San Francisco – Minnesota trailed 82-77 with fewer than eight minutes to play in Game 3 on Saturday. The Timberwolves were a little scrambled for much of the evening. They’d committed 21 turnovers to keep the nose of the Warriors – playing without their best player in Steph Curry – out in front for much of the contest.
Minnesota needed someone to stabilize the ship to get it across the finish line first in enemy waters.
As has often been the case over the past couple months, that person was Julius Randle.
The Timberwolves out-scored Golden State 21-7 over the ensuing six-plus minutes. Minnesota made seven field goals in that span. Randle scored the first two. He assisted on the remaining five.
Whether it was bullying the smaller Draymond Green to eventually foul out the former Defensive Player of the Year or blowing past the slower footed Kevon Looney, Randle proved unguardable with Game 3 in the balance.
“He’s been a big playmaker, scorer,” Wolves wing Jaden McDaniels said. “He can score at all three levels. I mean, they put the big dude on him, he’s too slow. They put the little guy on him, he’s too strong.
“So it’s a hard problem for the other team to guard him. He makes all the right plays. We can’t be more grateful to have him.”
McDaniels knows how the Warriors feel. Prior to Minnesota acquiring the forward on the eve of training camp, it was McDaniels who was frequently tasked with guarding Randle when the Knicks and Wolves would square off.
It rarely went well. Randle averaged 37 points over his last four games against Minnesota, including a 57-point performance.
“He was like running me over. I couldn’t even hold him off the post sometimes,” recalled McDaniels, an All-NBA defender who held Warriors players to 2 for 12 shooting in his matchups Saturday. “I was trying to make it hard for him, but nah, he was probably cooking me worse than (he was cooking the Warriors).”
Maybe, but Randle sure is searing Golden State. And he’s doing so with far more than buckets. The forward has been the primary conductor of any offensive success Minnesota has realized in these conference semifinals, which it now leads 2-1 ahead of Monday’s Game 4.
Golden State has proven to be one of the NBA’s premier defenses since acquiring Jimmy Butler at the trade deadline. The Warriors have shown why in this series.
There have been numerous periods in which executing offense feels like a monumental task for Minnesota. The Wolves scored one points over the final 6 minutes, 30 seconds of the second quarter in Game 3.
The Warriors are physical and relentless on that end. But Randle is proving to be someone who can match those levels offensively.
Timberwolves coach Chris Finch noted it was when Minnesota started playing through Randle down the stretch that it felt “for the first time consistently all game, we actually like went somewhere.”
“He’s playing with so much force and determination. He’s going out there early and aggressive,” Finch said. “Sometimes when it’s really sticky on the perimeter, like the holding all the time everywhere and they’re really handsy, we play through (Randle). He just kind of gives us a pressure release.”
Randle had 24 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds in Game 3. He tallied 11 dimes in Game 2.
A creator, a hub, a go-to-guy. Whatever you want to call it, Randle has fit the bill.
Anthony Edwards was miserable offensively for the first two and a half games of the series. But he exploded for 28 points in the second half on Saturday. Randle was a big reason why.
Golden State is taking away Edwards’ airspace on the perimeter, so his go-to shot, the pull-up triple, is null and void at the moment. The Warriors are blitzing Edwards on ball screens. The all-star guard hasn’t been able to effectively initiate offense for Minnesota.
Edwards said he believes playing off the ball is a better situation for him in this matchup. He’s playing off of Randle, who’s finding him on cuts and spot-up situations to allow Edwards to get some better looks and establish a rhythm.
Edwards said Randle was “incredible” on Saturday with his ability to find open teammates and determine the tempo.
“Can’t ask for nothing better,” Edwards said. “He’s making the game a lot easier for me, so I appreciate having him here.”
Randle said he has “a lot of different tools” at his disposal, and can use his mind to take what the defense gives him.
If that’s an open three, take it. If that’s a less-agile defender like Looney, Randle knows to get into pick-and-roll actions with Conley to compromise the opposing big man in space, where he’s far less comfortable and effective.
“Being able to read what’s going on out there,” Randle said. “If I get a mismatch, getting to my operating areas and attacking. If they don’t double-team me, score. If they double-team me, find my guys.”
Read the defense to generate consistently good offense for himself and others.
That sounds a lot like the role of … a point guard.
The lack of one moving into the future has been a driver of angst among Timberwolves’ fans. Mike Conley is aging out of the role, and Rob Dillingham still has to prove he’s floor general material. Even with the leaps Edwards has made with his playmaking and floor vision, the general assumption has always been that he’d be better playing alongside a table setter who can help generate looks for him.
Enter Randle, who’s sneakily taken over that role over the past couple months. That was highlighted Saturday, as the forward notched nine second-half assists, six of which resulted in Edwards’ buckets.
“It’s really what’s turned our season around, his playmaking, his decision-making, playing through him on different spots of the floor,” Finch said. “I’ve always known he was a good playmaker. Our time (together) in New Orleans, he played a little bit like this. He gives us … almost another point guard like out there. It’s everything for us. It’s been everything for our turnaround. It’s everything for our team.”
It certainly was in Game 3. Golden State is largely offensively inept in the half court sans Curry. The Warriors relied almost solely on pace and transition to generate advantages to create good looks.
That well dried up in the final frame, largely thanks to Randle. He plays a deliberate brand of basketball in the half court that not only generates good looks for Minnesota, but sets the pace of the game.
Randle is the biggest reason Minnesota has morphed into a clutch-time monster in these playoffs. When he has the rock, it feels as though the Wolves are dictating the terms under which the contest is being played.
As a floor general should.
“His physicality, his demeanor, the way he can control the pace, control the game on both ends of the floor, it kind of gives us some control. It gives us the ability to kind of settle into who we want to be offensively, defensively,” Conley said. “We can get sporadic at times, but having a guy that you can just get a ball to and post him up or just slow the game down and allow us to cut off of him and him make plays for everybody and make the game easy, it helps a lot.”
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