The Wolves devastating collapse at Phoenix on Friday night was both a new type of 2025-26 Timberwolves performance, and also one that fits the early-season pattern.
It was new because, for the first time all season, they did not either beat a bad team or lose decisively to a good one. Facing the Suns in a “Cup” game, the Wolves provided a tale of two halves, with a surprise horror ending. In the first half they were thoroughly outplayed in most facets of the game, struggling to handle Phoenix’s defensive pressure. In the second half, Anthony Edwards caught fire and Devin Booker played the worst game he’ll turn in all season. (Hi Jaden.) The end result was supposed to be a Wolves win, as they pulled ahead by 8 points with a mere 1:09 to go.
If you’re reading this blog, you already know how the rest of the game went. Turnovers, missed free throws, more turnovers, an alarming lack of a timeout being called anywhere, and suddenly a person named Collin Gillespie was sinking a 9-foot floating jump shot that was painfully reminiscent of the one Austin Reaves buried to sink the Wolves, a couple weeks ago.
If you’ve followed the Wolves closely for as long as I have, you know that type of meltdown is not unprecedented. One that sticks out in my memory was versus Houston that involved Ryan Anderson. (Quick BB-Ref search confirms December 17, 2016, Wolves led by 12 with 2:05 to go, lost in OT.) Another that sticks out was versus Sacramento that involved Buddy Hield. (Once again, BB-Ref to the rescue. January 27, 2020, Wolves led by 17 with 2:30 to go, lost in OT. (!!!))
Regardless of where it stacks up in team history, Friday’s collapse was brutal, as they did the hard work of climbing back from a deficit on the road, had the win in hand, and then gave it away. Chris Finch spoke before the Wizards game on Wednesday about the importance of not taking the weaker opponents lightly. He mentioned how you just have to look at the Western Conference standings when the season ends to see how important a single game might be. Last year just 4 games separated the 2-seeded Rockets from the Warriors and Grizzlies who were in the play-in tournament. The Wolves avoided the play-in by a single game, and likely would not have made a conference finals run had they lost just 1 additional regular season game. Conversely, had the Wolves won just 3 more games last year (in a season rife with inexcusable losses to weak opponents) they’d have had the 2 seed themselves, which entering the playoffs felt like a pretty big deal. (As it turned out, ripping through the Lakers in 5 before facing a largely Stephless Warriors was a pretty clean path, but you don’t bank on luck as a 6-seed.)
Moving onto how Friday’s loss at Phoenix fits INTO the season pattern. Well, I think that for the first time all year (with possible exception of the opener versus Portland) the Wolves were not facing a weak team or a strong team, but an AVERAGE team. The Suns at present have a good record (10-6) but it’s widely believed that they are a little bit worse than that and will not be a serious factor in the West. They’re not bad like the Kings, Jazz, Wizards, or Nets. They’re also not good like the Nuggets or Lakers. They’re average. And if the Wolves beat bad teams and lose to good ones, then it stands to reason that they’d go down to the wire against an average one. That’s what happened, even if the final 69 seconds were extra chaotic.
The Suns game wasn’t the only one since last week’s post, of course. But, with the others being more of the “beat up on bad teams” same, there isn’t a lot to say about them. Facing a Kyrie & AD-less Mavs team on Monday night, the Wolves rolled. Facing a Wizards team on Wednesday night that was on an 11-game skid, The Wolves led by almost 30 before half. They played an extra-sluggish 2nd Half and allowed the game to get borderline interesting with a few minutes to go, but I think we can still file that away as an “easy win versus bad opponent.” More of the same.
Until the schedule stiffens, the Wolves are coasting along at a pretty good winning percentage clip (.625, 10-6, a 51-win pace) without quite knowing if they’re actually good, or merely average. The fan both appreciates the piling up of Ws while feeling a little bit uneasy about the state of the team and its eventual postseason prospects.
A few jottings:
- In the latest Dane & Britt pod, they discuss Ant’s inconsistency and psychological approach. (It starts up around the 34:00 mark.) They discuss whether Ant sometimes gets bored versus weak opposition (he’d played very poorly versus Washington, right before this was recorded) and agree that “lazy” is much too strong a word to describe it. But a blend of self-confidence and carefree ease might lend itself to not bringing the same degree of effort night in and night out. While I agree that Ant is not the same player night in and night out, and that the trend often seems to be that he coasts in easier games, I tend to think the psychological piece of it is probably pretty normal. If there’s volatility to Ant’s performance (and there seems to be some) I would attribute it to the style he plays, and – as importantly – the style he DOESN’T play. Watch a Tier 1 NBA Superstar in 2025 (Jokic, Shai, Luka) and what do you see them do? Dribble with their back to the basket, waddle or shake a little bit to test the waters of drawing a cheap foul, and if the defender remains disciplined, they methodically get to their spot, and drill a step back jumper that by the time it’s released seems unbelievably easy and unbelievably likely to go in the basket. If that was actually easy then everybody would do it. Ant doesn’t have that skill set in his bag. He talked about adding a post game, but it hasn’t materialized at this point. What he has instead, is an explosive dribble drive game, with an ahead of schedule dribble 3-point game. When Ant flies into traffic, he thinks he’s fouled every single time, without realizing that isn’t the sort of light touch foul that gets whistled. To get light whistles, it has to be in slower action, like Luka and Shai understand, where the flop takes a guy who wasn’t moving, and sends him to the floor. When Ant’s going 100 miles per hour, it’s harder to detect if he’s been hit or not. He’s also got Rudy Gobert and Julius Randle occupying some lane real estate in different ways that further destabilize his approach to scoring consistently. All of which is to say: I don’t think Ant is especially inconsistent from a psychological approach – I just think he’s a little bit less seasoned than the league’s very very best offensive players, and he also plays within a roster that doesn’t fully unlock his scoring style. He’ll have some ups and downs. But until his skillset reaches the level of the Luka’s and Shai’s, or perhaps more generously, until he plays for a team that is built to optimize the strengths of his game — his production consistency will lag behind theirs.
- Donte DiVincenzo is an elite-elite standing three-point shooter. That’s apparent from watching him in games, as he reliably knocks down threes when he can shoot one relatively open and in rhythm. The question — well, “my question,” anyway — is whether he shoots a few too many extreme-difficulty treys. I don’t just mean distance, although jacking from 32 feet is part of it. Donte’s shooting mechanics – strong legs, super-quick release, allow him to get a good-looking shot off from 40+ feet if he wants to. Too often, in my view, he wants to. A low-percentage hoist from 33 feet isn’t the worst thing. It might go in, it’s not a turnover, and even a miss might get rebounded by the Wolves. But it isn’t ideal. I watched his pregame shootaround before the Wizards game, and everything reinforced this view. His normal corner threes rarely touch any rim on their way down. I bet he could make more than 90 out of 100 from the corners in a typical shootaround if he took each one seriously. But he soon starts drifting out toward halfcourt and is jacking up 38 footers on the move. He could have a better shot selection.
- The point guard situation remains a situation. Whether Mike is Option A and Rob is Option B, or vice versa, Finch is opting for Option C, “no point guard,” at least with the starting lineup. When Mike plays, he’s settled into a late-career spot-shooter role. Mike is hitting 44.7 percent of threes. On twos? He’s hitting 31.8 percent. Mike’s usage rate is the lowest on the team, just under Jaylen Clark at 12.2% usage. He’s basically become an undersized but intelligent and reliable bench shooter. The “point guard” aspects of his job duties list are largely gone. Rob is struggling, but – credit to Finch – he’s struggling through it on the game floor. Maybe he’ll develop, maybe he won’t. Rob’s the only Wolves rotation player (unless you count TSJ, who’s been out a while) with a terrible net rating. When Rob plays the Wolves are outscored by 9.9 points per 100 possessions. When Rob sits, they win by 9.0 points per 100. That situation should stabilize at least a little bit as time goes on (if he doesn’t lose his spot in the lineup first) but it isn’t going well with Rob on the floor. He misses too many shots to be a scorer (38.6% from the field, .250 from three), and he turns the ball over way too much to be a pure point guard (per 36 minutes, it’s 6.3 assists to 4.2 turnovers). To his credit, he fights hard on defense and for loose balls, but for a guy that small it’s always going to be an UPHILL fight on that end of the floor. There just isn’t a lot of advantage to Rob’s game unless he can leverage his quickness and ball handling ability into being at least an above-average offensive player.
- A broken-record take to close this one down. Jaylen Clark remains good and should play more than he does. Finch the other day said that Jaylen provides a “personality” to the Wolves defense. He seems to appreciate his contributions. Clark’s net rating is among the best on the team, which sets him apart from some other bench guys like Rob and Naz. He’s the best perimeter defender on the team, one of the toughest contested rebounders on the team, he’s a decent (not great, but definitely not bad either) corner three shooter, and he’s sneaky good at using his upper body strength to draw shooting fouls in traffic. As he further cements his place in the Wolves regular rotation the way that NAW did before him, the team will be better off, for it.
This week we get the by-now-familiar Sacramento Kings in a late one on Monday night. Sabonis is out, and last night Russ took advantage of increased reps to lead a surprising win at Denver. On Wednesday, we pay the piper for the easy early schedule, and play the Thunder in OKC. Then on Saturday, a holiday-weekend 4 pm tilt against the Celtics at Target Center. I expect there to be a pretty special tribute ready for Luka Garza.
Happy Thanksgiving, and Go Wolves.
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