Through the first month of the 2024-25 season, the Minnesota Timberwolves performed with little energy and no identity, an annoying blend of anemia and amnesia, as if they needed to be careful not to hurt themselves until they could figure out what was amiss.
The nadir was a fourth-quarter disintegration against the Sacramento Kings on Thanksgiving Eve, in which the top defense in the NBA a year ago surrendered points to the opposition on 11 straight possessions, flipping a double-digit lead into a double-digit disadvantage and a fourth straight loss that felt preordained.
In the locker room afterwards, the Wolves superstar and nascent leader Anthony Edwards swirled ire and bewilderment into his struggle to identify the problem, calling out the entire roster, himself included, as soft frontrunners with disparate agendas and a disdain for disciplined instruction.
It was a heroic summation, especially in retrospect. With transparent difficulty, Ant had coughed up the team’s giant psychological hairball for all to see. It had to be acknowledged, and remedied.
And so it was.
Since then, the Wolves have rectified their season with stunning immediacy. As if struck by a lightning bolt, the team recalled that they have been assembled to defend with the ferocity and selfless precision of pack animals, prowling with an opportunistic intensity that suffocates the spirit of their foes.
Before Thanksgiving, the Wolves defense ranked 12th among the NBA’s 30 teams, yielding 112.1 points per 100 possessions while losing 10 of 18 games. In the five games after Thanksgiving, four of them victories, they have given up a 93.8 points per 100 possessions, a phenomenal 10.4 fewer points than the next-best defense and 18.3 fewer points than their opponents were scoring before the Wolves remembered who and what they were.
A team with Rudy Gobert as a prominent component of its starting lineup has its identity centered upon its defense. Gobert has been named the NBA’s best defender four times. He is a rim protector who cows as many shots as he blocks, a methodical strategist with a madness for detail, a veteran so self-developed that the virtues and vices of his game may as well be etched in stone.
When a teammate loafs or misconstrues an assignment, Gobert is not afraid to look bad by pursuing a likely doomed scenario to its logical conclusion, for the sake of the sliver of times he can rescue the outcome. Consequently, he gets dunked on or caught coming to the play at a bad angle more often than any premiere defender. This is accepted. Where Gobert-led defenses become corroded is when his high expectation level in his teammates is disabused enough to affect his trust, to the point where his perfectionism and competitive zeal compel him to pre-empt his own principles and seek to do everything himself.
Not surprisingly, Gobert-led defenses also corrode when Gobert heads to the bench for rest. Before Thanksgiving, the Wolves gave up 108 points per 100 possessions in the 611 minutes he was on the court and 114.6 points in the 263 minutes he sat, a significant difference of 8.6 more points per 100 possessions. But after Thanksgiving, while the defense with Gobert playing improved to a staunch 93.9 points allowed in 177 minutes, the Wolves were even better, permitting just 87.6 points per 100 possessions in the 63 minutes he rested.
A positive trend
Now when you are talking about 2-player pairings over a 5-game period, the sample sizes get pretty small and thus prone to greater swings caused by a particularly good or bad stretch of play in a specific game or two. But the improvement in the Wolves defense was so dramatic that these swings can be viewed as driving a trend.
For example, the frontcourt pairing of Gobert and Naz Reid on defense was 12 points per 100 possessions better after Thanksgiving (89.7 points allowed in 77 minutes) than before Thanksiving (101.7 points allowed in 213 minutes). The pairing of Gobert and Julius Randle in the frontcourt improved even more than that, 15.2 fewer points after Thanksgiving (95.7 points allowed in 96 minutes) than before Thankgiving (110.9 points allowed in 390 minutes).
The eye-opener (albeit in the smallest sample size), is the Naz-Randle frontcourt tandem with Gobert on the bench, which went from allowing 116.8 points in 100 possessions over 218 minutes together before Thanksgiving, to a measly 85.3 points allowed in 46 minutes after Thanksgiving. That’s an improvement of 31.5 points per 100 possessions.
It requires multiple causes to generate such a huge leap forward. Over the past five games, the Wolves have caught at least a couple of opponents at a rest disadvantage. Randle was acquired (along with guard Donte DiVincenzo) in a trade just before the start of training camp, and inevitably benefits from greater familiarity. And Ant’s locker room comments inspired everyone to play harder and more team-oriented hoops.
That said, it is hard not to focus on the variable most easily verified by the eye test: In terms of both scheme and individual energy, Naz and Randle were much more active. Before Thanksgiving they were more-often consigned to the paint near the basket, where their relative lack of size and experience as primary rim-protectors left them susceptible to being overwhelmed. After Thanksgiving, they ventured out to the foul line and beyond more frequently, inverting the defense as smaller players filled in the “low man” rotations.
But the point wasn’t defending different locations; it was the movement itself, fostering the “fly around mentality” that has become a staple of great Wolves defense (to the point where Gobert roams and thus needs to trust rotations and far more than he did during his 9 years in Utah). It generated a rhythm and mentality that also made both Randle and Naz more effective at low-man help and overall rim-protection then they had been previously. Flying around is taxing, but when it is effectively disrupting opponents it can also be fun and inspiring.
Breaking it down in terms of how accurately opponents shot the ball from different areas on the court reinforces the progress made by the frontcourt tandems. In the “restricted” area right near the basket, the Wolves improved from 17th before Thanksgiving to 3rd since then in opponent field goal percent. And just a little further out but still “in the paint,” the jump was from 26th to 2nd (44.6% down to 36.3% accuracy) before and after Thanksgiving.
Other contributors
Of course playing defense is the most team-oriented aspect of NBA basketball, and while the frontcourt trio should rightfully be lauded for their improvement (especially Randle, whose presence on the court was toxic to good defense before Thanksgiving) there are a couple players on the perimeter who have stood out on defense the entire season: Mike Conley and Nickeil Alexander-Walker.
Conley began the season bothered by a chronic wrist injury that hindered his shooting and may have contributed to a spate of uncharacteristic turnovers and questionable decisions. During that same period, his 18 years being the primary pilot of a half-court offense in the NBA was briefly derailed by Randle’s permissive initiation to the team.
“Obviously, Julius, first two weeks, we were like, ‘man, be more aggressive, this is your team too!’ trying to get him up to speed. And then when that happens I tend to fade to the corner and get myself out of actions,” Conley said diplomatically. Although he has regained the rudder for the offense, his shooting percentage and assists per-game are well below his career average, in part because his minutes per-game are at a career low.
But raw numbers always understate Conley’s contributions anyway. His locker-room presence by itself is nearly worth the $10 million he is being paid both this season and the next. And when it comes to reflections of team play, he shines. The Wolves offense is most potent, scoring 114.2 points per 100 possessions, when Conley is on the floor than any other member of the team’s eight-player rotation.
Here’s the kicker: It is quite possible that Conley is playing the best defense of his long career. When coach Chris Finch was asked how and why his point guard was thriving at that end of the court, he was almost comically detailed.
“He understands the game plan, he’s always in the right position, he competes through screens as one of the best ‘chase’ defenders in the league, he can draw fouls at the appropriate time, he always gets a good shot-contest, he boxes out (for rebounding position), he’ll front the post (to deny larger players the ball). You want me to go on?” he said with a wry laugh, finishing with, “He’s a competitive winner who understands how important that end of the floor is.”
Conley’s net rating—the difference between how many points his teams scores and how many his team allows during the time he is on the court—is currently the second-best among the top eight players at +7 points per 100 possessions. The only player who tops it is Alexander-Walker (“NAW”), at +10.2. The Wolves overall net rating is +3.6.
Along with being the Wolves’ most statistically valuable player, NAW has also been the most consistent. Through the first month of the NBA season, perhaps the biggest indictment of the team’s overall effort was how much harder NAW seemed to be playing than anyone else—and how much that mattered. The contrast was sharpened by the fact that on a team with the second-highest payroll in the NBA, NAW is making a paltry $4.3 million this season on a two-year contract that expires at the end of this season.
Conley’s virtues are increasing reliant on his savvy. What makes him so good on the “chase” is his anticipation of what angles to take for the shortest route that both slips screens and puts him back in front of the ball-handler. Once there, he rarely gets caught over-chasing, colliding with his assignment when the man stops short but keeps his dribble. (This is one of the flaws in Jaden McDaniels’ typically solid blanket coverage.)
By contrast, NAW is adroit at blowing up screens through acceleration, making himself skinny and knifing through the tiny gap between the screener and the ball-handler. His energy feels inexorable: It’s not uncommon for him to start dogging his man before the dribbler crosses half-court, and be it rotating on switches, closing out on shooters, hemming in opponents as part of a trap or double-team, and simply buzzing the ball-handler from myriad angles like a swarm of mosquitos, he’s actually moved ahead of McDaniels–the All Defensive team honoree and the Wolves’ wing-stopper—and is second only to Gobert as a positive tone-setter for the defense.
Finch has responded accordingly. NAW is increasingly playing in high-leverage situations. He has played more “clutch” minutes, defined as the final five minutes of a game when the teams are within five points of each other, and more fourth-quarter minutes than the other two bench players, Naz and DiVincenzo, and stayed in the game over Conley down the stretch of a tight game against Golden State on Sunday. (Perhaps unwisely: Conley’s net rating during clutch minutes are more exponentially more favorable than anyone else’s on the team.)
At a height of 6-5, NAW is among a contingent of fleet and lengthy athletic wings—McDaniels, Ant, DiVincenzo, and even Naz qualify—that have enabled the Wolves to be exceptionally good at guarding the perimeter. There is a school of thought that believes effectively defending against three-pointers is more about variance and luck than genuine deterrence, but seeing is believing when you watch the Wolves, especially during the five games since Thanksgiving.
They have gone from third to first in lowest shooting accuracy for opponents on corner treys (from 33.1% to 30.4%), but perhaps more impressively, have risen from 21st to third in the NBA in forcing misses on threes from above-the-break (from 36.3% to 30.2%). Coupled with the upgrade in rim protection, this is now a defense of supple prowess, flying around with a rugged glee that recalls the halcyon days way back in the 2023-24 season.
Digging out of a hole
Last year’s success remains a daunting, high bar of achievement. Through 23 games a season ago, the Wolves were in first place with a record of 18-5. Today, despite regaining a sturdy identity, they stand at 12-11 and would need to endure a play-in round of games to even qualify for the playoffs.
Their suffocating defense since Thanksgiving has put on a sleeper hold on their offense too—they rank 26th in points scored per possession over their last five games. Meanwhile, the West is perhaps even deeper than it was last season, with no room for letups.
The Wolves discovered as much on Sunday. After yielding just 49 points to the Warriors while building a nine-point first-half lead, Minnesota was run off the court in the third period, allowing a whopping 44 points in 25 Golden State possessions.
The opponent pounced—the Warriors set a blistering pace with long outlet passes and rapid dribbles and run-outs, even after made Timberwolves baskets. Following four and a half games of majestic defense, the team had emerged from the locker room complacent.
The identity is defense. It comes, part-and-parcel, with consistent effort, with Gobert, Conley and NAW leading the way. From Ant’s lips to the ears of everyone else, others need to follow.
Britt Robson
Britt Robson has covered the Timberwolves since 1990 for City Pages, The Rake, SportsIllustrated.com and The Athletic. He also has written about all forms and styles of music for over 30 years.