The NBA is definitely a league that has become heavily reliant on the 3-point shot. The number of attempts from behind the arc rises each season, and big men being a threat from deep is much more of the norm. That was the case for the Timberwolves, who shot a franchise-most 39.9 threes per contest in 2024-25.
Anthony Edwards put up more than 10 per game, and he led the league with 320 makes. While 3-point shooting is so prevalent in the current NBA, it doesn’t mean that the 2-point shot has no importance. As good as the Wolves have been the last two seasons, they also haven’t ranked in the top half of the league in 2-point accuracy in either year.
Chris Finch has worries about 2-point shooting
Even though Minnesota depended on the 3-point shot more than they ever previously have, 54.5% of their shots were inside the arc last season. On the year, they shot 54.5% from 2-point territory, which placed them just 18th out of 30 teams in 2-point accuracy.
In 2023-24, they shot just one-tenth of a percentage point better at 54.6%. The Timberwolves actually ranked fourth in 2022-23 at 56.8%, although they did not have the same amount of team success.
Britt Robson of the MinnPost interviewed Wolves head coach Chris Finch and brought up the 2-point shooting.
"Yup. I worry about it., Finch said. So much so that we have retooled our finishing program — how we look at finishing, our player-development pieces of it. Ant had a subpar finishing year, there is no real excuse for that. Donte and Mike, as you already mentioned. Naz (Reid) did, too. I think there were a lot of forced shots at the rim. But (the issue) was a little different for everyone. For Mike it was the floater. For Ant, I don’t know, it seemed to have left him. Maybe he didn’t pay enough attention to it in his own player development. That has been a priority — getting back to that for him. I think Donte’s problem was indecision — he was trying to find Rudy (Gobert) at times. And he was over-penetrating and putting himself in a position where he turned it over a lot, too, which is worse than the misses."
The team became even less accurate in the playoffs as their 2-point accuracy dipped to 54.1%. Part of that was facing the suffocating defense of the Thunder, though. They shot 53.0% on 2-pointers in that five-game series.
Struggles across the board
Rudy Gobert is going to take all his shots from inside the arc and is always amongst the league leaders in field goal percentage. While he doesn’t necessarily attempt a lot of shots, he is going to help raise the floor of a team’s inside shooting.
Finch mentioned a few players in his interview who had far from their best season when attempting 2-pointers. The one who struggled the most was the soon-to-be 38-year-old Conley. About two-thirds of his shots were three-pointers, but he shot just 38.0% from inside the arc. That was easily a career low for the 18-year veteran. Somehow, Conley went just 9-36 on 2-pointers in the playoffs.
As great as Edwards was, and as great as it was to see his improved 3-point shooting, his 50.1% 2-point shooting was the lowest since his rookie year. Donte DiVincenzo made 49% of his two-pointers after making well over 50% the previous two seasons. Naz Reid has become a muchlarger threat from three-point range, but his 54% shooting from inside the arc the last two seasons is a far cry from the 65.3% he shot in 2022-23.
If some of these Wolves players can come closer to their norms in 2-point accuracy, and they can continue being one of the more accurate 3-point shooting teams, they can more likely surpass the team projections placed on them for the 2025-26 season.