The Minnesota Timberwolves are still feeling their way through the early stages of the 2022-23 NBA season, as the fans must wait for the team to find the path to success. Right now, that wait is like water torture for fans eager to see the fruit of so much off-season activity. That slow menial drip-drop of turnover here, personal foul there, and a missed shot next is starting to have an aggregate effect. It’s beginning to hurt.
If you watch carefully, the Timberwolves have the makings of something special. But the sparkles are tough to find and are spread out so sparingly that they are easy to miss. Like the summer sun glistening on grains of sand. Right now, those sparkles are just meaningless twinkles of optical illusion, a bright flash out of the corner of the eye that hold no value.
Yet.
Suns appear to be a playoff team
The Phoenix Suns are a well-coached team, and they had the Timberwolves well-scouted. Their starters dominated the Timberwolves’ starters. Of the Suns’ starters, only Bismack Biyombo was held under double-digit scoring. All other Phoenix Suns starters were crisp on the offensive side of the court, with the worst scoring coming from shooting guard Devin Booker, whose six-of-18 shooting from the floor was only 33.3 percent. But that is not bad as the worst scoring among the Timberwolves starters.
The Timberwolves had some hot scorers, as both shooting guard Anthony Edwards and power forward/center Karl-Anthony Towns both ended the night at 24 points. KAT and Ant-Man combined their offensive output for 17 of 39 from the floor, eight of 17 shooting from the perimeter, eight assists, 16 rebounds, three steals, and two blocks.
The remaining starting trio of Rudy Gobert, D’Angelo Russell, and Jaden McDaniels combined for 16 points on four of 14 shooting from the floor, one of four from the perimeter, seven assists, 16 rebounds, one steal, and one block.