On a night where uncertainty and potential gloom was clouding the mind of Minnesota Timberwolves fans, your favorite team’s favorite team took care of business, handling the Los Angeles Clippers by 26 points.
After a disappointing Wednesday night loss against the Golden State Warriors, the vibes turned back positive tonight. Granted, it was against a mightily inferior opponent, but still, Wolves fans needed some reprieve. LaMelo Ball hit some threes, Rudy Gobert didn’t fumble every pass like he was Troy
Williamson (IYKYK), and the overall energy felt much better.
Let’s get straight into the takeaways from tonight.
Welcome to the Bone Zone
It’s hard to pinpoint a specific performance that really sparked this victory because there were so many good ones, but I want to start with Bones Hyland. The “Bone Zone” was definitely active tonight, as Hyland finished with 20 points and eight assists on an even 8/16 shooting.
Bones was definitely in a rhythm, and it’s really fun when he gets in the mode he was in tonight, where it seems like every time he put up a shot, it was going in.
Without Anthony Edwards in the lineup, any and all play that sparks the energy that comes so easily when Ant is playing is play that the Wolves will take.
Jaden McDaniels can and will be that guy
Jaden McDaniels was another bright spot tonight, scoring 23 on an uber-efficient 11/15 from the floor, and coupling that with six rebounds and seven assists.
Without Ant, he’s probably the most important player for the Wolves on a night-to-night basis. When he’s scoring this efficiently and forcing defenses to respect his offense, it opens up everything for everyone else on the floor with him.
I can’t name a specific play, but I know that there were multiple times when he forced the issue by going to the basket, made the defense rotate, and kicked it to a teammate for an open shot, or, with that defense rotated, allowed that teammate to punch a gap and make a play at the rim.
If the Wolves are going to be successful in the stretch of games without Ant, this is how it needs to look. Monster dunks help too.
‘Melo wasn’t missing
After a shaky start, LaMelo Ball had a pretty nice game. After a sequence in which he took a side-step one-legged three and then followed that up with stealing the outlet pass and getting a layup, I wrote “full LaMelo Ball experience” down in my game notes.
His overall shooting numbers at 9/20 weren’t bad, also going 6/15 from three. I know the numbers don’t explicitly show it, but I do think he made a concerted effort to get in the paint and at least facilitate, while also looking for his own shot from time to time, even if he only took five two-point attempts.
Anyone who’s played knows it’s much easier to guard just a shooter rather than someone who is a shooter but also will attack the defense and get a paint touch, so if LaMelo is looking to facilitate or score, I don’t really care, as long as he continues to make defenses rotate and push guys to make second or third efforts against this Wolves offense.
A Rudy Rebound
After a dismal game against the Warriors and a video making its way around Wolves Twitter, Rudy delivered a classic Rudy Gobert performance tonight.
Nine points, 13 rebounds, four assists.
I just want to point to this tweet by the legend, Jon Krawczynski:
It happened in 2022 when he first joined the team, and it’s happening again now that a new iteration of teammates surround him.
One of the hardest things to do offensively as a team is play with a big man who can’t manufacture offense on their own. Rudy said it himself that he had to be better, but it’s not all on him. LaMelo can and will figure out that he can’t fire Joe Nathan fastballs at him. It just doesn’t work. Rudy has to be ready for the speed at which LaMelo plays, and he will.
Defensively, he was everything that makes his offensive limitations so frustrating.
From my notes: “Rudy still causes ‘Neverminds’”. That term, “Neverminds”, was coined (I believe) by Michael Grady, and it’s so perfect. Most of the time, when the offensive player comes down the lane and sees Rudy, they turn around.
Heck, I would too.
For all the shortcomings that he has, that’s why calls for Joan Beringer to play more or even start are asinine. Rudy’s still that guy.
Quick Hitters
- Jaylen Clark was awesome tonight. According to Jon K, he was a +23 in 17 minutes. Plays like the one below are the reason why he’s going to get a real chance to play in this league:
- Jonathan Kuminga was veeeeeeeery quiet tonight. Only 22 minutes, with just five points on six shots. Hopefully he’ll be ready to roll tomorrow, and his low minute count was probably the result of some really good bench play.
- I’ll admit that so far, I was wrong about Trey Lyles. In my preseason preview, I said I didn’t know where his minutes would come from, and I was wrong. He can play. From my notes: “Trey Lyles isn’t a scorer; he’s a basketball player” and “Trey Lyles=Kyle Anderson 2.0”. He’s been a nice surprise so far.
- I was a little shocked that Chris Finch didn’t sub the starters plus JC out with 5:00 to play when the Clippers waved the white flag, but I was reminded that point differential matters in these NBA Cup games. I’m not so sure it’s that worth it if guys like TJ Shannon are going to take nasty falls, though.
Up Next
Your Minnesota Timberwolves are back in action tomorrow night when they travel on a back-to-back to take on the San Antonio Spurs at 7:00 pm Central, streaming on DAZN or DirecTV for in-market viewers and NBA League Pass for out-of-market viewers.
