Minnesota Timberwolves: 3 takeaways from Wolves win over Trail Blazers

The new defensive intensity is real

The Minnesota Timberwolves may have genuinely improved on defense despite jettisoning an All-Defensive Team star and one of the league’s best on-ball defenders.

It didn’t hurt to get back another member of the All-Defensive Team in Covington, of course. But they also added Dario Saric to the rotation, who is a little bit more versatile as a defender and rebounder than Tolliver.

This isn’t a knock on Tolliver — he’s a decent defender in his own right — but Saric defends the post better and is simply a bigger body.

The other major improvement seems to be the want-to of the rest of the guys on the floor. While Derrick Rose, Taj Gibson, Josh Okogie and Tyus Jones always seem to be playing their hearts out, the likes of Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins, and even Jeff Teague seem to be rotating that much more crisply, closing out that much harder, and hitting the glass with more purpose than when Lame Duck Jimmy was on the court.

While a painfully small sample size, the overall numbers seem to back up that improvement, both in defensive rating and assist ratio and pace, which are both metrics that suggest an increase in transition opportunities and success in the open floor.

It’s a new day at Target Center indeed.

Now, let’s talk about the offense.