Wolves aren’t there yet
By Tyler Haag
After being beaten handily by the Houston Rockets on Sunday, The Minnesota Timberwolves are being exposed for what they are, a second tier NBA team.
The Minnesota Timberwolves lost to Houston on Sunday, and it brought to light some of the deficiencies this team faces going in to the playoffs. Let’s not lie to ourselves, they are not there yet.
The Timberwolves despite having a defensive guru in Thibs, have not excelled on that end of the floor. The overwhelming majority believed that by the end of this season, this team would be much improved because of the additions of Gibson and Butler but they have not. The Wolves are currently 18th in PPG allowed and 29th in opponent FG percentages, both in the bottom half of the league, according to ESPN.com
If they are not a defensive lead team, then surely they must have an impressive offense, right? They do score a lot of points, 6th in the NBA in PPG at 109.8, but they are still at least 6 points per game behind the likes of Golden State and Houston.
As has been discussed before, the Wolves three point shooting is mediocre, a paltry .359% which is good for 17th in the NBA and the amount of threes they take is abysmal, only 22 per game, which is last in the League.
The Wolves are capable of scoring enough points to win the majority of their ball games and they have proven that so far this season with their record. However, if the goal here is to win a championship, the Wolves are not close.
In this league, it is not enough to have a team of guys who can get buckets. The Wolves do not have any true three point shooters, they do not have any true facilitators (although Butler can do this on occasion), they have a bunch of guys who can shoot long range twos and create their own shot. This formula of taking twos in exchange for threes on the other end will not win against Golden State and Houston.
The future is bright for this Wolves team, but don’t expect much from them this postseason, they just will not be able to hang with Houston and Golden States, although, not many in the NBA can.