Two wins and one loss feels right. The Timberwolves’ first two games were on the West Coast, facing full-strength opponents that will be contending for playoff berths in April. After that, they came home to face the Toronto Raptors. Toronto, rebuilding, was a 14.5-point underdog at Target Center. That the Wolves would split the road back-to-back before winning comfortably over the Raps… feels right.
There’s a lot to chew on after three games. Stats dot NBA dot com is always there, and Small Sample Size Theater can be a trip. (Eds note: My favorite right now is in Denver, where the Nuggets are performing FIFTY NINE (59) points worse per 100 possessions when Russell Westbrook is on the floor, versus when he’s on the bench.) Stats aren’t where my mind is at, however. It’s with Chris Finch’s rotations, the offensive flow, or sometimes lackthereof, and the relationship between the two concepts.
First, how has the offense looked? At LA, it looked horrible; as stagnant as ever. Many a kneejerk reaction blamed new arrival Julius Randle for this, as he holds the ball sometimes (oh, and way more importantly, he’s the Guy We Traded KAT For, but I don’t need to dig into that today). Personally, Iwent back to my old faithful scapegoat, Coach Finch and his “flow” non-offense that is high on player freedom and low on coordinated sets. Whatever the case, the offense stunk in Game 1. At Sacramento – a dramatic 1-point victory – was a Tale of 2 Halves. The first half was awful. The second half was pretty great. Randle, white-hot shooter in the first half, helped generate good three-point looks for teammates in the second. It felt like some things snapped together in that 2nd Half. Then on Saturday night at Target Center, it was equal parts inconsistent and “hard to determine, due to poor opponent quality.” There was some nice action out of the gates, as the Wolves built an early double-digit lead that would mostly sustain for the entire game. There were some really good passing sequences leading to three-point looks, especially the ones involving Donte DiVincenzo and Naz Reid. For certain stretches, playing with a big lead that was not realistically going to be lost, Ant got sloppy and things bogged down. All in all, I’d say the offensive chemistry has been mixed.
Second, what is Finch doing with his rotation? Well, it’s been rigid. Preseason dreams about Josh Minott, Luka Garza, Rob Dillingham, maybe even Terrence Shannon Junior… those were cute. Finch is leaning on his vets, which is basically what serious coaches trying to win games do. They play vets and sit rookies. Rick Adelman did it. Tom Thibodeau did it. Chris Finch does it. Finch is doing as this blog expected and sitting Dillingham in favor of backup combo guards Nickeil Alexander-Walker and DDV. Garza remains a fun Twitter Concept and per-36 stats monster, who doesn’t actually play. Josh Minott’s ego is getting re-bruised after a full preseason of PR massaging. Finch is playing 8 & 1/2 guys. The starters plus Naz, DDV, NAW, and a small dose of Joe Ingles. The Ingles minutes are the only real source of controversy, as he looked inept against the Lakers, invisible against the Kings, and then finally somewhat helpful versus the Raps. I don’t think anyone out there can reasonably disagree with Finch’s deployment of NAW, Naz, or DDV in the way they’re being used. Ingles, a visibly aged and slow, but reliably “known quantity” veteran, is just the sort of player who exists on the coach’s mental fault line between “win now” and “develop for the future,” all while not exactly knowing if he even helps win more than the younger alternative, or knowing that the younger alternative has a meaningful future. We can all tweet about it to our heart’s desires, but here’s the money Finch quote on his thinking:
Good enough for me, at least for now. NBA basketball is wildly disproportionately high on games versus practices. Whatever scheming was done in the offseason was chucked in the trash bin when they traded away Towns and welcomed Randle and DDV. We can see immediate changes for better and sometimes worse. If each of the first three games looked like the Laker game, I’d be hammering the panic button right now. But that isn’t how each of them looked. We saw Randle get more comfortable with his teammates, and we saw the teammates get more comfortable with Randle. We can see how DDV’s gonna launch threes and move intelligently off the ball. We can see that Ant is still Ant, but with a bit more leadership on his face and a bit more (or maybe a lot more) eagerness to shoot threes. We can see that Mike Conley, Age 37 Edition, is going to have a reduced role, and that it cannot mean that he has absolutely no role. We can see that Jaden is still The Forgotten Man, as his coach talked preseason about finding him more focal-point plays.
Finch is committing to using his Top 8 heavily as a means for FINDING STUFF THAT WORKS. Hopefully the search is successful, and hopefully wins can be collected along the way. Thursday’s at Sacramento was a very good basketball game. Saturday’s versus the Raptors was more of a cake walk. Tuesday, again home at Target Center, we welcome none other than Luka Doncic for a conference finals revenge match.
Until then.