3 things the Minnesota Timberwolves need to do when the NBA returns

#3 – Address the interior, Part I

The Wolves’ post-deadline defense has been laughable.

At the trade deadline, Minnesota had a respectable defensive rating of 110.1, good for No. 16 in the NBA. Since then, it has ballooned to 116.7, dragging the Wolves to third-worst league-wide for the entire season.

Arguably the biggest factor in the defensive meltdown has been the team’s feeble interior defense. In the 14 games since the deadline, Ryan Saunders’s squad is surrendering 58.7 points in the paint, which is worst in the NBA by 4.4 points. For context, the difference between the 29th-ranked team (New Orleans) and the 19th-ranked team (Golden State) is 4.9 points.

Clearly, missing an interior presence like Karl-Anthony Towns is a significant contributor to that drop-off, but there is more to the story than that.

As crazy as it may sound, Towns’s wrist injury was ultimately a net-positive thing for the team for three reasons.

The rotational hole allowed Naz Reid to get invaluable time on the court for extended stretches against teams who have tough matchups (Denver, Dallas, Miami, New Orleans, Orlando). This has both given the coaching staff NBA film to go through with him, and the front office the opportunity to see how he fits into the team’s plans moving forward.

In the 12 games without Towns, Minnesota went 4-10. For a team that was 15-35 at the time of the injury, losses are more beneficial than wins in the grand scheme of things. The team currently sits third-worst in the league at 19-45, which has resulted in higher lottery odds in a flattened system. As a result, the Wolves obviously have a better chance of the number one pick (14 percent, tied with Golden State and Cleveland for the best odds), and a player who can make a real impact next season, because of the injury.

But most importantly, Towns’s extended absence has revealed to the front office a major weakness that needs to be addressed heading into next season – interior defense and rebounding.

With KAT on the floor, opposing teams secure 5.3 percent less offensive rebounds, compared to when he is on the bench, per Cleaning the Glass. That -5.3 percent swing ranks in the 97th percentile among bigs – an incredibly impressive number.

This essentially shows that Towns does as good of a job as any player in the league at helping his team secure defensive rebounds, that the Wolves have very few capable rebounders when he is off the floor, and also justifies the smoke surrounding the Minnesota frontcourt.

This metric is particularly revealing if a team plays a significant amount of minutes without a true power forward, which is exactly the case for the 2019-20 Timberwolves. Outside of Towns, the Wolves have just two other players that have consistently good rebounders this season – both of whom are guards: Okogie and Beasley (at least during his time in Minnesota).

I love Josh Okogie and Malik Beasley more than just about anyone, but having a team so devoid of strong rebounding forwards is a recipe to fail in more ways than one. The fact that the Wolves learned about it now instead of next December is crucial, though. I fully expect Rosas and company to bring in a strong rebounding presence or two this summer/fall. But if they neglect that need, the Wolves will not even sniff the playoffs, regardless of how many points they put up a night.

And ladies and gentleman, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

Whether it is a mandate from the front office or not, Ryan Saunders has given an incomprehensible amount of minutes to lineups with no bigs next to Towns, which is when he is at his worst on the defensive end. Call your reasoning “getting players adapted to a system” or whatever you want, but the fact is that Towns is just not good enough defensively yet to anchor a team for large stretches as the only big.

This season, opposing teams are scoring 6.2 more points per 100 possessions with Towns on the floor versus off, and 8.5 more points per 100 halfcourt possessions (possessions where teams get into their halfcourt offense. Those numbers are t-e-r-r-i-b-l-e. They rank in the 10th and 3rd (!) percentile among bigs league-wide.

These numbers are strikingly similar to how KAT played when Taj Gibson was off the floor in the Wolves’ 2017-18 playoff season.

In 1442 possessions without Gibson alongside him, lineups with Towns as the sole true big surrendered 114.3 points per possession (10th percentile) and 100.4 points per 100 halfcourt possessions (7th percentile).

In the 4341 possessions with Taj at the 4, those same numbers were 107.9 points per 100 possessions (57th percentile) and 92.4 points per 100 halfcourt possessions (58th percentile). I cannot accurately put into words how massive 50-percent swing is, but it could easily be the difference between making and missing the playoffs.

It should not be surprising, either, that Towns’s career highs in the on/off numbers I showed above came in the 2017-18 season. Teams scored 4.8 less points per 100 possessions with Towns on the floor (87th percentile among bigs) and 2.2 less points per 100 halfcourt possessions (71st percentile).

So, who is a player that Minnesota could realistically acquire to create a similar effect for its defense next year?