Happy Gameday, everyone. As we ring in the New Year, we usually focus on resolutions. We find things we can do better, ways we want to grow, and search for the fire to motivate us to do those things. Using that definition, there is no team that needs some resolutions more than the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Ever since that impressive win against the OKC Thunder, the Wolves have been hugely disappointing. Not only that, the identity that made that win feel so special has disappeared once again.
Somehow,
that’s not even the worst of it. Tonight’s first quarter showed once again how unprepared this team is for its opponents. Against a team that wants nothing more than to force fastbreak opportunities, the Wolves gave up turnovers and breakaways en route to being on the wrong end of a 20-point lead.
There are few things more annoying to fans than that special level of unwatchability. Within 12 minutes, the game felt completely out of hand. With three minutes left in the first half, Anthony Edwards had 20 points and the rest of the team had 21.
None of this is sustainable for a team that is rapidly getting lapped by its other Western Conference equivalents. The Wolves sit in 6th, hovering above the Play-In. Conversely, the San Antonio Spurs are the second seed behind their young superstar dynamo, and the Thunder are still on track for nearly 70 wins.
That lack of drive is especially painful to watch when the guy who would never get into these kinds of funks is now on the other side of the Jumbotron. Nickeil Alexander-Walker seems to have been the glue holding this team’s mentality together.
It may be time to call it what it is. This team is not just a roster move away; they’re also a massive paradigm shift away.
Maybe it’s time to put some numbers down to add to the opinions and observations. The Wolves were down 27 at one point and entered to second half down 21. They gave up a baffling 26 points in the paint and 70 points total at halftime.
Good basketball teams don’t give up games like this. It’s so hard to keep leaning on the last two months of the last two seasons as proof that they will simply just figure it out when the eye test and the numbers say the Wolves are only two things for certain: middling and inconsistent.
There is a never-ending laundry list of questions to be faced. There’s the question of whether Chris Finch’s voice has stopped impacting his players. There’s the question of whether Julius Randle’s slump is a return to form or an unfortunate setback. There’s the question of who, if anyone, outside of Anthony Edwards, can become a real top-end talent enough to change the outlook for this team.
Any organization facing even one of those problems is probably not at a championship level, the level at which the Wolves front office claims they are. Most devastatingly, we probably won’t even get answers to any of them. If there’s one thing that has defined this team ever since the Rudy Gobert trade, it is in-season passivity.
Outside of the Mike Conley/NAW for D’Angelo Russell swap, the Wolves have not made a meaningful in-season acquisition in the Tim Connelly era. Far from the 2020 deadline reshuffling, which likely saw too many changes, all adjustments are made on the back of continuity.
And, truly, from the heart, that sucks.
That approach completely robs us of answers. We will not know if Chris Finch has become ineffective because Minnesota won’t fire him before the offseason (at the absolute earliest). We won’t know who Randle is because his ebb and flow is accompanied by Finch’s unrelenting trust and belief (good) leading to a total lack of accountability (bad).
The Wolves are clearly in huge need of a retool. Tonight, against a floundering Atlanta Hawks team, laid that bare. They played a lifeless, limp handshake of a game. There was no effort on offense or defense. At no point did this game feel close.
The fact that those three sentences have been a consistent recap staple this year is about as bad as it gets for a team that is supposedly in a title window with their 24-year-old superstar. Changes won’t come today, or tomorrow, or even by the February trade deadline. They may not even come in the New Year, unlikely and far away as that may seem.
However, they will need to happen. This is not a product that people can stomach. The taste of playoff success is haunting and takes even being a consistent playoff team, something that would’ve felt like a faraway dream five years ago, and twists it to not be enough.
Time will tell if that “last two months of the season” thesis reawakens after a long hibernation, as it did before, but in the meantime, we’re left with an obvious conclusion: this team is not up to the task.
Here’s to New Year’s and new teams. Hopefully, most of all, here’s to a locker room willing to force each other to make changes. Resolutions are made easier by having compatriots in the fights you find for yourself.
Maybe it’s time for teammates to force that fight.
Up Next
The Timberwolves head down to South Beach to take on the Miami Heat for their first game of 2026. The Wolves get a seemingly needed extra day off as the game tips off on Saturday at 4:00 PM CT. Fans can watch the game on FanDuel Sports Network and NBA TV.
