Minnesota Timberwolves: 3 takeaways from Saric and Covington’s debut
By Ben Beecken
The Timberwolves will keep upping their 3-point attempts
In case you hadn’t noticed, the 2018-19 Minnesota Timberwolves are squarely in the middle of the league when it comes to 3-point attempts and makes.
After Wednesday’s win over the Pelicans, Minnesota stands at No. 14 in the league in made threes per game at 10.9 and No. 16 in attempts at 29.8 per contest. Impressively, the Wolves are eighth in 3-point percentage, shooting 36.7 percent from deep thus far in the still-young season.
This trend started before Robert Covington and Dario Saric joined the rotation in Game 15, of course, but it will only be accelerated by adding a pair of guys with career 3-point rates of .625 and .415, respectively. We saw this on Wednesday, as Covington shot 3-of-7 from deep and Saric was 1-of-2.
Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins, and Derrick Rose are each hitting 3-pointers at career-best rates, and while that certainly could come back to earth just a bit, the encouraging thing is that they’re launching threes with greater frequency. Plus, players like Jeff Teague and Tyus Jones are hitting at below career-average marks from long-range, so that should swing back the other way.
Saric and Covington don’t know anything other than launching threes early and often, and replacing Butler’s more isolation-heavy brand of basketball with two guys who are ball-movers and 3-point shooters will go a long way.
It’s a new era at Target Center. And we mean it this time. (We hope.)