There is plenty to look forward to in the upcoming season regarding the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Western Conference runner-ups from this past season will be running things back with a roster that could end up being even better than the one they won 56 games with last season.
Anthony Edwards continues to rise to the level of one of the top players in the entire association. As his ceiling continues to rise, so will Minnesota's. Of course, it will help Ant to have one of the best and most experienced supporting groups in the league surrounding him as well. The West is deep and talented, so there are no guarantees about anything. However, it feels like a championship could be the Wolves' for the taking.
Timberwolves Insider and reporter for MinnPost Britt Robson recently sat down with Chris Finch to discuss many aspects of the upcoming season. This is a yearly interview that takes place between Robson and Finch, and it is one that typically gives the fanbase a big insight into significant topics regarding the Wolves.
In an article on MinnPost, Robson detailed how his conversation with Minnesota's coach reached a point where they got into one of the Timberwolves' biggest weaknesses from the 2023-24 season: creating points in transition.
Minnesota struggled to create transition opportunities last season
"You guys created more turnovers than any defense in the league last season and yet were next-to-last, 29th, in fast break points," Robson said to Finch in the interview. The Timberwolves' coach responded by saying that he was aware of this fact.
Robson then pointed out that the numbers say Mike Conley and Rudy Gobert were both efficient at scoring the ball in transition last season, but they simply registered a small volume. Finch responded by explaining that the small volume there was not by design.
"There is no conscious decision to do that," he said. "Rebounding was a big emphasis coming into last season because we didn’t rebound very well the year before, we have great size, and it has to be part of our identity. So we got better at that." Chris also explained that having self-awareness about the makeup of your team is important, and he knows that he does not have a particularly physically fast team. So leaning into strengths becomes important.
But that does not mean that there are not still times where he thinks his team can improve when presented with transition opportunities. "To your point, we’ll get turnovers, poke the ball free and get the ball at the top of the key, which should be an automatic cash-in," said Finch. "And somehow we don’t have the urgency to score it or don’t have the skills or awareness to make the right play in odd-man situations." Minnesota's coach reiterated that it is something they will plan to drill every day of training camp.
This should all be very reassuring for the fanbase to hear. I would certainly guess that plenty of even casual viewers noticed this team's lack of transition scoring last season, and Finch has made it clear that he has a rounded view of the problem. It is not something they are going to become experts at overnight given their personnel, but the Timberwolves should see some kind of improvement in this department this coming season.