For as beautiful as the Timberwolves’ defense was a year ago, the offense was, often, less aesthetically appealing.
And not all that effective. Minnesota was 17th in offensive rating last season, a low number considering the sheer amount of talent on the roster.
The lack of excellence on that end of the floor was what ultimately cost the Wolves in the Western Conference finals, and then Minnesota dealt Karl-Anthony Towns – its second most talented offensive weapon – a few days prior to training camp.
Yet there are numerous reasons for offensive optimism in the 2024-25 campaign.
For one, Minnesota may have lost Towns, but it added a significantly higher-volume outside shooter in Donte DiVincenzo. He’s the type of spacer who creates breathing room for each of his teammates to operate, whether that be on cuts or isolation attacks.
And while Towns was also a 3-point threat, DiVincenzo is more consistently stationed on the outside and relocating around the perimeter.
The latter point is critical. Minnesota’s offense tended to lack off-ball movement a season ago. The ball would stick in the hands of Anthony Edwards and Towns, and when the ball wouldn’t oscillate, neither would the players.
DiVincenzo is always moving on the offensive end. He noted Edwards is starting to do the same after an offseason spent with Steph Curry – the king of cardio on the offensive end – with Team USA.
Pair those guys with a floor general like Mike Conley and one of the best screeners in basketball in Rudy Gobert, and the takeoff point for this offense should be relatively high. That appeared to be the case in the preseason, in which Minnesota’s offense grooved.
Minnesota’s offense sported the third best offensive rating of any team in the exhibition slate. Now it’s preseason, where half the minutes aren’t even played by the rotational pieces of the roster. But when Minnesota’s best players were in the game, they shined.
The Wolves averaged 1.28 points per possession when DiVincenzo played, second-highest among all players in the NBA who averaged 20-plus minutes in the preseason. That number was 1.23 when Edwards was on the floor – good for sixth-best in the Association.
That’s not always an indicator of success. Last season, for example, Minnesota’s offensive rating in the preseason was second-best among all NBA teams, and the moment the lights came on for the regular season, the movement stopped.
Conley noted the challenge to avoid such a dropoff exists again this year.
“Just trying to not let the game take you over a little bit. I think we have a lot of guys who are capable of individually taking over games, and that can kind of clog the ball movement sometimes when guys are going,” Conley said. “But I think everybody has had a great summer. I thought Ant in particular has done a great job, when he didn’t have the ball, cutting without the ball, screening for guys. I think he picked up a lot from the Olympic experience. When your main guy is doing that, I think a lot of guys are going to follow.”
That’s the hope. But it’s on Edwards to keep that rolling Tuesday against the Los Angeles Lakers, as well. In the preseason, Edwards was more selective in picking his times to isolate, and often made the right play out of his individual attacks.. Minnesota was fairly effective playing both in the flow and through 1 on 1 offense. DiVincenzo noted that flexibility is ideal, particularly when you get to the postseason. But Finch insinuated it’s a tricky balance to strike.
“When you have really good ball movement and good flow, like staying in that flow is important to do. Like you don’t want to just highjack and go do your thing,” coach Chris FInch said. “I think the isolation part and when we call your number both with (Edwards) and Julius (Randle), those guys have been able to create a lot of offense for their teammates when we have given them the ball. So that’s my job, to try to like balance that out.
Gobert said Minnesota wants to play offense a certain way, as is the case with the defense. That’s with movement and sharing the ball. Offense can be beautiful if you allow it to be. But the Wolves have mucked up the painting too often in the past.
“Last year we had too many stretches where we weren’t always consistent playing that way, but it was better than the previous year. So this year we want to keep getting better,” Gobert said. “We know our identity is our defense, but we’re also having an identity offensively as a team that we try to establish, and that’s playing selflessly, and that’s play with pace and that’s making the right play and be a team that has shooters and has me and put a lot of pressure on the rim and try to be efficient a team as we can be so we got better every yea. And now its another season and another opportunity. I think we really want to be a top team offensively, I think we’ll really be able to do that and take advantage of our defense, we’re going to be even better”
How good?
“I think we could easily be top 10 offensively if we continue to play the way we have been playing. It feels like generating good shots has come pretty easy, still got to take care of the ball. I’d still like to see us a little bit in transition more,” Finch said.
Is even that low? The Wolves were the best offense in the NBA over the final three months of the 2021-22 campaign. There’s evidence of how potent FInch’s system can be if executed correctly.
“I think we could go higher,” Finch said. “You know we will see what we see. Like I said, when we start counting things for real, human nature takes over. So I think the potential is in there to be easily top 10, and maybe above.”
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