How the Minnesota Timberwolves Can Fix Their Clutch Time Issues
Anthony Edwards takes the ball close to half court. The Minnesota Timberwolves are down by four with 1:34 left on the clock. Ant sizes up his defender with a few pounds of the ball, inching closer to the three point line. Here comes the double team, and Ant goes to his patented right to left step back three and… clank, off the back iron.
So many times this season, we have seen this movie in clutch time. It has been one of the biggest problems with the Wolves, as they have rubber-banded throughout the Play-In picture for much of the year.
According to NBA.com, here are some of the statistics to back this up: The Timberwolves have played a league leading 39 games in the clutch this season – defined as the game being within five points in the last five minutes – which is good for nearly 64% of their games. In these games, they have a record of 16-23 which is 25th in the NBA in terms of winning percentage (41%). They are bottom five in 3-point shooting percentage (25.7%), field goal percentage (39.5%) and offensive rating (101.9). That offensive rating would be dead last in the NBA by a wide margin.
While this can be a sore subject for the fanbase and understandably so – it is difficult to watch your team falter in close games – there is reason to believe that this could get cleaned up as the final quarter of the season gets underway.
Column tease: In 2303 non-“clutch” minutes, Wolves have outscored their opponents by 206 points.
In 107 “clutch” minutes (when teams are within 5 points of each other with 5 minutes or less to play in regulation or overtime), they have been outscored by 55 points.
Help is on the Way
A big reason to be optimistic about this is the re-acclimation of Donte DiVincenzo, Julius Randle, and Rudy Gobert with DDV being the main focus of this hope. DiVincenzo was just hitting form before he went out with the toe injury on January 15th against the Golden State Warriors.
DDV was averaging 17.5 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists in the six games after he was inserted into the starting lineup. His presence on the floor was sorely missed during his time away and he has already been a big boost even on a minutes restriction, being team-highs +15 and +14 in the two games since returning from injury. His impact is exactly what you need to be able to be on the winning end of more games that come down to the wire.
The Timberwolves and Edwards’ best asset for winning these close games is having Donte DiVincenzo in the backcourt next to Ant. Obviously there is just his sheer ability to shoot the basketball, but a lot of the ways he helps is about how he’s guarded. You cannot give DDV a sliver of space on the perimeter, otherwise it’s three points.
Stationing him one pass away from Ant is the best way to give Edwards room to operate and be special as the game tightens up. We’ve seen the way that having Naz Reid next to Ant has led to profitable offense for the Wolves and having DiVincenzo in that spot will only increase that.
Along with this spacing, he is a great blend of having the ability to be training wheels for Ant on the offensive end. He can take some of the initiating duties off of his plate and set up more off-ball sets for Edwards to get the ball with an advantage offensively. Anthony Edwards, almost most importantly, trusts Donte DiVincenzo. It is what we saw with Mike Conley for much of last season and we have seen it in flashes with Ant this season. He is okay to defer to DDV in these moments.
As Donte gets re-integrated into a 30+ minute a night role, he should help to sooth the choppiness that has been clutch time for the Wolves this season.
Donte DiVincenzo is active tonight and will come off the bench after missing the last six weeks with a toe injury.
The Wolves played well during the 19 games DiVincenzo missed
– O: 7th
– D: 8th
– Net: 6th
– Record: 11-8 (worse than the numbers would suggest due to some poor…
Jaden McDaniels spots
The other way that the Timberwolves could help to rectify their problems at the end of games is to lean into Jaden McDaniels’ offensive surge. While it would have been difficult to envision this at the start of the year, Jaden has been an offensive revelation in the wake of the injury bug that hit Minnesota this year. Getting his offense away from playing solely out of the corners and moving above the break with a drive-first mentality has him playing confident and repeatable offense.
That repeatability is why Minnesota needs to lean more into Jaden as these close games come down to it. When every possession matters, the best way to pull through is to go to consistent “spots” where someone has their “shot”. Think of all the great offensive players in the NBA today, they all have their “spot”: SGA, Nikola Jokic, LeBron, Kevin Durant, Giannis and so many more.
You can close your eyes and picture exactly what shot they are going to when their team needs a bucket. Obviously Jaden McDaniels is not as talented as any of those guys on the offensive end, but he does have a shot that he can get anytime he wants to and can make that shot at a great clip – the lean back mid-range jumper.
He does it all the time, hits it at a high clip and he can get this shot at any time. That checks all the boxes for being a repeatable offensive skill, which is what reigns supreme in clutch time. While it is obviously way more important for Anthony Edwards to have the ball a lot during this time and for him to get a lot of shots down the stretch, it’s a great idea to have Jaden either involved in the action as a screener or running a secondary action to get this look, especially when Jaden has it rolling in that particular game.
The Ideal Lineup
As the Wolves get healthier down the stretch, Chris Finch will have some decisions to make when it comes to closing lineups. It will be a puzzle and he has a lot of options as to who plays when the game is close. With the roster built out as it is, it is important to be flexible with who closes games.
I f it were me, the ideal lineup would be: Donte DiVincenzo, Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels, Naz Reid and whatever skill set is needed more between Rudy Gobert and Julius Randle. I think the first three are fairly set in stone, but could see some more fluidity between the PF and C spots. It’s great to have two guys that are as big of threats as DDV and Naz as shooters one pass away from Ant and Jaden’s emerging offense, with his defensive prowess makes him an easy choice.
It can and should be determined on a night-to-night basis, but this is what makes the most sense for both ends of the floor and should lead to more success in the most tense moments .
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