Timberwolves 114, Trail Blazers 98: Clutch Time Who?

The Wolves blew out the hottest team in the league down four rotation players, and much of their work was done down the stretch

The Minnesota Timberwolves have their statement win of the year.

It wasn’t a game that had favorable circumstances coming in. Despite being four point favorites, the Wolves were down Mike Conley and Anthony Edwards (in addition to the previous injuries in the rotation). A notes app injury report is never a good sign.

Meanwhile, the Portland Trail Blazers came into Target Center as the hottest team in the league, winners of 10 of their last 11 games and hyper efficient on both ends.

A game in which Rob Dillingham got the start as the only active point guard on the roster began pretty close to how you’d imagine. While back and forth for the first quarter, Minnesota came out of the gate sputtering.

Dillingham started out 1-6 from the field and forced the issue a bit too much early on. The Wolves shot just 18 percent from three, left seven points at the free throw line, and found themselves in a 13 point hole in the first half.

It was a grim early outlook for Rudy Gobert as well. The center managed just three rebounds in the first half, and was out-boarded by both Naz Reid and Jaden McDaniels.

Nothing was going particularly well. Portland had a size advantage on the Wolves and crashed the glass hard upon every miss. Whether it was lobs to the rim or getting Rudy to guard the center while another big crashed, the Blazers finished the half with 27 rebounds, nine of them offensive.

The tides started to turn later in the second half. After playing ping pong between a double-digit and single-digit deficit, the Wolves went on to outscore the Blazers 43-14 down the stretch to win decisively. They forced 10 second half turnovers and found opportunities to score off of them, putting in 22 points off of Portland’s turnovers.

“That’s one of my favorite wins of the year,” Head Coach Chris Finch said after the game. “We’ve always been best when we’re able to close with our defense.”

The defense has been a pleasant surprise as the lifeblood of the team over the 8-2 stretch over the last 10 games, ranking fourth in the league in defensive rating, fourth in blocks, and top 10 in points allowed in the paint.

It’s a credit to the young guys that have had to step in and shoulder the load that a shorthanded team has had to provide. Jaylen Clark has been a revelation, and while not as effective tonight, Terrence Shannon Jr. has the looks of turning into an eventual rotation player.

“I thought the young guys were all really good…it’s immense to have this amount of experience in playing meaningful minutes,” Finch said. “Jaylen was awesome…impacts winning…I don’t know how many minutes straight he played, but I wasn’t gonna take him out of the game.”

While the young guys stepped in and played the part of the supporting cast, it was a couple familiar faces that became the focal points of the win.

One of them had a bobblehead going around, and the night dedicated to them…

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Photo by David Sherman/NBAE via Getty Images

Naz Reid’s Night, Jaden McDaniels’ Game

Naz Reid and Jaden McDaniels have a close relationship. They came into the league just a year apart. Through summers of staying in Minneapolis to work on their game, which Finch tributes a lot of their relationship and successes to, the two young but typically supporting cast members were the stars of the show on Saturday night.

With no Edwards and already down Julius Randle, a ton of volume was set to fall on both players’ shoulders. They ended up answering the bell.

With just 13 combined shot attempts at the end of the aforementioned barren first half, it was going to be important for both players to take more shots. Far and away the best two players in Wolves jerseys, it would be a doomed result if they combined for less than 30 shots either way.

“I Thought Jaden had some really smart possessions,” Finch said. “ He took his time…it was fun to watch.”

McDaniels ended the night with a career high 30 points, all while putting up just one shot from three point land. At this point, I don’t believe it’s even an argument to say he’s the best midrange shooter on the team. Whenever he gets downhill off of motion, it usually pays dividends.

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Both players had a knack for playing into what the game gave them and not forcing the issue.

Reid specifically has worked a stepback jumper into his game that’s downright nasty, and had it going. Continuing his dominant stretch, Reid added 23 points of his own on 5-9 shooting from deep. His quick release and ability to both set and come off of screens effectively is a dimension this lineup desperately needs to space out around Rudy Gobert.

Will he be the starting four even after Julius Randle comes back? Hard to say. While spacing is undoubtedly better with Reid running around on the perimeter and taking undersized matchups to the bucket, his ability to be a secondary playmaker is yet to be seen, but is a skill that’s incredibly crucial to the starting unit, and had been something that was rallied around and working so well for Randle until his injury.

The knock on Reid has always been his ability to string multiple games like this together. He’s continuing to do that, and it’s going to be awful hard to send him back to the bench of these nights keep happening.

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Emptying the Notebook

• Target Center was as lively as it’s been all year. When Jaden put the layup in on the fastbreak to give himself a career high, it’s just about as loud as I’ve heard it get all season. Nights like Saturday make me feel lucky to be there.

• Luka Garza, man. Another rough one. If he wasn’t going to have his night to climb back into the rotation on Saturday, I’m afraid it isn’t going to happen moving forward. He played just seven minutes, and had a pretty negligible impact once again, going 0-4 from the field. He may be easy to pull for, but it continues to look ugly when he gets his minutes.
• Jaylen Clark will be the ninth man when the rotation is fully healthy again, and I think he’s Chris Finch’s meal ticket to play an expanded rotation on a nightly basis moving forward. While I won’t rule out Rob Dillingham getting minutes in this scenario, I think it’s pretty fair to say Clark has found his place in the pecking order above the rookie.

• The Wolves now have a 214 net rating in clutch time over their last two games. Yes, you read that correctly. The point in the game that gave this team so many fits for a long time has been a point of recent strength. In that same period of time, the Wolves have outscored opponents 73-30 in the fourth quarter.

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Up Next

Minnesota heads east for a date on Monday with the Eastern Conference-leading Cleveland Cavaliers. Cleveland has won their last two games, and will be on two days rest. It builds up for a perfect test against a Wolves team that has begun to percolate, and is 15-11 on the road.

Tipoff is set for 6:00 PM CST.

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Highlights