Minnesota is 14-3 since March 1 and currently owns the longest winning streak in the NBA with five-straight victories.
That suggests the Timberwolves are playing some of the league’s best basketball. And yet Wolves coach Chris Finch was lamenting his team’s performance after Saturday’s narrow escape over a depleted Philadelphia squad.
Yes, the Wolves won, but they weren’t at their best in doing. And, frankly, they haven’t had to be at their best over the last month-plus.
Since Minnesota got healthy, the schedule has been wildly easy. That 17-game run includes just five games against teams with records above-.500. In those five games, they’ve beaten the Nuggets twice — with Denver missing Aaron Gordon in one game, and Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. in the other — and the Pistons, who were without Cade Cunningham and Tobias Harris to open the affair, and numerous others after an ejection-inducing scuffle.
They’ve lost to a skeleton Pacers squad at home, and were blitzed by full-strength Indiana on the road.
Sandwiched in between those games are a bunch of wins against non-playoff competition, which has helped Minnesota surge up the Western Conference standings. But what has the recent stretch said about the Wolves and their potential for a deep playoff run?
Perhaps little?
On the negative side, there are still the mind-numbing mistakes when a game nears its conclusion, and the defense isn’t consistently the dominant version upon which this team’s success rests.
Positively, the offense looks great for longer periods of play, Rudy Gobert has returned to all-star, game-wrecking form and Anthony Edwards appears to have reacquired the rhythm of his lethal outside jumper.
But even the positives need to be taken with a grain of salt given the lackluster level of competition. The already low standard of play for NBA cellar dwellers only wanes as the campaign nears its conclusion and organizations do anything within their power to ensure they don’t pick up an accidental win that could prove to be the difference between selecting fifth and first in the draft.
Like Minnesota, other contenders in the West are playing well of late. But many of them are notching impressive victories that provide evidence as to how they’ll stack up in two weeks time when the playoffs begin.
Golden State convincingly beat the Lakers on Thursday. The Lakers blew out the conference-leading Thunder on Sunday. Houston has beaten Oklahoma City and the Warriors in succession.
Minnesota hasn’t had a chance to prove its mettle at full strength in months. Donte DiVincenzo, Julius Randle and Rudy Gobert all missed strings of games in January and February. Since they’ve returned, legitimate challenges have been few and far between.
Have the Wolves truly grown and evolved as a group to the point where they can topple a fellow top-six team in the West in a best-of-7 series? That’s anyone’s guess.
Some evidence to the good or bad will finally appear this week in the form of road games in Milwaukee and Memphis, teams that should be equally as motivated as Minnesota to improve their respective playoff positionings.
How the Wolves fare this week could finally provide some insight into what’s to come in the weeks to follow.
Related Articles
Anthony Edwards, Rudy Gobert save Minnesota from disaster
Timberwolves waxed by Pacers for third loss in four games
Timberwolves still being hurt by late-game shot selection. What’s the fix?
Timberwolves dominate the Jazz: Takeaways from Minnesota’s eighth straight win
Timberwolves trounce Denver … again: Five takeaways from yet another win over the Nuggets
Leave a Reply