Kings frontcourt of Willy Cauley-Stein and Bjelica if Minnesota is going to win on Friday night.

2. Will Derrick Rose‘s resurgence continue?

The entire NBA world will be watching this, as Derrick Rose continues to play his best basketball in nearly seven years.

Rose dropped 31 points on just 17 shots in Wednesday’s loss to the Lakers, hitting a career-high seven 3-pointers on just nine attempts from deep, although he missed the potential game-winner with just a few seconds remaining on the clock.

Rose’s success is largely contingent on his health, of course, and he’s had a few games with heavy workloads of late that surely played into his missing two games due to ankle soreness just last week.

If Rose stays healthy and continues playing like this, it will make the balance of the season extremely intriguing, regardless of what happens with Butler.

3. Will this be a Nemanja Bjelica revenge game?

Nemanja Bjelica played his first three years in the NBA in a Timberwolves uniform and delivered decidedly inconsistent results.

The 2017-18 season was his breakout, as he averaged a career-high 6.8 points per game and shot a fantastic 41.5 percent on 3-point attempts — easily a career-best.

Bjelica frustrated teammates, coaches, and fans at times with his inconsistent levels of effort and occasional reluctance when it comes to shooting open 3-pointers. But when he played with confidence and was given plenty of leash by the coach — not usually the case with either Sam Mitchell or Tom Thibodeau, the two coaches he played for in Minnesota — he was an effective player and important contributor.

Now, in Sacramento, Bjelica has started all 11 Kings games and is averaging 13.1 points and 5.4 rebounds per game, both easily career-highs. He’s also shooting a ridiculous 51.2 percent on 3-point attempts while shooting 3.7 per game — far more than he ever attempted with the Wolves.

No matter how you slice it, this game is important for the Wolves. Falling to 4-9 would make things that much more difficult to dig out of moving forward.