It became a major concern from the Minnesota Timberwolves’ fan base when it was announced that Anthony Edwards would be forced to miss time with a right knee injury. Losing a near 30-point per game superstar so late in the regular season while the team is jockeying for playoff positioning certainly would not be ideal.
Entering a game on Wednesday with the Houston Rockets, the Timberwolves are 3-1 since Ant-Man has been sidelined. At times, they have certainly missed his scoring during this stretch, but the Wolves continue to show that when they care enough, they are an elite defensive club.
Defense has been superb since Ant has been out
We know the Timberwolves, just as every team does during an 82-game schedule, have games over the course of the year where the effort doesn’t seem to be fully there. There are a few games that come to mind for Minnesota this season where the fans went to social media, wondering where the defensive intensity was during the outing.
There hasn’t been any of that talk during the last four games. They have given up just 103.8 points per contest over that time, and no more than 111 in any of them. Scoring came at a premium at times during their last game against the Boston Celtics, but the defense held an excellent Boston team to just 35.8 percent shooting from the field in their 10-point win.
In that time, the Timberwolves possess a defensive rating of 101.0. That is a full point lower than the Charlotte Hornets for best in the league over each NBA team’s last four outings. The opposition is shooting just 39.8 percent from the field and 30.1 percent from beyond the arc in Minnesota’s last four games. Other than the game against the Utah Jazz, the offense hasn't been great, but the defense has led them to mostly wins.
On the season, the Wolves have the eighth-best defensive rating at 112.4. A top-10 defense is essentially the floor for a team rostering four-time Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert. They are just 0.1 points behind the sixth-place Miami Heat.
It was assumed the Timberwolves would need to consistently find their defensive peak without Edwards to stay afloat, and that’s exactly what they have done. That side of the ball is exactly why there is optimism that, despite the team’s inconsistencies over the course of the season, a lengthy postseason run could still be on the table.