Tuesday night featured another frustrating loss for the Minnesota Timberwolves, and perhaps their most head-scratching one of the season yet. With a day of rest under their belt, the Wolves marched into Moda Center in Portland and proceeded to be outplayed in nearly every facet of the game by what should have been a severely outmatched Trail Blazers team.
Minnesota shot the ball fine, but they were out-rebounded and out-assisted by Portland. Additionally, the Timberwolves struggled in transition yet again, surrendering 16 points in the fast break. They let the Blazers build a lead as big as 19 points, eventually falling by 14 when the final buzzer sounded. Such was an unacceptable effort against a projected lottery team, and everyone in the locker room knew it.
We already understood the extent of Minnesota's transition defense problems beforehand, but Tuesday's loss highlighted perhaps an even bigger area of concern moving forward: the Wolves' lack of an ability to take care of the ball.
The Timberwolves turned the basketball over 23 times, leading to an additional 25 Trail Blazers points. In the end, Portland attempted 11 more shots than Minnesota, which was a big reason why they dominated basically from start to finish in this one.
The Timberwolves have a turnover problem
In the locker room after the game, Anthony Edwards expressed discontent with how the squad took care of the ball. "We can't turn it over," he said. "Especially when we get stops. Like, we have great defensive possessions, we run, and then we turn it over and they're running back. So it hurt us."
His words are spot on in that Minnesota's good defensive possessions are being squandered by bad offensive execution right now. When the Timberwolves got a shot off on Tuesday, they made over 50% of their attempts. But the 23 turnovers means they missed their shot to get that many more high-percentage looks off.
Between this turnover issue and the continued transition defense problem, it is no wonder the Wolves look like a shell of the team they were last season. In 2023-24, these problems were not nearly as widespread.
Cutting down on turnovers and getting more possessions where they can generate high-quality looks will go a long way toward putting the Timberwolves back in the position they were in last year. As of now, it is simply about cleaning up the little things in order to change the big picture for this team.