Coming off their best win of the season, the Minnesota Timberwolves took care of business again, this time on the road against the New Orleans Pelicans. It has been a fantastic start for Minnesota who is now 2-0 in NBA Cup play and 7-3 on the season with their best player, Anthony Edwards, being available for only four of their games.
The Timberwolves continue putting up impressive numbers, most notably leading the NBA in Net Rating. The quality play continued Friday night in New Orleans, with multiple players standing out with notable performances.
1. LaMelo Ball’s plus-minus of +23
LaMelo Ball carried the Timberwolves to victory in this game. He finished the night with 22 points on just 15 shots to go along with eight rebounds. Ball played a season-high 35 minutes, and the Wolves needed every single one of them.
In those 35 minutes, the Wolves outscored the Pelicans by 23 points, shot 54 percent from the field, and assisted on 64.7 percent of their field goals. In the 13 minutes Ball was on the bench, Minnesota was outscored by 17 points, shot 16 percent from the field, and had just one total assist.
Ball controlled every aspect of the Wolves’ offense every second he was on the court. He played with the ball in his hands for long stretches and consistently either got to the basket for a layup or kicked it out to a wide-open shooter.
The performance from Ball both validates the Wolves’ decision to trade him this summer and has to give the entire organization confidence that they are going to be able to win games without their superstar.
Ball has had some up-and-down performances early in his Wolves tenure, but these last two games have been sensational. He dominated the fourth quarter against the Houston Rockets and put the entire Wolves’ offense on his back against the Pelicans.
2. Ayo Dosunmu’s impressive 26 points
At every turn, Ayo Dosunmu has gotten better and better with each subsequent game he plays with the Timberwolves. In this one, he led the Wolves in scoring with a hyper-efficient 26 points on 8-for-14 shooting, including 4-for-6 from beyond the arc.
Since joining the starting lineup, Dosunmu is averaging 20.8 points per game, on 53.2 percent shooting from the field and 41.9 percent shooting from deep. He is also putting up 5.7 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game during that time.
Dosunmu has silenced all of the doubters who were worried about the five-year $112 million contract. He has proven the ability to be both a high-quality sixth man off the bench and also a player who can increase his usage as needed without losing out on efficiency.
3. Timberwolves 12-39 on three-pointers
Despite generating a ton of wide-open three-point looks, the Timberwolves struggled to knock down shots from beyond the arc. They made just 12 of their 39 attempts from there, including just 3-for-16 on corner three-pointers.
Many of the misses were weirdly not even close to going in either. Maybe it was the deep blue Pelicans court for the NBA Cup, or just an odd streak of poor shooting, but it speaks well of the Wolves that they were able to win this game without being able to rely on their outside shot.
One of the biggest culprits for the poor shooting was Trey Lyles, who missed all four of his three-pointers. Lyles more than made up for it in other areas, though, as he had 13 rebounds, three steals, and a block on the defensive end.
4. Zion Williamson held to 13 points
Zion Williamson is a noted Timberwolves killer, but not in this one. He finished with just 13 points, the lowest total of his career against the Wolves. Before this game, Williamson was averaging 28.5 points per contest in 11 career games against the Timberwolves, by far his most against any opponent.
The main defender for Williamson was Jonathan Kuminga. In the past, the Wolves have not had the needed combination of speed, size, and strength at power forward to keep up with Williamson. In this game, Kuminga was the perfect player type to slow Williamson, and he did exactly that.
It is almost impossible to overstate how valuable Kuminga has been for the Timberwolves through ten games. Earlier in the season, Chris Finch said, “We’d be lost without him right now,” about Kuminga, and this defensive performance tonight is a perfect example of why.
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