The Minnesota Timberwolves put on a show Thursday night at Target Center with a 39-point blowout win over Cooper Flagg and the Dallas Mavericks.
With each new game, there is more and more to be learned about who the Timberwolves are and where they could be headed. With a game like this, nearly all of the takeaways land in the positive column as fans begin to dream about how this Wolves season can build from here.
1. LaMelo Ball is a flamethrower
LaMelo Ball was on absolute fire against the Mavericks. In just 25 minutes of play, he poured in 22 points on 8-for-14 shooting, including 6-for-10 on 3-pointers, to go along with nine assists and a pair of steals.
The stat line somehow undersells the degree to which Ball controlled the game. In the middle two quarters of the game, when Minnesota built a 30-point lead, Ball was knocking down step-backs from deep, getting into the lane at will, and dishing out passes to teammates all over the court.
Ball has gotten better with each subsequent game in a Timberwolves uniform. He is clearly getting more and more comfortable with his new teammates as well as in his role on offense, which has changed since Anthony Edwards left the lineup.
2. Wolves have a suffocating defensive wing duo
Cooper Flagg dominated his most recent game against the Indiana Pacers with 43 points and six assists. In this game, the Wolves kept him completely in check. Flagg was largely silent, putting up only 12 points and three dimes.
The reason the Wolves were able to slow Flagg down was the pair of their outstanding wing defenders, Jaden McDaniels and Jonathan Kuminga. Each player spent time as Flagg’s primary defender, and neither gave much ground.
It should come as no surprise that McDaniels was able to match up with a high-powered player, but it has also become a positive trait for Kuminga, who has had a sensational start to his Timberwolves tenure.
The Timberwolves rank as the top defense in the league. The reason for that isn’t just one player. It is because of a team-wide buy-in that has happened right from the beginning of the season. McDaniels and Kuminga embody this idea as much as anyone, and in this game, they shut down one of the best young stars in the NBA.
3. Control the paint, control the game
Of course, it would be foolish to bring up the Wolves’ defense and not mention Gobert, who shut the Mavericks out of the paint nearly by himself. Early in the season, the Timberwolves have built their identity around defense, with this game serving as proof of concept.
Multiple times in this game, the Mavs would get a step on their defender and, instead of getting all the way to the rim for a layup, they were forced to kick it out to a shooter or pull it back out themselves. The classic “never mind” from Gobert, who has made a Hall-of-Fame career of making opponents think twice before throwing up a shot near him.
The Timberwolves outscored the Mavericks 74-42 in this game. While the Wolves also had an advantage in three-point accuracy, they could have bricked every one of their long-range shots and still won the game with that level of advantage near the rim.
4. Playing with pace leads to good outcomes
The best way to describe the pace at which the Wolves played against Dallas would be hellacious. Every time they got a stop, whether it was a live-ball turnover or a defensive rebound, Minnesota pushed the ball up the floor and found a good shot.
Oftentimes, when a team pushes at every opportunity, the game can become frenetic. For the Wolves in this one, the opposite happened. While they only ended up with 26 fast-break points, there were countless other possessions where they scored in semi-transition and got the ball in advantageous positions before the defense got set.
Every team in the NBA preseason says they are going to play with more pace. Early in this regular season, the Timberwolves’ actions have matched their words.
5. We know the Timberwolves are good
There was much discussion online this week about the level of certainty that the Timberwolves are good. No one is denying that they have played quality basketball, but there appears to be some who are not fully bought in.
A performance like tonight, against a Mavericks team that was playing good basketball, is another data point that the Timberwolves are not just good, but one of the best teams in the NBA, as Minnesota now has the best Net Rating in the NBA through 12 games.
It is just a single game, but stacked up with the rest of the Wolves’ results, where they’ve won eight games by double digits, including five by 20 or more, and it is becoming undeniable that the Wolves are, for certain, good.
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